Coupon horror stories - feel free to list them

[greensinestro]

Normally, I pay whatever the groceries cost and will on occasion, only use coupons that are good for eating establishments. It's mainly because I don't want to become an asshat like many of the other coupon users out there.

I got in to the shortest line at Target to buy a bottle of baby wash and shampoo for my kids as well as a bag of beef jerky. The register I chose had one person in it, an old man with his socks pulled up to his chest hair. Apparently, this man's coupon was buy two of the same item and get $5 off the total purchase. When the cashier rung up the order, it was $9.98, plus tax, which came to $10 and some change. "What do you mean by that? You mean I have to pay tax on something I use a coupon for?" It turned into a "I want to see your manager" ordeal, but they told him the amount was correct, and coupons do not exempt you from paying sales tax. He was upset, but still bought whatever he was buying.

This is one of many situations. I get irritated often with the ones at the grocery store who have a ton of items, and they don't have the coupons ready. Or, they're trying to be sneaky and use coupons for items they did not purchase, or argue with the cashier that the expired coupon they have would be accepted at another store, and on and on. I do find it amusing at the ones who do this with a blacked out expiration date, or the ones that made mass copies of them on their computer, hoping the bar code would read again. Thankfully, that bar code can register when it is already used

Coupons are good for places like Subway or Arby's being that even fast food is overly priced, and sometimes I use them. However, I carefully read them and make sure that it's good for whatever I'm about to get. I do not try to make up my own coupon info other than what is on the darn thing.

[Catwoman2965]

I always seem to get stuck behind those people too! i will have my coupons ready to go, and i have already figured out which ones are good. If i'm at the grocery store, as they are ringing me, i will sort out which ones i dind't buy the item for, and only give them the ones i did.

I get that in my store as we are located in a center where most stores DO give coupons, we do not. our only promos are for every $500 you spend with your store charge, you get a $25 certificate. And once in a while, they will send out cards for 15% off your total purchase on any one day. But that's it...but it doesnt' stop customers from asking "do you ahve any coupons?" or telling me they need to find their coupons...i just let them go, knowing we don't have any!

[GingerBiscuit]

Where I am we have a policy that coupons cannot be used alongside items that are already on sale. This is usually printed on most coupons anyway, that they might not work in conjunction with other offers, only the full price item. So a woman buys some oat biscuits which are on sale for £1 off, and tried to use a coupon. I tell her they can't be used together, coupons can only be used on full price items.

Man, she goes OFF on one, screaming about how that's theft, lying, it doesn't say that anywhere, she wants the 30p extra off her oat biscuits, she'll get me fired...

Now, my standard response to these people is to get so cooly polite and rational it's rude and humiliating and drop my voice into a slightly upper class accent, and to use long words. It makes them seem even more of an idiot to onlookers and gives you a curious sense of wellbeing and revenge. I point out- in this way- that it is labelled on the coupon that it can't be used in conjuction with other offers, the coupon was not a coupon from our company, and I certainly wouldn't get fired. In fact, I couldn't do it for her, as the till system wouldn't let me. AFter a while of getting no reaction except for polite blankness she paid for her oatbiscuits and left.

I hope she fell down a hole on the way home.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I always sort my coupons as I go...if I have a bunch I will pull them out and put them in my pocket or my basket as I pick up the items. That way all the ones I am using are not mixed up with the ones for things I decided not to get and I can just give them to the cashier and not worry about it. And the one time I remember having them give me back one that was expired I said "Oh, sorry" and went on with my day, 50 cents poorer than I originally planned.

The only places I know that take expired coupons are Bed Bath & Beyond and Linens 'n' Things. They take each other's coupons as long as they are current, and they will take their own coupons even if they are expired.

B&N sends out coupons to members, usually for an extra 10% off their entire purchase, or something off one book, or a free bargain book up to a certain amount; and we could take expired ones in the interest of customer service (usually if it was only a day or two)...but luckily we didn't have to deal with manufacturer's coupons, except for the occasional magazine which I probably got maybe 3 times in my 8 years in the stores.

[LadyAndreca]

Sometimes at Target, coupons randomly print out at the register. For the most part, people just throw them away, but some people DO come back and use them, especially since you can combine a store coupon and a manufacturer's coupon. I think the current crop of them includes specific brands of cat litter, shampoo, underwear, and men's clothing, and photo processing, among other things. The reactions I get to this can be amusing...or just make me want to beat some 'guests' senseless.

Normal responses:
"Huh. Okay."
"Hey, I can use this one, thanks!"
"Oh, I don't use that, just give this to the next person."

