Two years ago, Oprah promoted on her show a KFC coupon for a free grilled chicken meal. Now the class action lawsuit the resulted after that ended in tears has settled. [More]
coupons
Best Buy Tells Me It Will Honor Coupon For Printer, But Only If It Can Charge Price That Negates Use Of The Coupon
By 8.26.11
Consumerist reader Jon saw that Best Buy was offering what appeared to be a pretty decent deal: Bring in any old printer for recycling and get a coupon for $50 off a Kodak ESP printer. And when he got to the store and saw the printer price had been dropped from $99 to $49, he thought he’d truly won a small victory. And then he got to the checkout line… [More]
Extreme Couponing Leading To Additional Newspaper Thefts
By 8.18.11
Back in June, we told you about the uptick in Sunday newspaper thefts in Boise, ID, from thrifty folks trying to score additional coupons. Well, it looks like it wasn’t isolated to Idaho and one paper has even offered a reward for finding a newspaper pilferer. [More]
Extreme Couponer Arrested For Stealing 185 Newspapers
By 8.10.11
A woman who “just loves to save money” is in legal trouble after surveillance cameras caught her stealing bags of unsold newspapers from newspaper boxes. Her goal was to snatch up as many coupon inserts as possible. [More]
Toys R Us Mystery Deal Not So Mysterious, More Frustrating
By 7.22.11
Caty wasn’t trying to scam Toys ‘R’ Us out of fifty bucks. She saw an interesting promotion in the store’s newspaper circular that required scanning a QR code in the ad and seeing what the “mystery deal” might be. She scanned the code, saw that it gave her a sweet deal on a game bundle, and headed over to the store. There she found empty shelves and employees who claimed that the deal had been a “mistake” and Caty had failed to follow a rule that wasn’t on the newspaper circular. [More]
Extreme Couponers: Dollar Stores Are For Suckers
By 7.12.11
With many people still looking for ways to save in this tough economy, you might expect bargain-hunters lined up to buy things at dollar stores. But some practitioners of the dark art of extreme couponing (soon to be an X Games event, we hope), say that you can often do a lot better by going to your regular grocery or big box store so long as you come armed with coupons. [More]
Banks Use Your Shopping Info So They Can Send You Targeted Coupons That Make More Money For The Banks
By 7.6.11
The banks of America recently pitched enough of a hissy fit to effectively neuter swipe fee reform — after they raised rates, instituted fees and canceled rewards programs — claiming they’d be swiped into the poor house by the reduced fees. But not to worry, bankers are a clever folk and they always have a way to profit off your transactions. Like, for example, colleting information about your shopping habits. [More]
Target, RiteAid, And Publix Change Policies To Cripple Extreme Couponers
By 7.5.11
In the past few weeks, three big stores have changed their coupon policies in ways to curb some of the more lucrative coupon tactics. It appears to be fallout over noob extreme couponers inspired by the TLC show Extreme Couponing, who are ruining the game for everyone else. [More]
Extreme Couponer Arrested For Stealing Coupon Inserts
By 7.1.11
Some people really don’t even deserve the label “extreme couponer.” We should just call ’em “jerks.” The Denton Record-Chronicle reports that a woman in Texas was arrested for buying just one newspaper from the vending machine but then taking all the coupon inserts from all the newspapers inside. [More]
Dating And Coupons Are Not A Perfect Match
By 6.24.11
Reaching for a coupon at the end of a dinner date could be a potentially mood-killing move. Or it could be a watershed moment to demonstrate shared affection for frugality. [More]
Target Updates Coupon Policy To Limit BOGO Stacking
By 6.21.11
One of the hardest things about being a dedicated couponer is keeping up to date on each of the store’s ever-changing coupon policies. Target has just posted a new update to its coupon policy to limit how BOGO (Buy One Get One) coupons can be stacked. (Stacking is when you combine in-store coupons with manufacturer’s coupons to beef up your discounts). Here’s the rule change: [More]
Easy Couponing For Beginners
By 6.10.11
Couponing is a potentially lucrative hobby, but it’s also a complicated one. Varying store policies, myriad sources, agonizing busywork and difficult-to-digest rules and restrictions tend to muck things up. [More]
Extreme Savers Stealing Coupons From Newspapers
By 6.6.11
For some people, coupons are those annoying things in newspapers you toss out on your way to the funny pages. For others, they’re like crack. There’s been a big uptick in Boise of people stealing the coupons from newspapers they haven’t paid for. People buy just pay for one paper from the newspaper box, then reach in and grab the coupons from the rest. The local newspaper has even gotten complaints about coupons being taken from newspapers in front of houses. [More]
Great Moments In Targeted Advertising
By 5.31.11
Theoretically, the coupons that print out for you at the grocery checkout are carefully targeted to you based on your buying habits over time, or on the products in your cart on that particular day. Which is why one reader of Passive-Aggressive Notes was just a bit insulted when she purchased a single pint of Ben & Jerry’s and some chocolate chips (for a baking project, she swears) and the machine spat out this Slim-Fast coupon. [More]
Before You Shop, Check Out The Best Printable Coupon Sites
By 5.12.11
Whether you’re into saving a little money or a whole lot (have you seen extreme couponers at work? It is nuts!) it’s helpful when collecting printable coupons to make sure you’re getting the real deal. For all the various sites out there offering a deal, many offer counterfeit coupons or are otherwise hard to redeem. [More]
What Can This Babies R Us Coupon Actually Be Used For?
By 5.6.11 — Updated: 11.26.13
In the comments of yesterday’s Lane Bryant post, reader DeadPlasmaCell shared this terrible coupon for Babies R Us. The list of excluded items includes, essentially, the entire inventory of a Babies R Us store. What’s left? Clothes? It would be a nice coupon if it said “20% off any clothing item” instead (except for the excepted clothing lines) but that would be too simple and much, much too easy. [More]
P&G Coupon Book Full Of Delightfully Stereotypical "Mom" Imagery, And Savings!
By 4.25.11
A packet of “mom”-centered P&G coupons landed in Post Punk Kitchen forum member raspberrycomplaint’s mailbox and she found the ad copy and images pretty amusing. She posted several of the pages along with her commentary, like the one of a wife feeding her husband snacks. “At the end of the day, I get supper on the table. My husband refuses to use utensils. He says that’s what I’m here for, and makes me hand feed him his supper, one bite at a time. I just feel so proud that I can be useful to him. That’s a woman’s job.” It’s all very facetious and snarky and worth a good chuckle, but it makes you wonder who comes up with this stuff. [More]
False Alarm: There Is No 50% Off Everything Sale At Michaels
By 4.20.11
Customers (myself included) on the email list of craft retailer Michaels received a message this morning with the subject line of “50% off your entire purchase – Friday only.” thought that perhaps the stakes had been raised in the ongoing coupon arms race between the big-box craft retailers. Alas, no. [More]
