Unethical Use of Coupons; What's The Big Deal?

After the airing of a recent TLC Extreme Couponing episode (the season premiere I believe) a friend sent a link to a story by coupon expert Jill Cataldo. Which led me to read other sites and the concerns about the practices shown by one extreme couponer on the show. The woman shown, J'aime Kirlew, had several instances of apparent misuse of coupons, which is fraud. Ms. Cataldo and several other coupon sites have highlighted the coupons used on products that did not match. Ms. Cataldo's article Coupon fraud? shows many instances of probably misuse. Much of it has to do with knowing what coupons are available at the time of use, something which these "super couponers" have kept records.

Never heard of coupon fraud? You are not alone. Many people either have not heard of coupon fraud or say "what's the big deal, it's just a coupon".

So what is the big deal? There are several answers to this of course. First, the extreme coupon user, J'aime on the show had $1800 worth of groceries reduced to a bill of $100. What an excellent savings! However, if the coupons used were for products that do not match sales, the store will not be reimbursed for the coupon by the manufacturer. Exactly who pays for the loss of money to the company? We all do eventually through rising prices to offset the lost dollars. In an economy where prices are already rising, this should not make anyone very happy.

OK, so some have said it is the store's fault for accepting the coupons. If you read through Ms. Cataldo's article, there apparently is a way to fool the computer scanning system by matching a coupon bar code's "family code" to a different product. The easiest example shown is the coupon used on boxes of Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios and others within the General Mills family of cereals that were on sale at that store. The coupon available and shown was for Fiber One cereal ONLY, but which apparently was not on sale so would cost more. Carts of this J'aime Kirlew's purchases are shown with no boxes of Fiber One cereal. The cereals are in the same family code though, so the scanner allowed the use. Matching higher value coupons that clearly state what they are for to products to lower value products is clearly using a coupon for the wrong product. Although coupon issuers are already changing the way bar codes and coupons apply to products, skirting the system to use a coupon in this manner is at the very least unethical (and so much more). Please be aware of this if you are tempted to try the practice.

So again, what is the big deal? Ethics should be important, even with something as seemingly trivial as coupon as many seem to think of the issue. Once again, J'aime was shown generating a $1700 savings on her bill. How much of that was dollars that the store will not be able to get reimbursed for since it has been highlighted all over the blogosphere and now even in other media outlets? Many people do use coupons to actually save their family money rather than the hoarders shown on Extreme Couponing. So now those who actually use coupons ethically to save money will have the coupons scrutinized and questioned.

Personally I love a good deal. If I happen upon an excellent deal, I am happy to use it. In fact about a month ago I walked into a store to find cases of Gatorade Prime pouches on sale for .79 cents each. There were stacks of $1 off coupons and the merchandising manager said he just needed to get rid of them soon as he had no extra room for the product which would expire within a couple months. I asked if he would mind if I bought a large amount of them for our high school baseball team. He handed me over 120 coupons and said "please do". So I was able to buy 126 Gatorade Pre Fuel packs for our small town team and ended up with over $20 worth of free groceries because the coupon was over the value of each item. The store is reimbursed for the coupon value and allowed. When I went to the register I explained the manager said it was and I warned anyone entering behind me that it would take some time (unfortunately each item and coupon had to be entered individually). I decided not to take all of the product they had available thus "clearing the shelves" as the extreme couponer was shown doing with mustard. My own feelings about that is that it is a selfish thing to do and better to let someone else get a deal too. If it had been the last day of the available coupon date and near closing I would have done so. Would I jump on a deal like that again, especially if it helps someone else? Absolutely.

I would like to see TLC and Extreme Couponing stop showing people using coupons unethically. It makes the other people on the show, most of whom seem to be using coupons correctly, look bad. They may go overboard at times but no one wants to be associated with unethical people.