The Beginning of the End of Buying & Selling Coupons Online??

I felt the hysteria this morning.....couponers panicking over deleted Facebook Couponing pages, disappearing before their own eyes! It's like their lifeline to savings; their options to save had just diminished substantially. