COUPON FRAUD ALERT

I had a cashier at one of my Walmart stores ask me where she could get these AWESOME coupons that a customer came used to get free Cottonelle toilet paper and Tide Laundry Soap. The alarms went off in my head and I immediately knew the coupons were bogus. The manager gave me a copy of the Cottonelle coupon. The crazy thing is that they scan, I am not sure how they tricked the system, the only thing I can think of is that they are coding in the old bar code.

PLEASE DON’T USE THIS COUPON. You can always email me if you have a questionable coupon.

The rampant mount of coupon fraud is why Walmart had to make changes to the coupon policy last year. Below is a recap of the changes that were made. In typical Walmart fashion, there are a lot of store managers who are just now adhering to the policy of if it doesn’t scan we won’t take it. I got a copy of an internal Walmart Management wire that does a really good job of explaining how it all works. I have been getting a lot of comments lately on the “New Walmart Policy”, sorry you are just getting this, but hey you have had an extra year of coupon fun. Good thing your managers don’t read I Heart the Mart or they would have known last year! 🙂

Here is my post from last year:

I shared with you a couple of weeks ago that as of September 1, Walmart made some changes to their internal coupon policy and to the register systems. I have since had a few managers send me a copy of the full memo that I thought you guys might find helpful and interesting. I can’t share the whole thing, but  the meat of what I think is important is the frequently asked questions memo below. Click to See Walmart Coupon Policy & Walmart Price Match Policy.

The Q& A’s that I find most valuable are questions 5,6 & 8.

I have made some changes to my initial impressions based on the full memo. 

Walmart Coupon Policy Changes:

1. All Walmart Register systems were updated to accept the GS1 Date bar Codes that most coupons have switched to and all eventually will go to. According to the memo it will take until Oct for All registers to be updated.

2. All coupons are supposed to be scanned on the flatbed scanners, the handheld scanners are not updated and therefore it is “recommended” that there use is discontinued. This means that a store manager can allow the handheld scanners to be used but I wouldn’t expect it for sure.

3. The coupon must scan (not a new change) . Cashiers/CSM’s or Managers should not override or manually enter coupons.(YMMV)

4. If a coupon does not scan they are instructed to return the coupon to you. This applies to Printable Coupons and newspaper insert coupons.

Here are a few major reasons for these changes:

1. Coupon Fraud- My local Walmart took a hit of over $6,000.00 in August of fraudulent/counterfeit coupon. The highest month they had exceeded over $20,000 and are consistently over $10,000. The average dollar amount of coupon fraud per Walmart location has been as high as $10,00 per month. This number doesn’t seem like a huge number for a store that does millions of dollars in sales, but this number comes right off of the profit margin. There are nearly 4,000 Walmart Stores in the US, if you take the number of stores by the average amount of fraud the numbers get as high as $40,000,000 per month.

2.Employee Coupon Fraud- There have been several stories about massive scale coupon fraud being perpetrated on Walmart stores by there own employees.

3. Coupon Bar Decoding- Yes, another form of coupon fraud. The old bar codes had a lot of info that could be deciphered and used on products that they were not intended for. The new GS1 bar codes will eliminate that.

How Does This Affect You?

1. I am looking at this as a very positive change overall. I know a lot of people have viewed this as a negative, but here is me thinking. The decisions have been taken out of cashiers hands, the computer knows all and determines all. If the coupons scan they take it, if not they don’t. If you have a Walmart that knows you and likes you they still have the ability to override but it does have to be done by a member of management.

2. All Printable Coupons should be printed at the highest quality, it doesn’t have to be color but it should be the best quality available.

3. This will hopefully severely reduce the amount of fraud and eventually lead to the return of higher value coupons.

I think there are going to be some growing pains in the fusion between the GS1 Databar and the systems that accept them. One would hope that all of the kinks would have been worked out prior to their launch, but I also realize that the absurd amount of coupon fraud led to some knee jerk reactions.

I know that many people are going to have similar knee jerk reactions in who they will blame for the changes. The number one scape goat will be TLC’s Extreme Couponing. We were on Extreme Couponing with one of the biggest culprits of Coupon Fraud/ Bar Decoders in the industry. I do think that TLC is culpable in as much as they didn’t screen the people or the process nearly well enough. I can also be sure that there isn’t enough info on the show for people to be able to figure it out. The people that deciphered the fraud and explained it step by step have just as much responsibility as anyone. The bottom line is that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Coupon Fraud is the same, people make their own choices an unfortunately we all have to live with them.