Charlene sent me a message yesterday. She went to purchase some 2 liters of Sunkist and use a $1.50/2 coupon that was posted recently.
The cashier told her it was a counterfeit coupon and tore her coupon up!
I was livid for Charlene. To me, coupons are cash and for a store employee to destroy my coupon is no different than if they had destroyed my cash!
So I started doing research on this coupon because I know I had printed this coupon myself and I am VERY cautious about where I print coupons from.
I did find a reference to a counterfeit Sunkist coupon. It is below
That coupon is QUITE different than the $1.50/1 printable coupon that is available to print here.
So while not having been a witness to the events that took place but knowing that the $1.50/2 is NOT a fake coupon I’m going on the assumption that the cashier was incorrect and destroyed a perfectly valid coupon in error.
I wanted to share Charlene’s Story so I could share the steps I would take if a store/cashier was telling me my coupon was fake.
If your store accuses your coupon of being a fake:
- Be sure that it isn’t a fake. There are lots of red flags that should start flying when a coupon is fake. PDF coupons emailed from friends, posted in coupon forums by other users or found in a random Google search are likely fakes. Most companies utilize a coupon printing service such as Coupons.com, Smart Source, Red Plum or Qples to print and restrict their printable coupons. A few companies do offer PDF coupons but before printing one – be sure it’s hosted directly on the company’s website. Don’t print coupons from sources you are familiar with.
- Explain Coupons to the Store. Many stores are unaware of how coupons work. They see the same coupon with the same barcode at the bottom and think it’s copied. This post explains the “parts” of a coupon and how to prove a coupon is unique.
- Get your Coupon Back: If the store is refusing to accept it because they think it is fake or copied, take it back. Tell them politely that it isn’t but if they don’t want to accept it you will take it back, remove that item from your order and shop elsewhere. It’s your money (I mean coupon).
Now in Charlene’s case- the store actually destroyed her coupon! They tore it up. Since the store was incorrect about it being a fake they actually torn up $1.50 of Charlene’s Money! I advised her to contact the corporate customer service department of that store and complain. Even if the store felt it was fake and unacceptable to them – they had no business destroying it.
What if it had been a dollar bill they thought was “fake”- destroying it would not allow Charlene to go back to where she got it and get a “real one”- the same with the coupon.
I was able to give Charlene the image of the reported fake which is different than the $1.50/2 coupon that IS valid that she had. I am hoping that customer service will see that the store destroyed her valid coupon and give her the discount on those 2 liters she wanted.
Have you ever been told your coupon is fake? What did you do?
I had actually quit shopping at target for about a year due to them constantly accusing my target prints of being fake. On 3 separate occasions they told me my target prints that I printed from my home were fake and copied and they couldn’t accept them. I was appalled! I couldn’t even believe they said those words to me! Even after going through battle rounds with the management they still agreed they were fake! AND THEY WERE NOT! I only 2 of each that I printed my self. I did call corporate but all they said was coupons are completely up to management. There was nothing they could, but I could try speaking with the Store Manager. So I did, i called and spoke with the store manager who told me his employees were in the wrong and to come in and speak with him personally and he would look at my coupons. So I did, I went in and grabbed the items and handed him the coupons. He scanned them and accepted them. I got my items in the end but after crying all the way home after being accused of fraud, driving 20 miles both ways twice and just the humiliation made me stop qponing there all together.
I shopped at a Harris Teeter one time who accused me of having a fake coupon because of the BARCODE!!!! I showed her at the top there will be a number that is different from the other and the barcode will ALWAYS be the same if you are buying the correct product and I showed her the Sparkle Paper towel product and I showed her the barcode… which was the same as the coupon… I gave her a coupon 101 in the middle of self checkout and told the manager that he needs to really have a coupon class that is manditory for ALL employees… because I have had so many problems with coupons at this Harris Teeter and the store manager is not nice and I have walked out with nothing on more then one occasion which is terrible because it is 20 miles away from my house!!! If she wouldn’t have accepted the coupon I would have called customer service and asked if I could picture message my coupons to them and have them explain to their employees who is wrong. I would have raised u know what if they destroyed my coupons!!!!! I would have the general manager themselves infront of me and writing up that employee for destroying property of mine!!!
Thank you for addressing this situation – I haven’t had to deal with them saying my coupon was fake – yet – but I am sure the time will come!
Maybe there is a district manager or a regional manager for the store chain that could be contacted and get involved. You might find out who that person is through a google search – or looking on the corporate website or calling corporate.
The Bilo on Ben Sawyer in Mount Pleasant is the worst They act like you’re stealing if you use a coupon. Sadly the management doesn’t ever know the stores coupon policy. I’ve spoke to several people who will NOT shop there, myself included.
A few years ago, I had a Walmart CASHIER SUPERVISOR called to the register because the cashier wouldn’t take a SMART SOURCE COUPON. This moron got an attitude with me and thought she was “educating me” on fake spotting, telling me that it’s fake because there were several dollar sign symbols in the center of the coupon that there are supposed to be HOLOGRAM TYPE PICTURES there!!!! Confused, I went home and printed ANOTHER coupon from SS, and the same dollar symbols came out!!! ON ALL THE COUPONS!!! IT APPEARS A SUPERVISOR WHO’S JOB IT WAS TO KNOW BETTER was only familiar with COUPONS.COM COUPONS, WHICH HAVE THE PICTURE OF THE FOOD PRODUCT IN THE CENTER!!! I then call the store and also emailed corporate telling them that they are training their SUPERVISORS incorrectly because their job is to TRAIN THE CASHIERS TO DO THE SAME AS THEY THEMSELVES DO, AND NOW WE HAVE A FULL STORE OF MORONS who don’t know ANYTHING about what they are judging at the register! What this told me was NO ONE IS TRAINING THE SUPERVISORS, AND THE CASHIERS ARE BEING TRAINED BY THE UNENLIGHTENED SUPERVISORS. I once had a cashier there tell me they couldn’t ad match my “split chicken breasts” because they weren’t “split on the sides.” I nearly keeled over and told this kid that was barely out of high school that the term for that is BUTTERFLIED, NOT SPLIT!! SPLIT MEANS THE CHICKEN BREAST IS TWO BREASTS IN ONE PIECE, AND THEY HACK IT IN HALF AND LEAVE EACH PIECE ON A THE LITTLE PIECE OF BONE IN THE BACK! SHE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I HAD TWO HEADS! And the SUPERVISOR I called over didn’t seem to know much better, because she had to go LOOK AT THE ADS to understand the difference!