Some voucher users branded thieves by industry body

jenniewb

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Not webpages (that would be fairly pointless to instore shoppers). But believe us old-hand couponers, there are instore 'pages' (training manuals and policy books behind the CS desk) with this written down. It IS the policy in Tesco and Waitrose to accept some coupons without having to buy the right product. Only instore in Tesco and Waitrose.

LIke many coupon-users I have the Tesco policy in writing plus 3 emails re-stating the Tesco policy (one from 2007, one from 2008 and one from 2009). I have also seen a copy of Waitrose policy on this subject and had it smilingly confirmed at the till there lots of times.

Both policies clearly state that customers can use certain manufacturers' coupons even if they have not bought the products. Some stores have restrictions on the % you can use, but other stores allow one of each coupon, any amount in total.

Of course this is NOT something Tesco or Waitrose are going to put up on a sign instore, it's been policy for years but they are hardly going to broadcast it. The internet broadcasts it more than enough already! There's no need for it to be on a webpage as manufacturers coupons can only be used this way by instore shoppers, not online ones.

Thank you for your clear description and coherent answer- (and thanks for not making strange assumptions about me!!:o) Can see that all Tesco stores are not equal! (Mine does not allow coupon use without said product being bought first!)

chardir

So the shopper presents a coupon for a different product, the retailer accepts. No problem there. Then the retailer invoices the manufacturer for a rebate on a product it didn't sell.

Looks to me like it's the retailer that's committing fraud.

Coupon-mad

jenniewb wrote: »

Thank you for your clear description and coherent answer- (and thanks for not making strange assumptions about me!!:o) Can see that all Tesco stores are not equal! (Mine does not allow coupon use without said product being bought first!)[/QUOTE]



Nor did one of my local Tesco stores until I dragged them kicking and screaming towards the shocking (for them) realisation that there IS a national policy on coupons.

I had good reasons to put my foot down and even wrote to the Store Manager - but it was not something to be entered into without very thick skin. In my case I knew the policy, used legit in date coupons, but still got certain staff being horrendously rude to me, marching me to the CS desk to explain myself to various 12-year old Managers, etc. Fed up with this treatment, and happy to defect to Waitrose if need be (although my local W store allow less coupons than Tesco do) I decided to face the issue head on with that Store Manager, who had no idea of the issue or the terrible treatment I had suffered. In my case it worked.:D

I can understand why others may prefer not to put themselves in that position, it wasn't easy and I only pushed it as it had reached a 'make or break' situation. The other local store are/were always fine about coupons, as were Waitrose.

Dr.Who-Who

QUOTE by jenniewb:-

Lol- love this- my mindset is that of a 'rich person'- am cutting myself above average then as I am so poor, I am still saving for a banking order (mini- bankrupcy) after losing my job last year (I could not afford to live on the reduced wages- reduced as of the recession, of £120 a week in London) so I now work voluntarily whilst going to college to get my skill up. There are nights I cannot afford to eat. So sorry to hear that.

So trust me, using coupons would infact benefit me alot. - Maybe you should think of moving out of London - quite a snobbish area ain't it! :rotfl:

Things is I can't, even if I did want to, every time I use a coupon I get asked to "show the item" on the coupon. Typical London T Metro type! being there, done it don't like it.

Am not suggesting anyone agree with me, :rotfl::rotfl:

Am not judging anyone for not agreeing with me, its just a difference on what I believe is OK. :beer:

And don't think you need to be filthy rich to think like that. oh.. I dont know about that - me keep buying lotto (rubbish - not even £10 winning) to be filthy rich every single week :rotfl:

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Nor did one of my local Tesco stores until I dragged them kicking and screaming towards the shocking (for them) realisation that there IS a national policy on coupons.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

moggylover

chardir wrote: »

So the shopper presents a coupon for a different product, the retailer accepts. No problem there. Then the retailer invoices the manufacturer for a rebate on a product it didn't sell.

Looks to me like it's the retailer that's committing fraud.

Except that it isn't: because they will have sold many of those particular products and the majority of the people who have bought will not have used the coupons. The shops sell the products on behalf of the manufacturers and the larger supermarkets shift vast quantities for them. The fact is that they probably sell much larger quantities of the product than they accept coupons and thus the manufacturer (for all their whining) does not loose out:D.

Personally, I would prefer them to just reduce the price on an item for a period rather than print and distribute coupons because I often forget to use them (:o) and think that in the main they are a, not particularly honest, marketing ploy that banks on the fact that many people will buy a product because they have "x" amount off on the coupon and then forget to use said coupon:D.

Broken_hearted

We satick to around 10% in vouchers. Not a lot each time but over time it mounts up helping us pay off debt elsewhere and feed the children. Tesco chooses to accept this as a perk of shopping there. If they stopped we would simply buy more food elsewhere.

Tibbs,The_Freebie_Hunter

The only thing good about this article was Martin's reply. The rest was just scaremongering by the ISP - trying to blame the consumer and even MSE when, in actual fact, the retailer is the real problem for slyly introducing these policies in the back door in the first place. Then the manufacturer cries when millions of us MSE'rs get involved. We are a new breed of consumer - savvy. We are here to stay, and they will just have to like it. Confusing a savvy consumer with those who print fraudulently shows the ignorance of the ISP. They are just grasping at straws, and doing so in the dark (think shrooms and manure - pheweee). You show me one place where this site informs you how to print vouchers fraudulently. It doesn't. Full stop.

The article noted that:

"In [all the] above cases, retailers often invoice the manufacturer even where it has accepted an expired voucher or one for the wrong product."

Then it is the retailers who are in the wrong for having a policy for accepting a voucher when you have not bought the product (the retailers are deceiving the manufacturer, not the consumer). It clearly states on the manufacturer’s coupon that you must buy that particular product, yet retailers have been quite happily accepting these coupons for years – well before the existence of the MSE website.

