I'll be honest... I'm not sure I'd know how to spot a fake coupon unless it's ridiculously bad. Can anyone provide examples of what to look for?
(Not a cashier, and my store has been more focused on the "make the guest happy" approach lately.)
First off- never a screenshot of a coupon. Coupons have to be from a live site and Target only deals with a link from their official emails or on Cartwheel- never any 3rd party sites.
As for counterfeit coupons that have been printed: They look a lot like the printed coupons now but with a few tells...Manufacturers will NEVER allow printed 'get item free' without purchase. Those are all fake. Any high dollar one should be questioned as cashiers typically can only resolve issues up to $5. So high dollar ones should be scrutinized carefully (there are real ones out there, just watch out).
Coupons that take the whole value of the item are fake (when looking at items of higher value). Ones that seem to be recirculated after a while are like Pampers and Enfamil. The infamous 24.99 ones are a great example.
Counterfeit coupons have use of a different font and the large letters/numbers will look off to the rest of the coupon.
Read the fine print. Many times these counterfeit coupons allow ANY product of that line and aren't specific. (like any Dove product, not Dove bodywashes). Any limit over 4 per day printed on the coupon is counterfeit. Many times they'll have something ridiculous like limit 10 per transaction. Manufactures will NOT print just per transaction- it's daily limit to protect their assets as well. Sometimes (and I found a bunch of these recently) the details won't have legal ramifications printed and bad ones will have another manufacturer printed entirely. (You see them buying Dove products and the coupon says Dove and looks like Dove but reading the fine print shows it's barbeque sauce).
These barcodes WILL SCAN. It's not that hard to do a search and find out how to learn the algorithm and photoshop your own coupon (FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING DO NOT MAKE YOUR OWN COUPON AND USE IT- IT'S A FEDERAL CRIME) but you can learn to understand how these scammers get by many. Look at the smaller barcode or QR code- these are generated differently. You can go to Verify on your browser and type in that code and it'll tell you if that coupon is legit for that deal. It'll come up either something different or say it's invalid. My AP says we as cashiers can use those with our phone or myDevices as that's a tool given for that reason.
For examples of counterfeit, go to couponinformationcenter.com. The site is full of information including known counterfeit that manufacturers have turned into law enforcement. There's a list of PDF's there that will show you what many of these coupons look like and not to accept them- as they are real found counterfeit.
When we get counterfeit and our AP isn't on duty, I tell the guest that 'oh, we had these coupons come through earlier this week (or last week) and our security ran them through and they come back as invalid.' That generally shuts down the person who is sketchy to begin with and they flee. Or I take them into our hall, wait a few moments, then come back out and say I ran them but come back as invalid. (Our AP does the same). Of course we don't have a coupon scanning thing, but they believe it. I've had a couple others though that were given these by family or whatever, unassuming older people, so I'll do something extra special for them. After saying that and they have no clue what the heck I'm going on about, I'll be like- 'because they are invalid, I can't allow them BUT. I'll go ahead and force one through, but unfortunately I can't take any more." Then I have something shiny to give to my AP and somehow I tried to make it right
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