One of the most common issues I am asked about is “What do I do when my cashier refuses my coupon? Can they do that?”
The answer to the first part is “It Depends” and the second part is “Probably”.
It’s important to understand that most cashiers are not anti-coupon. But in our Coupon journeys will we all interact with some who see couponers as people trying to get something for nothing (and we ARE!) but they see it as scamming or they just don’t understand how it works. So are are my tips for dealing with a cashier who just doesn’t want you to get that deodorant for free! Sometimes they are just afraid of coupons because the store has cracked down on cashier who were/are accepting coupons inappropriately. Regardless of the reason here are my tips for avoiding leaving the store empty handed and angry.
- Know & follow the store policies. If their policy is to accept up to three of the same coupon, don’t try to slide a fourth coupon in. That just sets everything off to a bad start. Stores don’t have to accept coupons. Knowing & following the rules is an important step we can all take to ensure that they continue to accept them for years to come. Keeping copies of store policies with you (or keeping their website versions book marked on your smart phone) can avoid issues.
- Address any issues up front. If I am uncertain if a coupon is acceptable according to the their store policy (such as a B1G1 free printable) I will approach the customer service manager before even shopping. Once I get their approval (or rejection) of the coupon I won’t have too much trouble at the register. If the cashier tries to reject my coupon I can easily say, “I asked Jane at customer service before shopping and she approved the coupon. Can we ask her again?” This way the pressure is off the cashier and they can verify it with customer service.
- Double check your purchases & coupons. If the coupon is for a certain size, I check the item before placing it my cart and check again before I place it on the register. This avoids me being embarrassed when my “6 oz+” coupon beeps on a 4 oz product. I also check the coupon’s expiration date or restrictions before placing the item in the cart. This also keeps me from problems at the register with inadvertently handing over expired coupons.
- Stay calm & polite. We’ve all met those cashiers who simply don’t even want to scan the coupon. “This is printed in black & white. I can’t take it.” “We only accept one coupon” Take a deep breathe, double check your brain or policy to ensure that the cashier is wrong and then calmly say something like, “Your policy says that you accept four “like” coupons. I’ve only handed you three, so I should be ok.” Keep a smile and remember not to take it personally. Cashiers are trained in a million areas and have to remember how to do a dozen procedures on those registers. Coupons are not a top training process for most stores. They could just not know and would rather err on the side of caution than get in trouble for taking something they were not supposed to. Keep a smile on your face (not too-fake…but a genuine “I am getting this free” smile).
- Escalate the issue, when necessary. Many times a cashier refuses to budge regardless of the store policy, the coupon verbiage or just common sense. If it is really important to you, or a really good deal, you may want to escalate the issue. If the cashier refuses to follow the store policy, I suggest saying “I don’t think we are going to agree, can we ask a manager for their opinion?” At this point, most cashiers will call a manager over and allow the manager to make the final decision. One of three things will generally happen now:
- The manager sides with the cashier & refuses the coupon.
- The manager agrees that the cashier is wrong and accepts your coupon.
- The manager says You cannot but “I’ll let it go this once”
- Make a decision. If the manager refuses to accept the coupon- you have two options at that point. Buy the item without the coupon and pay more than you should have (if you need the product right away this may be your best bet) or ask them to give your coupon back and remove the item from your cart. I have left items at the register multiple times. In fact, I’ve left entire orders there when the store refuses to follow their policy and were rude to me. Remember the tip to ” Stay calm & polite” regardless of your decision!
- Follow up. If the store refused your coupon and you are certain they should have taken it based on their corporate policy, after leaving the store you can call their corporate office. I suggest doing so in the mind set of asking for help & NOT complaining. Starting out with something like “I love your store in CITY, but I need some clarification about what coupons I can use so I follow your rules properly. I want to buy XYZ and use a coupon for $ from ABC. In your policy it looks like this is acceptable but the store in CITY said I couldn’t do that. Can you help me? I really wanted to buy it from you and not from {insert competitor name here}.” Sometimes the customer service representative will realize that the store was not properly following their coupon policy and alert the store or sometimes they will fall back on their old faithful, “Manager discretion”. Either way, this alerts the corporate office that people are leaving the store unhappy- something no store wants.
So answering the questions:
What do I do when my cashier refuses my coupon? Stay calm, double check you are right and back it up with store policy.
Can they do that? Probably, most coupon policies leave an ambiguous “Manager Discretion” clause to allow the managers to make decisions at the register.
Worst case if you find that your store has more anti-coupon cashiers and managers than coupon-friendly ones- find another store to shop. For months I avoided my closest Harris Teeter because they were so anti-coupon that I couldn’t take it. I would rather drive an extra 10 minutes than deal with confrontation after confrontation at the closest store!
