Facebook, Check it Out Coupons Deemed Fraudulent

Facebook, Check it Out Coupons that were issued by Vyrl Marketing through the Facebook application are now said to be fraudulent. The check it out coupons that were issued early Friday afternoon looked to good to be true. Many items were free after the coupon some were even more than the product cost. However, many people (myself included) contacted Vyrl Marketing to see if the check it out coupons were valid. We each got the response that yes they were valid.

Check it out coupons were supposed to have limited availability and were quickly pulled from Facebook. Apparently, there were not security measures in place to prevent the duplication of the coupons from Vyrl Marketing. The coupons were rapidly printed into PDF form and distributed across the internet.

Monday evening Vyrl Marketing sent an email to all Facebook users that installed the Check it out application. The email stated, "As you know, we are dedicated to providing amazing deals. Please be aware that someone has hacked into our development database of our coupon offers, placed our offers in .pdf files and is now distributing them throughout the internet. The majority of these coupons were not for distribution. They were strictly to be used for sales and marketing demonstrations. Such offers, because they are copies / reproductions, are considered fraudulent and are not permitted, please do not attempt to use them.

All the offers that were properly printed through our Facebook application can be redeemed. ANY copy of any coupon or anything printed or reproduced from any other source other than through the authorized Facebook application may not be accepted at the register."

However, this is not the case. Vyrl Marketing is blatantly lying. I along with several other Facebook members saw and printed the coupons directly from the Check it out application.

Tuesday evening this message was displayed on Facebook, "Thank for your support and enthusiasm, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Our guiding principle is to help you stretch your household budget as far as possible, particularly in these challenging economic times. Please continue to help us with this goal as we address the current unfortunate situation. As many of you may have heard, our system was breeched resulting in the illegal spreading of fraudulent copies of our coupons via email or PDF. We are extremely saddened by this occurrence and understand the frustration that many of you feel, as we have families and children of our own.

That said, it has been several days since the print limits of our offers were reached. Unfortunately copies of the coupons are still being illegally circulated on the Internet, making it impossible to determine which are legitimate and which are not. Each of our coupons clearly states that "offer void if altered or copied".

Our teams are working diligently to resolve all issues so we can continue bringing you quality offers.

It is an unfortunate but sad reality; however, in order to protect our retailers and all of you responsible coupon users, all coupons will now be considered invalid copies. We are working with all industry players and word is going out to the retailers to not accept them.

The abuse by the few has lead to this decision which sadly affects the many.

Despite this setback, the overall result of our initial launch has been extremely successful. We are currently working with manufacturers and sponsors to bring you a wider range of offers based largely on the products that you told us you wanted to see."

Sadly, to me it appears that Vyrl Marketing, Check it Out, and Facebook have made fools of themselves for lack of preparation with security measures. They are now trying to do damage control because of their mistakes. Retailers could potentially loose millions of dollars if they are not reimbursed for the coupons. Honest coupons shoppers may now have problems redeeming coupons at their local stores because of this. All Vyrl Market can say is Sorry?