Archived So..since retailers are reimbursed for coupon values...

[EagleEye]

Does that mean when someone returns their items that had coupons, we are technically creating money? For example:
_____________________________
Guest buys:
12pk PEPSI 3.99
MFG Coupon 3.00-

CASH PAYMENT 5.00
CHANGE 4.01

Guest now has $4.01, Target has $3.99 after coupon reimbursement.

Guest returns PEPSI for 3.99.
Guest now has $8.00 cash. Target now has PEPSI. In the end, the piece of paper coupon is now made into cash and Target has what they originally owned. The $3.00 came from the clearinghouse/manufacturer but definitely didn't put $3.00 into making one single coupon.
____________________________________

Aren't we reducing the value of the American Dollar?

Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

 

[Barcode]

If a guest returns an item they purchased with a coupon, they are refunded for the full value of the item. This causes a lot of guests to attempt and Scam Target with returning tons of coupon items.

 

[Nauzhror]

How do you equate the manufacturer losing money to money being created?

The guest basically just stole $3.00 from the manufacturer, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[ClearanceMaster]

Did they change the policy? I mean i havent really cashiered for two years but we always deducted the value of the coupon, and in your example they would only get .99 back because that's all they paid for the item.

I mean if they "lost" their receipt, we would return the full value by swiping the card but then we have their credit card information to link them as a scammer.. so most people don't do that..


In the end target still has the pepsi, to make up for the 3.99. And target still has record of selling a pepsi and using that coupon. So target still would wind up with the product (3.99) and the coupon reimbursement (3.00)... as long as someone else bought a pepsi and didn't use a coupon we could still get credit for it (the tps told us in a huddle). So as long as you don't get more scammer than legit guests, you wouldn't lose money.

Creating money? I don't think so. Someone still has to pay. Target gave money to the guest out of their bank. The manufacturer coupon will give money back to target when cashed in. The coupon just doesn't disappear.

 

[commiecorvus]

This would be if they did the return without receipt I'm guessing.

It didn't create money it became 'dark money', which I promise is a real thing.
It's part of the flux economy usually what economists consider when dealing with drug deals and major scams but I guess that 6 pack adds to it.

 

[redeye58]

If the guest used a coupon on a consumable item & returned it, the item will go red/defect (destroy) upon return; so spot loses money because we can't re-sell the item returned.
We got .99 from the guest & $3 from Pepsi for our $3.99 but then the guest returned it & we gave them the $3.99 back. We HAVE the Pepsi - we just can't SELL it so it's a loss.
The guest, however, has $3 more than they started with.
This is what the fuss is about.

 

[dave white]

Does that mean when someone returns their items that had coupons, we are technically creating money? For example:
_____________________________
Guest buys:
12pk PEPSI 3.99
MFG Coupon 3.00-

CASH PAYMENT 5.00
CHANGE 4.01

Guest now has $4.01, Target has $3.99 after coupon reimbursement.

Guest returns PEPSI for 3.99.
Guest now has $8.00 cash. Target now has PEPSI. In the end, the piece of paper coupon is now made into cash and Target has what they originally owned. The $3.00 came from the clearinghouse/manufacturer but definitely didn't put $3.00 into making one single coupon.
____________________________________

Aren't we reducing the value of the American Dollar?

Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

This process is what you call coupon fraud. It's illegal. The manufacturer eats the loss which is why Target is not too picky about stopping it at the registers.

 

[dave white]

If a guest returns an item they purchased with a coupon, they are refunded for the full value of the item. This causes a lot of guests to attempt and Scam Target with returning tons of coupon items.

If your team isn't trained to stop it... *sighs*.... Train your team to stop it.

There is a very painful, unfortunate loophole in the system. Let's call it a glitch.

There are coupons, real and altered, that scan into the system with no regard to what the coupon is actually for. Let's say I have a coupon for $5.00 off shampoo, but the coupon will take $5.00 the order whether or not you actually bought the shampoo. So it's pretty much like a gift card. If a cashier isn't paying attention to the coupon then it obviously won't be stopped.

