Money off coupon 'chat' thread

[Deleted User]

Freebie_Freak wrote: »

Do you know how long Waitrose has the BOGOF offer on please? My Waitrose is a bit out of my way. Thanks.

Hi, no sorry i dont, check their website, or My supermarket.

dasophster

Just been to a major branch of Waitrose. They said just today new guidelines have been issued and they are no longer accepting any coupons except official manufacturer ones that they send in response to complaint letters etc; ones out of the waitrose weekend and JL gift vouchers. Both the customer service manager and the manager of the whole store confirmed this and they had a print out from HO confirming it as well. I thought 'yeah right' as they always say stuff like this and how convenient they were only told this today, but I contacted their head office and the girl on the phone spoke to the big cheese manager in charge of coupons and vouchers and he confirmed this is true. They have specifcially said they won't be accepting 'safe' coupons anymore as the people in their own clearing house just don't want to try and redeem them with valassis or the manufacturers anymore, because they have had so many fakes. Gutted I couldn't use the cushelle coupons or the plenty ones I hope people who bought fake coupons from ebay etc were satisfied. They are going to be sending me gift vouchers but still, it sucks. To top it off the official shell club vouchers for waitrose don't even scan so they couldn't take that either, they are sending me an SAE so I can send it to head office and they can see whats up with those :mad: xx

ETA: just last week the same store and staff were accepting the safe coupons as the letter they had from HO at the time did say certain ones were ok but it is literally just today they have been told no I told them put a sign up in the store then as it isn't fair on customers unless they publicise it

[Deleted User]

I posted my first reply but it didnt go through. Waitrose should be taking the cushelle vouchers as they are manufacturers vouchers. When mine went through she didnt have to manually put in the price, she just scanned it and it came out as the price on the shelf. I think the supermarkets just change the goal posts to suit themselves. Ive never used any other vouchers in there as i only went there as the toilet rolls were BOGOF.

dasophster

They said they are not taking them and this was head office (not a customer service call centre like other shops have) they said the only manufacturer's coupons they will be taking are those from complaints and compliment letters and not Internet printables. They said they know they aren't fake but their own clearing service at head office is refusing to process them anymore. Yes they should take them but the fact is they aren't. The lady on the phone was surprised too and thought it must be the staff in the store misunderstanding, so she went to a lot of effort to go and speak to the head honcho in charge of coupon and voucher redemption in their head office and confirmed that what the store said they were told was correct. They did also have an email from head office that they showed me but not in full as for some reason they aren't allowed to show customers examples of fake coupons and the email had these in it xx

dasophster

ImDoingItForMe wrote: »

I posted my first reply but it didnt go through. Waitrose should be taking the cushelle vouchers as they are manufacturers vouchers. When mine went through she didnt have to manually put in the price, she just scanned it and it came out as the price on the shelf. I think the supermarkets just change the goal posts to suit themselves. Ive never used any other vouchers in there as i only went there as the toilet rolls were BOGOF.

I've used coupons in there loads of times, PDFs, safe coupons and also manufacturer coupons from competitions etc. Previously they were the most accepting shop when it came to coupons, you never got asked if they were fake etc. Never had any problem even when I had enough legit coupons to get over £30 of items for free. Apparently though over Christmas they seemed to have been targeted by organised fraudsters by the sound of it, they were using fake high value manufacturer coupons and even fake JL gift vouchers. Last time I used coupons in there last week they did eventually put them through but they had to check with this big list of fakes they had and it took about half an hour. Afterwards I went to Mr S and though they have this annoying thing where you can only use one of each coupon in a transaction I at least managed to get rice dream and tropical sun BBQ seasoning. Have now contacted Mr W customer services on twitter and they have said the same thing and that they are passing on my suggestion to put signs up in their stores not sure if they will do this though xx

redagila

ImDoingItForMe wrote: »

I managed to get 2 packs of Linen Fresh for £0 (the coupon was put through at the full price they were charging) :j

The Cushelle voucher is not valid against the Linen Fresh rolls.

Having said that I also had it accepted last week before I realised that it was only for the standard rolls.

redagila

dasophster wrote: »

I've used coupons in there loads of times, PDFs, safe coupons and also manufacturer coupons from competitions etc. Previously they were the most accepting shop when it came to coupons, you never got asked if they were fake etc. xx

I used a couple of Huggies coupons today without any query although recently I too have had them check the list of coupons which are no longer accepted.

Wonder how long it will be before there will be no coupons:eek:accepted.

dasophster

Were they Internet coupons or the ones you get through the post? It seems they are still going to accept through the post coupons usually you get in response to a comment or complaint but also the ones sent with samples etc, but not any printed coupons especially not the 'safe' ones I presume this would also apply to when you cannot print the safe coupons for whatever reason and coupons.com send you a colour printed version on official paper. I know Sainsbury's were moving towards the same about a year ago but some big companies had words with them and I've had no bother using coupons in there since though they do have a one per transaction limit on the safe coupons if they are for the same product. Tesco I've never had any problems. I am worried though one day they won't accept any coupons at all even ones sent by companies through the post xx

redagila

Dasophster
The Huggies coupons were the cardboard ones from the nappy starter packs so wouldn't really expect any problem with them.

I agree that Waitrose were fantastic in the past but you can't blame them refusing coupons if they have been hit badly by fraudsters.

I think all the big stores have been targeted by fraudsters in the past and have tightened up their criteria for a while but it does seem to have relaxed over time. Hopefully this wil be the same with Waitrose but my feeling is that the supermarkets will move towards not accepting coupons. It happened when Tesco stopped taking coupons like cash and the others followed suit in time. Although they receive an extra payment for handling coupons I am sure it would save a lot of staff hours if they didn't have to process them.

We can only wait and see what develops but the stores need to be upfront about their policy so that we all know what we can use.

dasophster

I don't blame them at all I'm really angry at all those dodgy eBay sellers etc really, the woman on the till last time when they only just accepted my coupons said that there are now people making completely fake coupons from scratch putting barcodes from other coupons and vouchers onto something else using painting software and that over Christmas they were just that busy that they just didn't have a chance to check all the coupons and vouchers people were coming with. They must've been really run off their feet not to have noticed the JL vouchers were fakes because they have several security features on them which I would think would be hard to replicate.

It's just a bit annoying though to have used ink and paper with specific offers in mind and then I can't use those coupons as intended. They also were very taken aback when I said to them I wasn't buying anything then and asked them politely to put the shopping back, although I did have my card on me I brought out a small amount of cash specifically and it wasn't enough to cover the £8.50 extra that everything would have cost (the shell voucher that wouldn't scan was £4.50). I'm going to contact shell as well because their voucher completely wouldn't scan in Waitrose and looking at it, it seems to have this weird type of barcode that works in shell garages as my OH has used the other points vouchers they send you for use in shell absolutely no problem but maybe waitrose has a completely different till software and shell aren't taking this into account. Also the waitrose staff including the manager were completely unaware of any partnership with shell or that shell club members could opt to get waitrose vouchers as a reward which really surprised me xx