SC responses:
"I'll never use that! Give me one I can use!"
"Why can't you just give me a damned store coupon $X off of anything? Why does it have to be THIS item?" (usually used when attempting to redeem said coupon)
"Why do you even give out these things? They're useless!"

I'm still dreading the day where someone will be insulted for the item they get (like diapers if they don't have kids yet, or the aids for quitting smoking), or for someone to demand a coupon because the person in front got one.

[Bloodsoul]

For almost a year now our company has been offering these "internet coupons"; basically the customer has a sheet of coupons sent to their e-mail or downloaded from the company's site that they can then print out.

Whoever came up with this idea needs to be smacked with a wet noodle.. or a brick. Of course not everyone's printer is über-perfect, so not all the coupons will scan, thus you spend too much time typing the number on the coupon's barcode into the coupon. This is especially nerve wracking when there are multiple items coupon usable. And can you just swipe the coupon once for multiples of the same item added in quanitity? No, of course not. Still have to swipe it one at a time.

It also doesn't help that the process for completing these transactions was altered half-way through, thusly we had to learn how to do this thing once by instruction, and once practically on our own because, from what I remember, they didn't bother sending us any new instructions. Of course when we were first told about these they merely told us to hang up signs and that, "further info would be forthcoming." So we had people asking us about the coupons with no way to answer their questions.

...I just wish these folk would remember to actually to clip the durned things before they leave the house, instead of handing us a full sheet when they only need to use one of the coupons. I don't have scissors on me, but I do have a fairly sharp box cutter that tends to.. slip. Oops, did I draw blood? Don't worry, we have a first-aid kit.

(No, I don't condone violence towards customers... usually)

[greensinestro]

...I just wish these folk would remember to actually to clip the durned things before they leave the house, instead of handing us a full sheet when they only need to use one of the coupons. I don't have scissors on me, but I do have a fairly sharp box cutter that tends to.. slip. Oops, did I draw blood? Don't worry, we have a first-aid kit.

[/i]

But that would make too much sense. It doesn't matter if they have sheets printed from their computer. I've seen people take an entire page from their Sunday newspaper where it had five different coupons on it, and the check-out line would be held up with "Which coupon do you recommend I use for this?" How would the cashier know something like that? Doesn't the customer read them before hauling ass to the grocery store?

[symposes]

During my time at Winn Dixie, I had a customer come through my lane with maybe 4 different kinds of items, but easily 20-30 of each of these items.
And coupons for every single one of the items.

I dont know HOW, but when the transaction was finish, both times, we owed her money.
(i even counted the items and coupons to make sure i wasnt using more coupons then she had items. and no, she wasnt. she had the right amounts of everything)(and the MOD and front end supervisor were both there when the transaction was going on, hell the MOD helped bag the stuff, AND the FES authorized the transaction... (for some reason it required a key))))

Talk about a thrifty shopper.

[simplyanother]

No horror stories, just peeves

Where I work, we generally have 40% off one regular priced item, every two weeks.

I've lost count of the number of people who think that ONE regular priced item means "the entire purchase".

Or the ones that don't read the exclusions at the bottom and get mad at ME because they can't buy Martha Stewerts over priced crap with the coupon (or any of the other excluded items).

Or the ones who get mad because they printed up a competitors coupon, online, and I can't take it.

Or the ones who want to use the competitors coupons on an item we've excluded from ours.

Or the ones who want to...have me ring up a sale item at regular price, so that they can use the coupon on it.

Or the ones who complain "I can't ever use the coupon anyway, everything is already onsale!, YOU do that on purpose".

Or the ones who remember their coupon AFTER their transaction is complete, and then get pissy with me because I can't apply the damned thing to the purchase.

Or the ones who think they get to get their coupons back after I've scanned them. Do they give you back your coupon at the grocery store? No, so shut up.

Or the ones who want to sign for a coupon, and then want to do it again. And then get pissy with me. I'm sorry, but the allowing you to sign for a coupon was the curtosey. Most places, no coupon equals no discount.

Or the ones who LIE and say "I forgot my coupon". This is especially fun on weeks when there is no ad. "Really? Because we didn't have a coupon this week"...I don't mind customers who come up and say "was there a coupon this week? If so, I'd like to sign for one." Because I don't care.

Or the people who keep shoving their coupon in my face, "I WANT TO USE THIS ON THIS ITEM" (Which is usually an excluded item)... I explain over and over "if it is our coupon it will come off the highest priced non-sale, non-excluded item..AUTOMATICALLY".