What tips do you have with dealing with anti-coupon sentiments at the register?
Well thought out and written article, Moola. I always ask for approval at the Cust Service desk for acceptance of competitor coupons at Harris Teeter. So far, so good here in Maryland.
However, what really iritates me with this store and corporate is their Express Service on the HT website. (Express Service has many unadvertised specials you don’t receive in email or the weekly ad, so I check this online catalog before I go shopping.) You must sign in to the service for specifically the store that you use which leads you to believe you are getting a list of products available at that store.
Untrue. Half of the unadvertised specials that I find on this service that have never even been stocked at the store ever when I go in. I like to buy organic and natural products that they don’t advertise normally so I get excited when I see a product on the Express list and it is very frustrating to spend the time clipping a coupon, searching for the coupon and then searching in the store for a product that is not there and never was.
I have gotten many mythological rainchecks for these products, but they still have never been stocked. I have complained a lot to the store manager. I have called corporate and asked them why should we bother signing into a specific store online when advertised products are not carried by that store? What is going on between the web developers and the actual inventory for the store? Something needs to be done about this.
I started complaining about this over a year ago and still, nothing has been done. Express Service would be the ideal way to add all sorts of organic goodies on special to your shopping list if this was fixed. Currently I leave the store frustrated by so many red herrings for me on this list.
If more readers would also call the HT corporate offices to complain about this, maybe they would finally put up the true inventories for individual stores on their website and we could get excited about all the unadvertised specials listed there.
I’ve had the same problem, and I found out many companies issue fraudulent coupons for products that do not exist. They do this as some effort to see if people will try to use the phony coupons on a different product. It is actually a form of fraud and I wish they could be sued for it. My advice is to write to the manufacturer, send them a copy of their phony coupon and demand an answer. Report it to Consumer Affairs and the Better Business Bureau.
Great article! The one tip I would add is rather than calling corporate to inform them of a problem, email them. When they respond, print a copy to carry with you. If the same issue occurs again, you have the email from corporate clarifying their policy.
I go to a few HT stores and there are few cashiers that I would never go to. However, the ones that are coupon friendly, I go out of my way to be nice to them as well. For example, recently I had a really good deal on Dove chocolate where I got two for 19 cents. With three coupons, I ended up with six bars. After I paid, I gave the cashier a bar and said enjoy it and she was thrilled. She is even nicer to me now and sometimes lets me use four like coupons. Another time, I found marked-down Smithfield bacon for 50 cents a package. I bought all ten. At the cashier line, she asked me if there any more of these in the back and I said no. I asked how many she wanted and she said three. I bough seven and let her have three. Again, another cashier won over. I also give cashiers coupons if I have too many of a particular item and the deal is particularly good. So, I end up with a few less cheap goodies but it makes me happy to make them happy as well. Everyone wins.
Honestly, I feel I shouldn’t have to BRIBE a cashier by buying her things to properly DO THE JOB SHE IS PAID MONEY FOR.
Advice FROM a cashier.
#1 Please, please, PLEASE read your coupon! Yes, this means reading the fine print… ESPECIALLY the fine print. The coupon will state what products the coupon will not work with. If unclear about the wording, (such as “Prestige Cosmetics”), ask us before you shop. We will be happy to explain it to you. Coupons expire, coupons cannot be used once they’re expired. Please pay attention beforehand and don’t get angry with us that we can’t break the rules for you. Companies do not pay the store back for expired coupons, plain and simple. Oftentimes the computer will reject these coupons outright. Cashiers cannot magically turn time back, nor can we hack the computer to make it accept the coupon. If the coupon states it doesn’t work with the product you want, or if it has expired, throw it away.
#2 Don’t wait until the last second to give us your coupon(s), give it to us with your purchases. There’s little more frustrating when we are trying to keep a line moving, we’ve totaled you up, and all of a sudden you bring out a big book and start digging through it looking for appropriate coupons. We see the eye-rolls of customers behind you, then we get the brunt of their rage as if WE were the ones stopping the flow of traffic. Also, we often have to hunt through your entire line of purchases to find the exact product this coupon works with, and then that coupon, etc. Depending on the computer system, we usually have to find the exact item, highlight it, add the coupon with it’s specific button, adjust the price, and so on. I’m sure you can appreciate the headache of trying to sort it all out on the fly while customers behind you are shooting ME death-looks. It’s much better for all of us when we have everything we need as we ring you up.
#3 Do not be surprised if we do not accept a coupon with another store’s logo on it. Especially if it is a rival company. This would be like a stranger suddenly kissing your spouse and the stranger being surprised that it upset you.
#4 Don’t abuse the coupon policy. Don’t try to “sneak anything over on us”. And ESPECIALLY don’t abuse the cashier if you try this tactic and it doesn’t work! Coupons have rules and cashiers have to follow those rules. It is NOT a big conspiracy against you.
