coupons

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Groupon’s Excessive Emails Amount to Spam

For months, MrConsumer’s email box has been flooded with emails from Groupon.

Groupon sells discount certificates to various restaurants and local service establishments. I usually buy my twice-a-year oil changes through Groupon for my car repair shop. The price unfortunately has crept up, so I did not buy it from them in November for my December servicing.

That did not stop Groupon, or perhaps even encouraged it, to literally deluge me with emails — often multiple emails an hour for oil changes and more.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Here is a list of the emails that Groupon sent to me this past November alone — 209 of them, if you can believe it.

Hertz

Scroll down the list.

Sometimes they are minutes apart, and up to a dozen a day. And emails from Groupon in December was even worse — 313 in total!

Congress passed the CAN-SPAM law in 2003. Contrary to popular belief, it does not ban unsolicited commercial email (spam) or limit how much an advertiser can send you. What it does is set up various requirements including having to have a simple way for the recipient to opt-out of getting more such emails from that advertiser.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Groupon goes a step further and says they allow you to adjust how often you hear from them.

Groupon opt-out and adjust frequency

Great… but there is no such option when you click their link.

*MOUSE PRINT:

No way to adjust email frequency

I don’t want to opt-out altogether because I want to know of a great deal on oil changes at my repair shop or membership discounts at Costco, but I don’t want minute-to-minute updates.

So, we asked the PR folks at Groupon why they send so many emails a day to customers, and whether they honestly believe that up to a dozen emails a day is appropriate. We also wanted to know what happened to their promised option to reduce the frequency of emails.

The company’s customer service department responded, and in a moment of candor said:

We sincerely apologize for the volume of emails you have been receiving and for the frustration this has caused.

You are absolutely right that receiving numerous emails in a single day is not a positive customer experience. While we intend to share relevant offers, it is clear that in this case, our frequency did not align with your preferences, and we take responsibility for that.

We would like to inform you that you have the option to limit the number of emails you receive from us on a daily basis.

In fact, the option to limit the number of emails is an all or nothing option rather than providing the ability to select a number.

So to end Groupon’s seeming inability to sensibly limit the number of emails it sends to customers, I opted out on January 1.

This whole experience suggests that the federal law needs to be amended to ban excessive emailing to consumers. What do you think?

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Did Albertsons Make Digital Coupons Easier to Find and Use?

For the past two years, consumer groups including Consumer World have tried to sensitize leaders in the supermarket industry about the discriminatory effect of offering certain grocery deals only when using a digital coupon (see story). The issue is that many seniors and lower income folks don’t have cellphones or internet access. As such, they have been cut out of a major way to save on one’s grocery bill at a time of very high grocery prices.

In addition, digitally-savvy shoppers have complained that the digital coupon section of supermarket apps is hard to use because there are hundreds of coupons there thus making that week’s sale item coupons hard to find.

So, are stores doing anything to address these concerns?
 

Star Market and Shaw’s

MrConsumer got very excited recently when Star Market and Shaw’s in New England (owned by Albertsons) seemed to be offering an easy way to clip all that week’s digital coupons required to purchase advertised sale items with just one-click of the cellphone.

Star QR Code

And when he followed their instructions, this is a screenshot of what he saw:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Star QR error

We tracked down the firm that helps create functionality like this for companies. They claimed it worked after testing it around the country (but we suspect they did not follow the explicit instructions noted above to scan the QR code in the app where it absolutely did not work). But, when we contacted Albertsons, they admitted they goofed.

The QR code does not scan from within the 4U Rewards app. We recognize that the verbiage in the flyer needs to be clarified, and our team is making these updates for future circulars. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

They also indicated that all the QR code does is bring one to the coupon section of their app where “the customer can click on the deals that are most valuable for their shopping trip.” So contrary to the plain wording in their circular, the company did not create a simple way “to add all the digital offers” to one’s account.

 

Safeway

Albertsons owns many other supermarket chains including Safeway. For several years, they have utilized “clip or click” coupons but in only some of their locations. These allow non-tech-savvy shoppers to clip and use their digital coupons the old-fashioned way with scissors. Great! More chains should do that.

Safeway Clip or Click

But despite what some might assume, those with the Safeway app cannot simply scan the coupons they want to load them directly into their account. They have to visit the Safeway website or app, and sort through the hundreds of digital offers there to find and e-clip them individually.

In reply to an inquiry from us, Albertsons demonstrated that roundabout way one has to e-clip digital coupons to one’s account. We suggested they could make the system so much easier if they allowed coupons in the ad to be scanned directly into one’s account. They did not comment.

Shoppers at Safeway also cannot automatically “add all digital offers” from this ad to one’s account by scanning the master barcode in the upper right corner of the circular. As with Star and Shaw’s, all that code does when it works is take you to the coupon section of their website or app. Then you have to find the ones you want.

We continue to hope that supermarkets will make it easier for all shoppers, tech savvy or not, to save money by being able to buy digital-only sale items with less hassle. That day is coming at some chains… so stay tuned.

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Sneaky Ways Drugstore Reward Programs Limit Redemptions and Cost You Money – Part 2

Last week, we looked at the MyWalgreens reward program and demonstrated how their rules often force customers to pay additional money out of their own pocket despite having enough Walgreens funny money in their rewards account.

This week, it is CVS’ turn.

CVS – ExtraBucks

We’ve all gotten the CVS ExtraBucks slips that pop out of the register after making a purchase of a product that promises a particular bonus. For example, they may advertise “Buy brand X shampoo, and get $2 in ExtraBucks.” In a sense, it is a nasty tactic because you are not getting dollars off the item you are actually buying, but rather those dollars can only be applied to a subsequent purchase. And they expire rather quickly — usually in about three weeks.

CVS Extra Bucks

Let’s say that you have several individual ExtraBucks coupons in your possession — one for $1, one for $2, and one for $10. Now you want to buy a $7 item. While you can pay with the $10 coupon, you will lose $3 because the system does not give back change. On the other hand, if you use just the $1 and $2 coupon on that $7 item, you will still owe $4 in real money.

So even though you have a total of $13 in ExtraBucks, it is not like an account you can draw against to pay in full for anything you want up to your total balance.

We think that CVS should allow you to bank your ExtraBucks and simply let you drawn down your balance and apply whatever amount you like to your purchases.

When we posed this idea to CVS, the company said, “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to comment.”

Here’s an even better idea for CVS. How about dropping ExtraBucks entirely and simply reduce the sale price of the advertised item by the amount of the ExtraBucks that would otherwise be provided upon its purchase? Fat chance that will happen.

Feel free to talk about your experiences with CVS ExtraBucks in the comments.