Can you tell us more about the different instances? So we can learn from them?
Sure thing. The coupon scammers that we get most of the time at my store are for cosmetics/personal care items and for household supplies.
Lately, coupon scammers have been coming in with coupons for Aussie hair products, Palmolive dish soap, and Viva paper towel, to name a few, since you get a $5 gift card for buying a certain number of these items. Since you have to buy the items in one transaction, they try to use coupons for each of their items which say (in bold text) one per purchase, and [two or four] per household per day. So, I tell them that they can do separate transactions if they want to use all the coupons, but then they freak out because they won’t get the gift card and pitch a fit.
Other than that, people have also been coming in with a coupon for $2 off any Aussie hair product, and trying to use it on single use packets which are $2.49 each. On the coupon, however, it says excludes single use packets and travel sizes (it will still work if you scan it without reading it so be careful). This coupon is also a one per purchase coupon, and they try to use like 5 in one purchase since we had a coupon for a $5 gift card with a $20 beauty purchase.
People also come in with printed coupons.com coupons. With these, you have to be careful - they will also have limits written on them. If they don’t scan, you don’t accept it. And, each coupon SHOULD have a unique serial # on it, since coupons.com generates unique numbers for each and only lets you print a certain amount. If the numbers are all the same, you only accept one.
There are also manufacturer coupons which look like they should come on newspaper (smaller in physical size than coupons.com coupons) - if a guest comes in with a photocopy of one of these or a sheet of photocopied coupons, these are invalid - the coupons say right on them that they are invalid if reproduced in any way.
In any purchase where the guest gets a promotional gift card, do not accept coupons which would bring the total to lower than the amount of the gift card that they’re getting (for example, say a guest buys $20 worth of cosmetics to get a $5 gift card as part of the weekly ad - do not accept coupons which would make their total less than $5)
Guests will also try to buy two items and then use two coupons which are buy one get one free to get both things for free. This is not allowed, they must buy at least one. You cannot accept coupons which bring a guest’s total down to $0.
Also, regarding manufacturers coupons - more than one cannot be used on one single item, and only one target coupon and one manf. coupon can be used on a single item. If a guest tries to use a manf. coupon via cartwheel and then tries to use a paper manf. coupon on the same item, it just won’t work.
I’m sure I missed some stuff, this is all I could think of off the top of my head from the last few days while on my break. Hopefully it helped a little. You should be fine if you just read the print on the coupons and follow it, and ask the GSTL for help if you need it or if you see someone trying to use a lot of coupons - they will try to trick you into letting them use more coupons than is allowed.