#5 Last but not least, please DO NOT scream at the cashier or otherwise cause a scene. We do not make the coupons, we do not decide what the coupon does and does not cover, and we have absolutely NO power to change that. Politely ask if a manager can override it, unless it is blatantly obvious (see rule #1) as to why the coupon is not accepted. Managers can do many things, a cashier however can and will get fired. It is not worth our job and livelihood to save you a few dollars. Remember, we’re probably financially strapped and we probably use coupons too! Cashiers make very little money for long, hard, stressful work. Screaming at us for something we have ZERO control over won’t help, and certainly won’t win you any brownie points when you come back to shop again. Treat us with the same courtesy and respect as any other person, and this will get you a long way. Sometimes we’ll go out of our way to help a kind customer where as the squeaky wheel will get the grease they don’t want to get. Cashiers tend to be treated little better than slaves by the company they work for… we LOVE it when people treat us with respect and dignity, and are informed consumers! You’ll often get the benefit!
Good advice! All are along the lines of my advice in this post: https://moolasavingmom.com/2011/07/make-a-new-best-friend/
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT. OMG
Advice TO a cashier:
1. It would be good for CASHIERS to read the coupon as well. Many cashiers go by what is PICTURED on the coupon in spite of what the words say.
2. I have never seen a store in the four different states I have lived in that takes each coupon individually with the product, as opposed to reality where the coupons are given at the end.
3. If a coupon says MANUFACTURER COUPON at the top, it is a MANUFACTURER COUPON. With or without store logo. If it is a manu. coupon and has the logo of a competing store, perhaps you should be happy it is being spent at YOUR store, who pays YOUR PAYCHECK, and not at the competitor store, who does NOT pay your paycheck.
4. Cashiers and managers often break corporate rules and make up their own make believe coupon policies as well. Any coupon blog will document scores of instances of this in the comments. So, employees along with customers should ALSO follow the real rules, and not try to pull anything over on US as well.
5. Customers should not be rude to employees, but ALSO employees should not be rude to customers as well.
.Erica Hart-you are the type of person this article is written for because you clearly feel entitled and are looking for a fight. I promise every time you enter the store the staff cringes and prepares for the attitude you exhude. You get what you give. Individual stores can havee their own policies-especially is there has been alot of fraud. The cashier IS doing their job and it’s not a personal attack.
Erica Hart, I promise you that every single cashier in the store you shop at knows who you are. I’m sure that they all warn each other that you’re coming and have to go calm down the person who rung you up afterwards. You are the type of person that we all dread. I hope you realize that everyone in whatever store you go to talks about you when you enter and celebrates when you leave.
Erika is absolutely correct. Many cashiers have no idea what their store’s coupon policy is. They often go by what is pictured on the coupon, which is the wrong way to go about it. Also, many cashiers aren’t aware their store allows coupon stacking – the customer can use one manufacturer coupon along with a store coupon. Cashiers should be glad that customers spend money in their store, because this is what earns them their paychecks. Be nice to every customer and thank them for spending money in your store!!! Jobs are very scarce these days, be grateful to have one.
Some of you cashiers just need to accept sometimes that the person is using a valid coupon, and reading it over and over again to try desperately to find an exclusion is you, the cashier, who is holding up the line.
I agree with Erika.
Some cashiers are desperate to not let customers use coupons. It is pathetic. Typically a cashier spends 15 minutes reading my coupon, hemming and hawing and even calling a manager, because they don’t want me to use a 25 cent coupon. And it turns out of course the coupon is perfectly valid. It wastes my time and the time of everyone else in line.
Oh, and here’s this little gem: one day I took a Costco coupon to Costco and the cashier tried to claim it wasn’t theirs!!! He tried to claim it was another store that sent it to me in the mail in a pathetic attempt to see if perhaps I would just put it away. I stood my ground and went to talk to a manager. The whole thing was again, a huge waste of everyone’s time, and it may have even gotten the cashier in trouble with his manager.
Oops, one last thing:
“While Supplies Last” means precisely… while supplies last. It is not our fault if we have run out of that free gift you wanted. Free gifts are usually limited and once they’re gone, they’re gone and we won’t be getting any more in. If you really want that free gift or limited time discounted product, get there early! Especially during the holidays or if it’s a hot commodity. Abusing the cashier (the lowest rung on the company’s ladder) won’t make any more stock magically appear. We have ZERO power over the stock or timeframe of the discount. It is not our fault if you have waited until the last day of the ad and we have run out. There is nothing we can do about it and abusing us won’t help you get what you want. We’re consumers too and we feel your pain, but we do not have magic powers (or usually, any power at all).
Happy Shopping!