If you scan it at the self checkout and don’t put it in the slot, how on earth do I get paid? Now that’s unethical.

We accept legitimate coupons, and the manufacturer will not pay us sometimes. Because we are a small independent retailer, we have no leverage over these big conglomerates. If you cheating on coupons, it’s the retailer that’s going to pay.

In the end, if you obtained the coupon through honest sources and using it as intended, there is no ethical problem. But please, just because you got it from the internet doesn’t make it a real coupon.

I find this to be an unethical practice – keeping the policy ‘secret’ until AFTER you’ve run your groceries through. I wish I could have walked out without finishing my transaction, but I needed those groceries. All the same, I feel tricked into spending my $60 in their store under the guise that I could use my measly $2.05 in coupons.

I am definitely going to call corporate today. Guilty until proven innocent seems to be their policy. No more ‘customer is king’.

If stores would give a blanket discount on a purchase, ie $5 off a $25 purchase, that would be a coupon I could use. Until then, I’m buying generic flour to make my own bread and cinnamon rolls and pizza dough, and I’ve got 10 years’ of toothpaste stored up from the double coupon days. If Reader Jon determines that store policy is to accept internet coupons he should in good conscience use them, but I hope the coupons are, in fact, worth his time and effort.

being frugal about my time and my emotions tells me to avoid these coupons all together!

Am I on the right planet?

Instead, some supermarkets allow to add deals to their rewards cards.

If the coupons are legitimate, and the machines accept them, the shopper is doing nothing wrong.

For example, a few months ago, there was a legitimate Target printable coupon for $5 off a $25 TOY purchase. Some jerk(s) altered the coupon to eliminate the TOY part and made it just any $25 purchase. So Target’s corporate offices decided not to accept either coupon, and stores put up signs to that effect. But there were SO many cashiers who refused to accept ANY printable coupon, and even some managers didn’t understand the difference.

It’s been better, though I’ve taken to printing Target’s own coupons out in the store rather than at home (saves money on printing costs anyway). They come out on slick blue paper so there’s no question that I obtained the coupon legitimately. But even so, every once in a while I get a cashier who starts to mumble they can’t accept printables and I have to explain their own employer’s policy to them.

All of which brings me to my point about Super Fresh: The ethical thing to do is find out the official coupon policy and follow it. I would both contact the store manager and email the corporate offices to find out what the official corporate policy is and try to get it in writing. Because Super Fresh has printable coupons on their own web site (I just printed some a couple of days ago), I suspect the cashier was wrong. If that’s the case, by all means use the self checkout, and whip out the written policy if confronted. And of course, only use coupons legitimately.