If the retailer sends for payment of an expired coupon when one of their cashiers is at fault (even self-scan checkouts ask the SA to authorise the transaction), then more fool the manufacturer to accept that as a valid voucher. It should be the retailer who accepts this loss, and need to retrain their staff to check the date. This is usually one of the first checks they do. Please note that the ISP didn’t mention which manufacturer paid out for an expired coupon, or if in fact any have done – which I very much doubt.

Once an SA accepts a coupon, then transaction completed both legally and above board – end of argument. Have you heard of any consumer holding a staff member at gun point, crying out to accept my 20p coupon or else!!!!

I have not yet seen an article where a consumer is boasting profits of so many billions - yet retailers do.

Retailers are able to claim a "handling fee" in addition to recouping the full retail cost of the item (often above the actual price of the item being sold). Now if the article is on promotion (e.g. 1/2 price), I expect the retailer will still claim maximum amount, thereby making a hefty profit (after considering they buy at cost and in bulk, etc), and perhaps explaining their billions of profit in addition to that obtained by their over-inflated prices.

The article also stated that:

“The ISP is currently seeking legal advice to determine whether it can prevent retailers, such as supermarkets, accepting illegitimate vouchers.”

Note – not the consumers.

The customer is king, the coupon hunter is queen. No manufacturer would slate a customer like this. If they did, tactical voting to another brand would mean that they would go out of business in a flash. Let’s hear the manufacturer names that are objecting – bet we won’t. They used a for instance cop-out instead. Rather than manufacturers hide behind the ISP, come out from behind them and let yourself be heard. Remember to give specific examples and dates, and I’ll bet the retailer is to blame most of the time.

The manufacturer needs the retailer, and they both ultimately need the consumer. Without the consumer, neither would exist, and competitors would come along like predators waiting for the kill.

Survival of the fittest. Let the battle commence. Them against the new breed savvy consumer who votes with their feet and their coupons.

I’m sure they would accept us paying full price – over above what an item’s actually worth and over-inflated at that. If you over-inflate a dingy, it would eventually burst, and then my dears you swim with the sharks. Don’t complain to us when you get bitten. You have been warned. Remember to take a note of the specifics: dates, etc. Legally, you haven’t got a hope in hell. Rein in the retailer, then perhaps you might.

Only the retailer’s policies doth the monster maketh.

taxiphil

moggylover wrote: »

Except that it isn't: because they will have sold many of those particular products and the majority of the people who have bought will not have used the coupons. The shops sell the products on behalf of the manufacturers and the larger supermarkets shift vast quantities for them. The fact is that they probably sell much larger quantities of the product than they accept coupons and thus the manufacturer (for all their whining) does not loose out:D.

No, the situation isn't as simple as that. The whole reason that vouchers are printed by manufacturers is as an incentive designed to increase sales on new products, and encourage brand migration from customers of rival brands. They're not printed simply as "free money" in a fit of generosity by the manufacturer. If Tesco presents a million 10p off coupons to Heinz, when Tesco have let customers use them against any item in the store, Heinz will be £100k down and won't have seen any increase in sales. But if Tesco had only allowed people to use the coupon against the specified product, there would be an increase in sales, both an immediate one and a longer-term one caused by consumers discovering the new product and becoming loyal to it.

As chardir and Martin Lewis have correctly said, the actual fraud is being committed by Tesco against the manufacturer. When the customer enters into a contract at the till, they could hand over absolutely anything as payment - a blank piece of paper or a rusty old pram - and if Tesco choose to accept it, no wrongdoing has occurred on the customer's part.

The wrongdoing happens when Tesco presents the coupons to the manufacturers for reimbursement with the express or implied assurance that the customer bought the product.

It's not good enough for Tesco to say, "ah but we sold plenty of these products to other people who didn't use vouchers, so that cancels it out", because obviously these other people were going to buy the product anyway, so they were not part of the target audience of the voucher and hence there was no increase in sales generated by the voucher.

dave2

If a supermarket accepts a coupon, they accept the coupon. It is ludicrous to imply a customer is a criminal if the supermarket in full knowledge agrees to accepting the coupon.

I don't know any shop that will accept a coupon without ensuring it is being applied against the intended product. Supermarkets do this through the EPOS - coupons are scanned in. If they choose to override that that is THEIR action, there is absolutely nothing negative on the consumer here.

If a supermarket accepts coupons for a product and the manufacturer is covering that discount, then if the supermarket knowingly or negligently applies that discount when product is not purchased then that is fraud committed by the supermarket. Of course, the supermarket could instead be applying the value of the discount to the consumer but then not redeeming the coupon to the manufacturer, which would be perfectly acceptable.

Coupon-mad

dave2 wrote: »

I don't know any shop that will accept a coupon without ensuring it is being applied against the intended product. Supermarkets do this through the EPOS - coupons are scanned in. If they choose to override that that is THEIR action, there is absolutely nothing negative on the consumer here.

Don't you? Have you no Tesco or Waitrose stores near you at all then?:D:confused:

BTW there is nothing to 'override' as manufacturers' coupons will scan anyway in the majority of cases. In fact it is very unusual to find coupons which have been set in the till only to work if the customer buys the right product. Out of the main Supermarkets I can only think of Tesco as having such a system (they only use it for their own logo coupons, and sometimes to block repeatedly unacceptable coupons).

Waitrose don't have such a till system and they even accept their own logo coupons (such as the ones in the Waitys magazine) against anything. That's officially part of their coupon policy and goes even further than Tesco policy does.

They do all redeem all of their coupons if they can. The stores' cash office send the coupons off to a central coupon redemption point.