Attention scam artists.... You cannot use a coupon if its worth more than the item!

[dragon_wings]

wolfie - when I was first reading that I thought you went through them all and got six free because of it and my thought was 'oh gosh, i hate this person', but now that I have read it correctly, that is very nice of you *high five*

I had a similar reaction. I was like 'wtf.' But then as I thought about it (and reread it) I was like 'oh, he's one of those cool customers we love.'

[PepperElf]

There was a woman on Extreme Couponing who committed that type of coupon fraud. Disgusting. I doubt she's able to afford her designer crap now.

I don't watch that show... did they promote the woman as an example of good shopping practices? or did they show her off as "this is what you don't want to do"?

[Andara Bledin]

I don't watch that show... did they promote the woman as an example of good shopping practices? or did they show her off as "this is what you don't want to do"?

There was an article exposing her that I found online, which is how I know about the barcode fraud.

She was shown off on the show, without really getting into how she was doing what she was doing, but someone paying attention could see that the coupons she had in her coupon wallet didn't actually match anything they showed among her purchases.

Needless to say, the author of the article was quite disgusted at the whole thing.

^-.-^

[wolfie]

wolfie - when I was first reading that I thought you went through them all and got six free because of it and my thought was 'oh gosh, i hate this person', but now that I have read it correctly, that is very nice of you *high five*

It's also a matter of self-interest. Giving out the occasional "fresh or free" is to be expected (they dispose of the stale-dated one and you get the fresh one free - only time they gave out the stale-dated one free was when they didn't have a fresh one). On the other hand, if they give out 5 "fresh or free" (worst case I saw was one a month out of date), someone in management is likely to decide "this line item is losing us money", and then they'd stop carrying the yummy Dixie-style coleslaw. By handing in the other 4 before other customers find them, they get all of them out of the way for one "fresh or free" discount, even though whoever was rotating stock should have spotted them and got rid of them before ANY customers found them.

[RottenFruit]

Im a couponer, (and in fact TEACH Practical Couponing) and I hate SC who give honest people like me a bad name. Walmart will in fact, pay overage on a coupon, so long as the terms are right, and there are no restrictions on the coupon.

I wish people would stop trying to pass along high value coupons for more than they are. use them right or go home and stop making it harder for the rest of us people who are just trying to feed their families!

Sorry to drag this topic radically off topic, but... couponing is something I get by now via exposure to the USA-part of the 'net*. In the USA, is it really that much of a deal? Is it really something which you can learn and teach?

* Germany does not have anything like that and when I first read about coupons in a Eschbach book, I thought the entire concept might be misconceived by the author.

[Shalom]

I used to work for an Israeli guy who had never heard of the concept either. One day, this was back around 1989 more or less, he showed me a cereal box with a $1.25 off coupon on it, and asked what that was all about. (Remember that back then this was a substantial discount; common coupons of the time were more like 25¢.) I told him that if he cut that out and gave it in the next time he bought that product, they'd give him a $1.25 discount. He said "Why in the world would they do that?" and I told him that this was how they got people to try new products they might not otherwise have bought, and the manufacturer would give it back to them anyway. He said "Really? I've got to try this."

Next day he came in and he was all excited. "I bought the cereal and gave them the coupon, and they sold it to me for $1.25 less! This is amazing! You don't just find $1.25 walking in the street!" He couldn't believe that they'd just given him free money; apparently this just wasn't something they did in his home country. Of course I'd grown up with coupons (and S&H Plaid Stamps too, but I wasn't gonna get into that with him...) so it wasn't anything new to me, and I was a bit boggled by his amazement...

[Teefies2]

I used to work for an Israeli guy who had never heard of the concept either. One day, this was back around 1989 more or less, he showed me a cereal box with a $1.25 off coupon on it, and asked what that was all about. (Remember that back then this was a substantial discount; common coupons of the time were more like 25¢.) I told him that if he cut that out and gave it in the next time he bought that product, they'd give him a $1.25 discount. He said "Why in the world would they do that?" and I told him that this was how they got people to try new products they might not otherwise have bought, and the manufacturer would give it back to them anyway. He said "Really? I've got to try this."

Next day he came in and he was all excited. "I bought the cereal and gave them the coupon, and they sold it to me for $1.25 less! This is amazing! You don't just find $1.25 walking in the street!" He couldn't believe that they'd just given him free money; apparently this just wasn't something they did in his home country. Of course I'd grown up with coupons (and S&H Plaid Stamps too, but I wasn't gonna get into that with him...) so it wasn't anything new to me, and I was a bit boggled by his amazement...

OMG Shalom! Another person who remembers S&H Stamps! <high five>

[siskaren]

OMG Shalom! Another person who remembers S&H Stamps! <high five>

I do too, but I remember them being green, not plaid.

[Shalom]

I do too, but I remember them being green, not plaid.

You're right, I got the names mixed up. There were S&H Green Stamps and MacDonald Plaid Stamps. My mom collected the latter; I once pasted a whole block of green stamps in her plaid stamp book, and was so proud of myself. She got a little annoyed with me...

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I remember the S&H green stamps but I don't think I ever used them on my own, just watched my mom use them. Ahh, the good old (and I do mean OLD) days

[Teefies2]

ROFL Shalom and BTDT! !!!!!

[Ironclad Alibi]

OMG Shalom! Another person who remembers S&H Stamps! <high five>

I remember them too. I spent many hours posting them into the books. I also liked looking through the catalogs to see what we could get, not that my choice mattered much. I also recall visits to the local S&H Green Stamp store.

S& Green Stamps

[Tama]

Most of the time at Malmart, if you bought an item for, say, 97 cents and your coupon is for $1.50, it'll usually scan for 1.50..