Marsh, a grocery chain in Indiana and Ohio, made a special coupon available to their fans on Facebook. The coupon was good for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. Great deal, right? Until the promotion got out of hand, and the store stopped accepting the coupon on Friday, with no warning to customers. Based on past similar experiences, you can guess how well this turns out.

To be fair, Marsh did warn customers of the change through a Facebook status update on Friday morning:

Dear Marsh Fans and guests.. We recently offered a coupon for our facebook fans of Marsh. Unfortunately this offer has been widely distributed in an unauthorized manner throughout our marketing area. Due to the vast numbers of inappropriately transmitted and replicated copies of this offer, we will no longer be able to accept these coupons in our stores. Our sincerest apology for any inconvenience this has caused.

An unauthorized manner? You mean that large numbers of people printed out a coupon uploaded to the Internet? No!

As of this writing, there are 265 comments blasting the grocer for the failed promotion. Part of the controversy is that the store urged fans to “share,” and then shut down the promotion when evidently a few too many people did.

Its not that it breaks the bank….its the fact that there is no stipulation on the card that only xyz people can use it, it doe snot say that they can end this promotion @ anytime…. nothing!! Yes I am one person who shared it with friends and family…. EVERYONE where I work got one…we all go to marsh regularly though because of its proximity to our office… but trust me that I will not be going back anytime soon….this is poor customer service! Besides that how can they post the previous update, and then 24 hours later renege? Yes it mistakes on their part, but own up and honor those coupons that people have, heck even KFC did that!!

Of course, by “share,” the store apparently meant “share this deal with your friends and family and tell them to become fans of us on Facebook,” not “print out a copy for everyone you know.” Oops.

Supermarket Slammed For Reneging On Facebook Coupon [TheIndyChannel.com] (Thanks, Stacey!)
Marsh Supermarkets [Facebook]

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