Now. This is where the form of payment comes into play. The guest can pay $1.00 with a DEBIT/CREDIT card then pay for the rest with cash. Or. The guest can pay for all of it with a GIFT CARD. If the guest goes to another store, usually within a 12-24 hour window, and makes the no receipt return and has the DEBIT/CREDIT or GIFT CARD swiped the guest will be reimbursed for that item at it's original price. So if you bought ten items that are $5.99 with $6 coupons and return those ten items... you just made $59.90. This process is continued for who knows how long, across who knows how many districts.

 

[redeye58]

It's difficult to 'train your team to stop it' when they're getting overridden by leadership.
I have to wonder how much in losses will corp tolerate before they put the brakes on.

 

[doodlebug]

Do any other stores deny HBA returns?? We had a huge problem with coupon fraud returns so we stopped accepting HBA returns.

 

[EagleEye]

How do you equate the manufacturer losing money to money being created?

The guest basically just stole $3.00 from the manufacturer, nothing more, nothing less.

Yes but that product is still in circulation, meaning the guest who used fraud to make $3 could use their money to buy that EXACT SAME product, and still have $3 more than what they started with.

The only way it would equal out is if it cost the manufacturer $3 to print a single coupon (which is not even close). A piece of paper that cost maybe cents on the dollar turned into cash, when in the end no products were sold or used.

 

[Nauzhror]

Uhh, no, what the manufacturer spent making the coupon is irrelevant, they will give Target $3 to get the coupon returned to them, therefore it's identical to the guest stealing $3 from the manufacturer.

 

[Nauzhror]

Now. This is where the form of payment comes into play. The guest can pay $1.00 with a DEBIT/CREDIT card then pay for the rest with cash. Or. The guest can pay for all of it with a GIFT CARD. If the guest goes to another store, usually within a 12-24 hour window, and makes the no receipt return and has the DEBIT/CREDIT or GIFT CARD swiped the guest will be reimbursed for that item at it's original price. So if you bought ten items that are $5.99 with $6 coupons and return those ten items... you just made $59.90. This process is continued for who knows how long, across who knows how many districts.

This is all wrong.

The issue is them returning it with receipt, and cashiers not checking what the original form of payment was.

It is impossible to do a no receipt turn the day of the purchase, lookup fails, you cannot look up the purchase from the gift card or the credit/debit card till the following day.

We do however have guests buy items with a combination of cash and gift cards, then return it with the receipt, and hope the cashier doesn't notice and gives them it all back in cash.

 

[Retail Girl]

Do any other stores deny HBA returns?? We had a huge problem with coupon fraud returns so we stopped accepting HBA returns.

We tried, but they are getting too aggressive, to the point they will call corporate and if we don't do it then, our STL's neck is on the line with the DTL and thus our neck is on the line with the STL. And if corporate wants to let them do it, I'm not going to lose my job over trying to stop it.

 

[Retail Girl]

Does that mean when someone returns their items that had coupons, we are technically creating money? For example:
_____________________________
Guest buys:
12pk PEPSI 3.99
MFG Coupon 3.00-

CASH PAYMENT 5.00
CHANGE 4.01

Guest now has $4.01, Target has $3.99 after coupon reimbursement.

Guest returns PEPSI for 3.99.
Guest now has $8.00 cash. Target now has PEPSI. In the end, the piece of paper coupon is now made into cash and Target has what they originally owned. The $3.00 came from the clearinghouse/manufacturer but definitely didn't put $3.00 into making one single coupon.
____________________________________

Aren't we reducing the value of the American Dollar?

Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Ok, you are wrong. There is no money being laundered. Let me try it this way:

Guest has $10 dollars and a $5 coupon.
Target has no money (evidenced by our paychecks) and a product.
Product manufacturer has $5.

Guest goes in, buys that $10 item. But they have a $5 coupon. So then we have:

Guest has product, and $5.
Target has no product, $5, and a $5 coupon.
Manufacturer has $5 they originally had.

Target turns in coupons, and the coupon is legitimate, hell froze over and the guest bought the right product.

Thus, guest still has product and $5.
Target has no product and $10.
Manufacturer has $0 and a piece of paper to recycle.

