As sentiments about the economy continue to degrade, there is a mighty battle brewing. No, I’m not talking about fights over trillion dollar “stimulus” packages, bailouts, or tax cuts. The dispute I’m speaking of is on the surface over much smaller amounts. I’m talking about the battle between coupon shoppers and uncooperative retail store employees.

In this bleak economic environment, consumers are finding a new appreciation for frugality and couponing. However, seemingly more and more consumers are running into problems when they try to take advantage of the best deals, problems in the form of retail store employees and managers that seemingly take customers’ attempted thriftiness as a personal insult. Here are some of the problems coupons shoppers are reporting at several different stores:

• Misunderstanding of the “one coupon per purchase” clause stated on most manufacturer coupons. This clause is placed by the manufacturers to sure you use only one coupon on a single item, not to prohibit the redemption of multiple coupons for multiple items. Per most manufacturers’ coupon policies, a “purchase” is defined as a item, not an entire transaction. For instance, if you purchase four bottles of shampoo you are making four “purchases”, although you may be making these purchases in one transaction, and should be able to use four coupons.
• Refusal of internet printable coupons. Unfortunately some bad apples using copied or fraudulent coupons have led some store managers to refuse valid internet printable coupons, despite corporate policies to the contrary.
• Refusal of coupons for more than the price of the item. Sometimes if you find a really good sale, you can have the instance where the value of a valid coupon is more than the price of the corresponding item. Some retail employees and managers believe that they cannot take coupons in this instance, which is incorrect. The retailer will be reimbursed the stated value of the coupon regardless of the pre-coupon price charged to the consumer. For this reason, retailers should also not adjust the coupon down to the item price at the register, however this is common practice and is hard to argue against.
• Refusal of coupons because “it makes the item too cheap”. Anyone that has couponed has probably heard this one more than once, and subsequently wondered how the person that made the comment has enough brain cells to function in daily life. There is no rule against getting a good deal, and if the coupon didn’t make the item cheap you likely wouldn’t buy the item in the first place.
• Coupon shoppers generally more familiar with store policies than employees. More and more, coupon shoppers are having to explain proper store procedures to employees who have not been properly trained or are just trying to be difficult.

Consumers will likely run into these issues at pretty well any national retailer, but there is one that seems to get a lot of complaints these days: Walgreens. Yes, while CVS was long the darling of coupon shoppers to the point most CVS store employees are reasonably knowledgeable about and comfortable with coupons, Walgreens is relatively new in offering amazing deals with their “Rapid Rewards” program and thus far has poorly trained store employees and management alike in how the program works.

The basics of the program are pretty simple: if you buy a specified product or products, a coupon for a certain amount off your next purchase should print. The only rules around it are that you can only get one of each offer per transaction and if you use a particular RR coupon on a transaction, the system will not give you the same coupon on that transaction. The coupons are supposed to spend like cash, with the only restrictions being that you can’t use them to pay for certain items (gift cards, prescription copays, and a few others) and you can only use as many coupons as you have items (i.e., you can’t redeem five $5 coupons for a single $25 item). Unfortunately there have been so many issues with the program and employees’ misunderstanding of it that many couponers have given up on the program entirely as being too much hassle.

Here are some of the issues that have been encountered:

• Register Rewards coupons not printing. Herein lies the biggest weakness in the Register Rewards program. While the CVS Extra Bucks program is fully integrated into their register system with earned coupons printing directly on the receipt, the Walgreens program depends on an add-on system run by Catalina Marketing and the coupons print from a second printer at the checkout. There are several reasons a coupon won’t print, most of which are errors on the part of the store:
  • Failing to have the coupon printers on and functional. Sometimes the printers just don’t work right and the store will turn off malfunctioning printers rather than fixing them. Additionally, many stores are negligent about replacing printer paper or ink when necessary.
  • Promotions coded incorrectly in the system. There are often several varieties of the products included in a promotion, and occasionally not all of the valid UPC codes will be programmed into the system to generate the advertised Register Reward coupon.
  • Manipulation of the system by stores to prevent coupons from being printed if any other coupon is used(rumored). This one has not been confirmed, but many couponers believe that some especially unfriendly stores have somehow manipuled their systems to not print Register Reward coupons when another coupon is used. This type of manipulation is fully contrary to Walgreen’s policy and has not been proven as fact.
• Cashiers and/or managers making up phony reasons why the Register Reward coupon didn’t print. For the reasons noted above, Register Reward coupons sometimes don’t print, and rather than admit it was a system failure they make up reasons why it didn’t print. For the record, the manager should either issue you a gift card for the amount of the RR that didn’t print, or re-ring the transaction from another register to make the RR print. A favorite phony excuse is “you can’t get a RR if you used coupons”, which absolutely is not true.
• Cashiers and/or managers refusing to give the customer the Register Reward coupon that printed. Some store employees and managers are taking it upon themselves to decide that customers who have fulfilled the terms of the promotion by buying the specified products are not deserving of the Register Reward coupons because they didn’t pay enough for the item. Again, there is no rule against getting good deals. If you purchased the item you are entitled to the coupon, regardless of whether you used another coupon to make it cheaper.
• Cashiers and/or managers imposing artificial limits on the redemption of Register Rewards coupons. Just because you got your coupon doesn’t mean the battle is necessarily over. Many managers are making up their own rules about the redemption of Register Rewards coupons contrary to official corporate policy, most commonly limiting customers to the redemption of only one Register Rewards coupon per visit. Some have also tried to prohibit the use of Register Reward coupons for items that will generate another Register Rewards coupon. The redemption rules on these are pretty simple: the coupon is valid until the date specified on your next transaction over the amount of the coupon, and you are only limited in the number of coupons you can redeem by the number of items and other manufacturer coupons you have in your order (one RR or manufacturer coupon per item).

Why does Walgreens seem to have so many problems? Well, besides their program not being as well designed as that of CVS, employee training seems to be a huge issue. Their program is newer than the CVS program, so employees have less experience with it. Likewise, Walgreens is seeing many more couponers than they used to, so they aren’t as familiar or comfortable with proper coupon usage policies. It doesn’t seem like there is any formalized training for employees on the program, as most employees seem to regard the coupons spit out by the printer as seemingly random, and even managers seem to have a lot of misconceptions about exactly what triggers the coupons and how the program works. There is also a general bias many retail employees have against couponers, either because of the addition effort required to scan the coupons or the misconception that you are somehow stealing from the store by using coupons (retailers are reimbursed for the full value of all valid coupons redeemed, plus a small handling fee). Add to that a decentralized customer service system that often routes a complaint directly back to the offending store or district rather than the corporate office, and you have a recipe for inaction on consumer complaints and scores of pissed off consumers.

Many of the consumers have decided enough is enough, and have started a thread on SlickDeals to encourage consumers to go after stores and employees that unjustly make life difficult for coupon shoppers. There are many suggestions on what to do, and I have my own thoughts that I will share in another post.  In the mean time, coupon shoppers unite and don’t take crap from anyone!