Her trip sounds Extreme Couponing - worthy, until Oliver starts breaking down her own practices.
Coupon decoding, or the practice of matching coupons not to the products advertised, but to barcodes, is a highly controversial practice -- one that got J'aime Kirlew into a lot of hot water during the first season of Extreme Couponing.
Here's why coupon decoding is unethical and even damaging for couponers everywhere.
As you probably know, grocery stores and other outlets that accept coupons are reimbursed for the full value of the coupon, plus eight cents for handling, on every coupon they accept.
However, in order to get reimbursed for the coupons, a store has to show sales of the item the coupon is for.
If a store is accepting coupons for, for example, Crest 3D whitening kits, they need to be able to match those coupons back to their inventory, and prove that the whitening kits were indeed sold.
Manufacturers can ask for an audit of the inventory and cash reconciliation process at any time. If there's a discrepancy, and the store didn't sell the items that the coupons were meant for, the store is going to be out the money on the coupons -- and possibly sued for coupon fraud.
So if coupon decoding like Ms. Oliver recommends was practiced on a large scale, this would obviously be detrimental to stores, since it would cut into their profits.
And what would be the fastest way to correct the problem from a business perspective? Stores could tighten coupon policies, or even stop accepting coupons altogether -- which would obviously have a devastating effect on many families' household budgets.
What's maddening about this behavior is that it's completely unnecessary -- since there are so many legitimate free and cheap deals out there at Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target, and virtually anyplace you could coupon.
If you need proof, just click here for a continually-updated list of freebie offers.
What are your thoughts about couponers who coupon unethically? Share your reaction in the comments section below, or over on the San Antonio Budget Grocery Facebook page.
Want more freebies and deals? Go back to the front page, follow me on Twitter, or keep up with all the action on Facebook.
I don't care if a store can produce the right number of sales of the coupon item or not, it's just wrong for a consumer to do that. Why are people always looking for an easy way out?
ReplyDeleteI agree, Its stealing and that is not good! You can get a lot of good deals, but some people don't want to work at it, but they don't realize they are putting the same amount of work into defrauding the store!! silly!
ReplyDeletewhy don't all coupon manufacturers and P.O.S. redemptions such as store registers just all link up and use E-verify ? Its on every coupon-IT has a unique code that says how many time that very coupon was printed ,where what its for, size, amount, and if it has already been used the maximum amount of time.Most times with online coupon printing you can use the back button and get one extra copy.After that they tell you-you have reached the maximum prints allotted. As for newspaper printed ones, some stores are now setting a limit on how many exactly alike coupons you can redeem such as 3 per checkout.E-verify would certainly cut down on fraud and certainly expedite the honest use of internet coupons. Most likely somebody doesn't want to pay for whatever it takes to get on board.
ReplyDeleteHow is this any different than the shenanigans pulled by Banks, Stock Brokers, Congressmen, etc to become wealthy?
ReplyDeleteDo you know how many times they cross over into unethical territory for massive profit?
Abusing the system has become the primary way to get rich in America today... for everyone.