Tom is frustrated that a Wendy’s drive-thru crew treated a coupon he printed off the company website as if it were a counterfeit bill. He was grilled like a hamburger as he waited to see whether or not his dollar off would be approved by the all-powerful manager.

He writes:

Wendy’s has a new email coupon program. Unfortunately, training at the store level is lacking, or managers are free to discourage coupon use.

Tonight at the drive-thru of my local Wendy’s, I stated that I had a coupon good for $1 off any premium burger. Once I reviewed the menu and settled on the Baconator, the cashier asked me to pull up. I wasn’t finished, but OK…

When I stopped at the window, the manager was present, and reviewed the coupon, then asked, “Where’d you get this?”

“Uh, the website.”

“WHAT website?”

“Wendys dot commmm…”

He then checked the expiration date–aloud–against the current date. “Wait a minute, this says 9/10. What’s today? Oh, 8/13.”

This guy reminds me of the dean at my old middle school, who enjoyed scrutinizing parents’ and doctors’ notes from absent students, in the hopes that you’d cave, or at least squirm for his pleasure.

After about 30 more seconds of reading, including the admission that this was not the first coupon he’d seen in his life (“Now I’ve seen the SALAD one…”), Manager Dean instructs the cashier to take the dollar off and let me finish ordering.

Yes, it’s just a dollar. Yes, it’s just fast food. But I’ve worked a long, hard day, and I don’t want to have to explain myself whenever I have the opportunity to save a buck.

People in retail and service industries have insinuated things about me before, but this is the first time I’ve been looked at as a coupon fraudster.

Internet coupons are being greeted with more and more suspicion these days. We’ve been in a grocery store that had a big sign declaring them all to be fraud and refusing to take any of them.

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