If you go to eBay, there are plenty of coupon clippers out there willing to sell you hundreds of already-clipped coupons for only a few bucks. But according to a group representing dozens of the country’s biggest food, pharmaceutical, tobacco and toy makers, it’s a practice that eBay needs to put an end to.

“The best solution would be for eBay to simply prohibit the sale of manufactures coupons from their websites like they do many other items,” explains a rep for the Coupon Information Center, which counts Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, General Mills, Hasbro, and R.J. Reynolds among its members, and which has sent multiple requests to eBay to ask that it stop allowing the sale of coupons on the site.

One of the issues here is that, while it’s not illegal to sell coupons, many of them include the fine print that they are “void if altered, copied, sold, purchased of transferred.”

It is however illegal to sell altered, stolen or counterfeit coupons. And when we did a search on eBay for grocery store coupons, many of the listings only say things like “100 food coupons,” meaning the buyer not only has no idea what discounts they are buying, but also no way of finding out whether the coupons are legitimate.

eBay tells KABC-TV that it is “committed to preventing, detecting and combating fraud,” and that it limits the number of coupons people can sell.

Retailers seek end to coupon sales on eBay [KABC]

Thanks to Jon for the tip!

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