UPDATE: I wish I hit publish on this post last night instead of accidentally hitting the draft button. But Moms Need to Know took my tip/story and spelled it out so much better than I did (getting to her level is an aspiration of this blog). With so many great, easy, and legit ways to save money and stretch your money out, "tips" like that are unnecessary.
So I apologize in advance for getting a little preachy. Last week's Sunday Morning Call had its weekly Cheapskate column, this time advocating confusing, distracting, and deceiving fast food workers in an effort to avoid having to surrender a coupon. This is essentially coupon fraud, because while some places may not need to collect coupons, many places need to submit them for reimbursement to cover the cost of the promotion. This now only hurts the business owner/franchisee, but it also paints coupon users in a bad light as sneaky or trying to "pull one over" on cashiers. If you're doing everything honestly and using everything correctly, it can still become a complex and confusing transaction without the cashier worrying that you're trying to get away with something.
In this Sunday's edition, they acknowledges some backlash (there were two letters to the editor published) but stops short of acknowledging being wrong. there is a poll on the website for the followup article from today asking "Is it unethical to only give a drive-thru restaurant cashier your coupon if asked for it after you already get the discount?" I was hoping you and any other couponers you might know might be interested in voting in the poll to help show that the majority of couponers are honest people, and try to push the columnist and paper to retract the original story.
Ok, off the soapbox on one with the show...
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