Guest decides they want to return product. They go to store, and the return is done with a receipt, and they receive back the entire $10.

Guest walks away with $15 (they started with $10 and a coupon).
Target now has no money and the product (same way they started assuming the product can be resold).
Manufacturer still has no money (started out with $5).

So there's no money being created...only money being moved from the manufacturer to the guest, with Target as the middle man.

As long as the product can be resold, Target is out no direct money. Now, you can make the argument that Target is out of a lot of indirect money...TMs to check out the guest, return the product and put it back on the shelf, while they all could have been doing something else. And we all lose time to standing around complaining about it.

The manufacturer is out the money, and they have more product on the market than they anticipated, which means stores won't need to buy as much, slowing down their sales, thus taking longer for them to recoup their losses.

So until the manufacturer is ready to stop losing money, and stands up to the retailers who allow this, the stores will allow this to continue, and money will move from the manufacturer to the consumer (but none is created).

 

[EagleEye]

@Nauzhror @Retail Girl I'm sorry, you two are right, I was thinking about counterfeit coupons, not real ones. I just messed up the example and my thoughts. I was looking at current circulating counterfeits on the coupon website and noticed we accept a lot of them.

My bad 🙂

 

[sigma7]

We still wouldn't be creating money. We don't get reimbursed for fraudulent coupons. Target just loses money on the transaction.

 

[thetargetman]

If the guest is using their recite or card they paid with they get back exactly what they paid for the product. now many guest will use their drivers license and get most of the time the full value back. It really annoys me when the thieves try doing this with HBA returns. we allow a return of HBA up to a point without the recite.

 

[ExhaustedCashier]

Do any other stores deny HBA returns?? We had a huge problem with coupon fraud returns so we stopped accepting HBA returns.

We tried, but they are getting too aggressive, to the point they will call corporate and if we don't do it then, our STL's neck is on the line with the DTL and thus our neck is on the line with the STL. And if corporate wants to let them do it, I'm not going to lose my job over trying to stop it.

Our store still does this, for non-receipt/gift receipt returns. Our dtl and district investigator will tell corporate for us what is going on it is so bad in my area. We are especially adamant about the oral-b products, razors, and allergy medicines as they have the highest dollar cocoupons. I could tell you about a million different ways they will try to scam us.

 

[Retail Girl]

Do any other stores deny HBA returns?? We had a huge problem with coupon fraud returns so we stopped accepting HBA returns.

We tried, but they are getting too aggressive, to the point they will call corporate and if we don't do it then, our STL's neck is on the line with the DTL and thus our neck is on the line with the STL. And if corporate wants to let them do it, I'm not going to lose my job over trying to stop it.

Our store still does this, for non-receipt/gift receipt returns. Our dtl and district investigator will tell corporate for us what is going on it is so bad in my area. We are especially adamant about the oral-b products, razors, and allergy medicines as they have the highest dollar cocoupons. I could tell you about a million different ways they will try to scam us.

We had one in this past week. He had a billion receipts for items that he bought within a two day period. Every receipt had exactly four items on it, and each item had a $10 manufacturer coupon with it. Unfortunately, because he had the original receipts, there was nothing we could do but return all of the items. It was painful. I had to take back about $400 worth of stuff, and then he came back a little while later and returned another couple hundred dollars worth of stuff.

Congratulations, Spot. I hope you're happy!

 

[ExhaustedCashier]

Do any other stores deny HBA returns?? We had a huge problem with coupon fraud returns so we stopped accepting HBA returns.

We tried, but they are getting too aggressive, to the point they will call corporate and if we don't do it then, our STL's neck is on the line with the DTL and thus our neck is on the line with the STL. And if corporate wants to let them do it, I'm not going to lose my job over trying to stop it.

Our store still does this, for non-receipt/gift receipt returns. Our dtl and district investigator will tell corporate for us what is going on it is so bad in my area. We are especially adamant about the oral-b products, razors, and allergy medicines as they have the highest dollar cocoupons. I could tell you about a million different ways they will try to scam us.

