Make your own coupon

[jjllbb]

My company is trying to drive business through the internet and we've recently been getting more and more coupons that are available online for customers to print out and bring to the store to use.

I hate coupons printed at home because it's harder to spot the fakes but even so it wasn't very hard to notice that something was wrong with this guy's coupon.

As everyone in retail knows, coupons have exclusions. Often a nice tidy paragraph of things that are NEVER included in the promotion the coupon offers.

The entire paragraph of exclusions was missing.

When we took a closer look we noticed that there was no black ink used to print the coupon. Conveniently enough the only necessity for black ink on the coupon was for the exceptions. Everything else was in color.

The guy was demanding that we apply the coupon to something that was excluded because his coupon "has no exclusions".

Despite the fact that when he opened the link to print that coupon out he would CLEARLY have seen that exclusions were present.

And of course,

He got is way.

[Exaspera]

You mean the manager let him do this??!! Count on seeing this guy a lot more.

[Netrogo]

That's not surprising at all. A friend of mine saw a whole thread in a certain forum that was chock full of amazingly believable fake coupons that they outright recommended trying at a certain store that enjoys the icon too much, just because they'd pretty much accept anything no matter what. I could probably write "I get this free" on a napkin and use it.

[RetailSlave]

We currently have coupons that print out of the Catalina printers on the lanes that say "save up to $20 when you use the (store name) pharmacy" It explains that you have to take the coupon to the pharmacy with a new or transferred prescription, they scan it there and give you a coupon that can be used in the store.
Wednesday we had a woman come up with about a half dozen of the coupons that print out on the lanes (and one that came from the pharmacy) and want to use them on expensive items. My fellow cashier told her the lane-printed coupons couldn't be used, that she had to take it to the pharmacy. She said that she had gotten them from the pharmacy. They called me over since I am a supervisor and I examined the coupons and showed her that they said you had to take them to the pharmacy and she couldn't use them on lane. She SWORE that she had been given them by the pharmacy and that was the reason she used our pharmacy.

We called our night manager up and showed him the one coupon that HAD come from the pharmacy plus the others and explained to him that those were not to be used on the lanes. After the woman argued with him for several minutes he told the cashier to take them and initialed them with his approval. The same woman also tried to use an expired coupon...she wasn't allowed to pull that stunt.

[Exaspera]

Well heck! I've got Photoshop! I'll just steal logos and barcodes and make my own then.

[Kimmik]

I have gotten pretty good at spotting the hey wait this isnt right coupons.. At the WM I work at.. if we take a fraud coupon we are responsible. If a manager tries to over ride me I tell them to intial the coupon.

Also I hate the stores that print coupons for their in store use.. I had a customer with a coupon for $ off on candy at the store that printed the coupon.. He got mad when I informed him that you cant use those, yes we price match but NOT coupons good only at x store...

Coupons... good idea... but to much abuse by sc's

[Andara Bledin]

if we take a fraud coupon we are responsible.

Responsible how? Do you just get in trouble over it?

^-.-^

[bainsidhe]

Responsible how? Do you just get in trouble over it?

^-.-^

Well yes, but get a couple of write-up and you're on final notice and will eventually be fired.

I'm actually a little surprised management allowed the coupons. I know I shouldn't be. The WM I worked at took coupon fraud seriously and really tried to crack down on it. We still took internet coupons because customers complained so much, but we really tried to sort out the fake ones. Basically, if the coupon didn't scan you didn't get squat. *shrugs*

[Andara Bledin]

I've noticed that the way Wm enforces things is highly dependant on the location/region. Hence why some Wms aren't awful and some are too nasty to even consider.

^-.-^

[Kristev]

The grocery store in my neighborhood has completely stopped accepting Internet coupons at all.

[Kimmik]

Responsible how? Do you just get in trouble over it?

^-.-^

Ie your drawer is short the amount of the fraud coupon.. and it it is a bogo then it can be off a lot. Que LP and having your drawer audited a lot, write ups and general unhappiness

[RetailSlave]

Some of the fake coupons I have seen are just outrageous. We have a fraudulent coupon list that we get every few weeks, the cashiers are supposed to review the list (which has copies of the actual coupons on it) but most o them don't. My favorite was "Get an Xbox 360 Free". no additional purchase requirements. I am always suspicious of any high value coupon.

[Coconut]

I've noticed that the way Wm enforces things is highly dependant on the location/region.

I agree... seems like every WM has different policies nowadays.

I have noticed that most WMs seem to be cracking down on returns, coupons, etc. lately.

[Crafty1289]

About a year ago our company issued a memo to all stores to the effect that we are not to accept any internet coupons. Fair enough. Saves us some grief I guess.

Guess what our company has just started doing? Yeah, emailing coupons to its members/customers! We are allowed to accept these apparently! Thankfully they are branded with our company logo and they have sent an image of a sample coupon. They have also told us what paper and print quality we can accept. We havent had any in yet.