I copied this story exactly because it is so important . When I started sharing coupons on line I did not know that I could not just post a coupon for others to copy and shared them that way. I did this until my very dear friend stopped my by telling me I was breaking the law... and explained those little bar codes to me.
each coupon is identified by their unique code and if you photo copy them, they can be traced right back to you and it is against the law to copy them so DON'T DO IT!
How to Ruin Couponing For Others
By Bubba and Mack
One of my best bloggy friends out there got a very disturbing call today from a local Walmart store. As near as we can tell, the customers in question mentioned her site or her Facebook page, because how else did they know it was her site that gave the person the info for this coupon?? Apparently, the customer photocopied a coupon in order to receive more sample products with an overage. Now, we all love money makers, but this person stole more than just the overage!
You may not realize it if you’re new to couponing, but photocopying an internet printable coupon is considered theft! Most of these coupons have a little code on them that is unique to each print, so it’s easy to tell if it’s a photocopy or not. Want to raise your chances of getting caught? Use 20 of them! I can’t say for certain, but I would feel safe in assuming that every time you use a large number of printables, you’re flagging that cashier’s coupon stack for an audit. The managers are going to look and they will catch on!
So, if you want to make sure no one else can use printables anymore and that this awesome service goes away, by all means, keep running to the copy machine! But if you like being able to print coupons and use them, be happy with the two per computer that most services allow and be done with it!