We had one in this past week. He had a billion receipts for items that he bought within a two day period. Every receipt had exactly four items on it, and each item had a $10 manufacturer coupon with it. Unfortunately, because he had the original receipts, there was nothing we could do but return all of the items. It was painful. I had to take back about $400 worth of stuff, and then he came back a little while later and returned another couple hundred dollars worth of stuff.

Congratulations, Spot. I hope you're happy!

How we deter them, is we give them exactly what they paid for the item. We know our scammers by sight/what they tend to buy. The token frugal guest we don't enforce it, but the obvious scammer/extreme couponers will get what they pay out of pocket.

 

[Retail Girl]

We tried, but they are getting too aggressive, to the point they will call corporate and if we don't do it then, our STL's neck is on the line with the DTL and thus our neck is on the line with the STL. And if corporate wants to let them do it, I'm not going to lose my job over trying to stop it.

Our store still does this, for non-receipt/gift receipt returns. Our dtl and district investigator will tell corporate for us what is going on it is so bad in my area. We are especially adamant about the oral-b products, razors, and allergy medicines as they have the highest dollar cocoupons. I could tell you about a million different ways they will try to scam us.

We had one in this past week. He had a billion receipts for items that he bought within a two day period. Every receipt had exactly four items on it, and each item had a $10 manufacturer coupon with it. Unfortunately, because he had the original receipts, there was nothing we could do but return all of the items. It was painful. I had to take back about $400 worth of stuff, and then he came back a little while later and returned another couple hundred dollars worth of stuff.

Congratulations, Spot. I hope you're happy!

How we deter them, is we give them exactly what they paid for the item. We know our scammers by sight/what they tend to buy. The token frugal guest we don't enforce it, but the obvious scammer/extreme couponers will get what they pay out of pocket.

Most of our scammers know we can't do that (it would be fraud on the store's part to keep the money from the guest after getting reimbursed from the manufacturer). So they would just whip out their phone and call the 800 number to complain. And then we're back to do what they tell us to do, or they come down on our DTL who comes down on the STL who comes down on us. Pass.

 

[ExhaustedCashier]

Our store still does this, for non-receipt/gift receipt returns. Our dtl and district investigator will tell corporate for us what is going on it is so bad in my area. We are especially adamant about the oral-b products, razors, and allergy medicines as they have the highest dollar cocoupons. I could tell you about a million different ways they will try to scam us.

We had one in this past week. He had a billion receipts for items that he bought within a two day period. Every receipt had exactly four items on it, and each item had a $10 manufacturer coupon with it. Unfortunately, because he had the original receipts, there was nothing we could do but return all of the items. It was painful. I had to take back about $400 worth of stuff, and then he came back a little while later and returned another couple hundred dollars worth of stuff.

Congratulations, Spot. I hope you're happy!

How we deter them, is we give them exactly what they paid for the item. We know our scammers by sight/what they tend to buy. The token frugal guest we don't enforce it, but the obvious scammer/extreme couponers will get what they pay out of pocket.

Most of our scammers know we can't do that (it would be fraud on the store's part to keep the money from the guest after getting reimbursed from the manufacturer). So they would just whip out their phone and call the 800 number to complain. And then we're back to do what they tell us to do, or they come down on our DTL who comes down on the STL who comes down on us. Pass.

Our district has a huge network of scammers. Minus one or two they don't try at our store anymore since our etl-ap and the district investigator informed corporate about the group. Our etls will tell them to call corporate, and they give up. Our store is kind of a special snowflake for the scammers because of it.

 

[redeye58]

Wish ours could do that.

 

[RedMan]

I just say no. And I have the backing of my ETLs and STL. It's not a matter of how much we'll give them. It's a matter of, "We reserve the right to refuse any return, and I'm refusing this one." I had a guy yell at me a couple weeks ago because my decision was based on race. Um, no, it was based on the fact that you try to return items three or four times a week, sometimes with a receipt from the trash, sometimes with a gift receipt (who gives cold medicine as a gift?) sometimes with your ID, but never with a legit receipt. So no, I'm no longer accepting returns from you. You don't like it? Shop WalMart.