Or the ones who get mad when the coupon comes off an item they didn't want it to. I'm not talking excluded or sale items, I'm talking someone buys two things, one is 15.00 and the other is 10, for whatever reason, the person wanted the coupon to come off of the 10 dollar item.

So instead of taking the 9 dollars they saved with it coming off of the 15 dollar item, they'll bitch at customer service...so they can save the 4 from the 10 dollar item. And you can NEVER get them to understand that they are actually cheating themselves. I don't know about you, but If I had items that normally were 25.00 together, and I had the choice to pay either 21.00 or 16.00, I'd choose the 16.00. But I'm not a moron, most of the time.

Or the folks who come up and go "I have two coupons, one is for a friend" and then get mad when I tell them "one coupon per customer PER DAY". The standard "but they let me do it before". SO?! Maybe they did. It's against the rules, dammit. lol Honestly, I'd do seperate transactions for everyone so everyone could use the coupon on ALL of their items, but I'm not supposed to. And niether is anyone else.

Or the people who sign for the coupon, and don't listen to me when I say "I need your name and zip code here and here" ..and try to fill out the rest of the crap on the form. And then huff and puff over how hard it is.


But the best part is, if any of the customers complain to the manager, they'll GET whatever the hell they want. @@.

My standard answer to anything now is "I don't have the authority to do that, you would have to ask a manager". Because, I don't. And I'm not getting bitched at for following policy again.

[Phone Jockey]

I don't use a lot of coupons, but I do take advantages of sales & "BOGO" stuff. Saved $33 one time & $20+ the last time I hit the grocery store. I'm hoping to match one customer who was in front of me & managed to save $75 on her groceries. Coupons are good when used CORRECTLY. I had a coupon that was expired & the check-out person told me, so I just threw it away when I got home. No use getting all upset about $.75.

[Becks]

With my store discount card (yay), they print out coupons. Sometimes it's for stuff I get a lot (Stouffer's mac and cheese, French bread pizza...) and that's good. Sometimes it's for similar products. Occasionally it's for stuff I've NEVER bought there. Why? My card number is used (yes, the conspiracy theorists are right) to track what I buy. They know I like m&c and Fbps, buy whatever microwave popcorn is on sale, and who knows? Maybe one day I'll actually buy something from the seafood department!!!!!!!!

[LadyAndreca]

I dont know HOW, but when the transaction was finish, both times, we owed her money.

Our coupon policy strictly states that an item cannot go below 'free'. (They still have to pay sales tax, though.) I think I've only had that problem once, though. We had about a dozen customers come in over the course of two weeks with coupons for free Pur water filters, I guess because of a recall or something, and one of them also had a $5 off coupon and got annoyed because we couldn't take it.

[chainedbarista]

about a year ago, some genius at corporate level thought, "hey, how about we make e coupons for friends/family of company employees in x region?"

not a bad idea as a whole, but e coupons being on the e mail means everyone can get them, and without the disclaimer of area of limitations, it means the whole COUNTRY has access-yay.

so, thanks to this genius, we were bombarded with every idiot in the general area who could figure out how to print out the coupon, even after said offer had expired. christ, i hate people sometimes.

[uknz76]

Thankfully my store doesn't do coupons, unfortunately we price match (sometimes). Last Friday a stupid SC came through:

SC: Do you price match?
Me: Sure.
SC: Well I have these coupons [please note plural]
Me: Well I'll let you pick one and use it here.
SC: What do you mean one.
Me: We don't do coupons, usually we'll price match a single item, so I'll let you use a single coupon.
SC: This is bullshit! I've bought all these coupons in to use. Let me use them.
Me: You have at least 8 coupons, from 5 other companies. None of those are ours.
SC: Well let me use these 3.
Me: No.
SC: You can't say NO to me.
Me: Yes I can. I just did.
SC: But... But...
Me: In fact I've changed my mind. I'm not going to take any of your coupons.
SC: But you said...
Me: I was trying to be reasonable, you were not.
SC: GET YOUR MANAGER!!!!
Me: I'm the manager, how can I help you?
SC: But... But...
Me: So, are you going to buy anything today?
SC: You're so F***ING rude.
Me: I really don't care what you think. Goodbye.
SC: But I want to use my coupons [almost crying]

Finally she left.

Funnily she managed to drop 2 of her precious coupons on the way out.

One word.

Shredder!

[Nekojin]

I'm a semi-SC when it comes to the Borders weekly email coupons. I often forget to print them out, and when I get to the cashier, I ask if they have any spare. So far, I've been lucky.

However, I contend that I'm not a SC, simply because if they told me, "no, sorry, we don't have any," I'd shrug and pay full price. I'm not going to cause a scene over my own absent-mindedness.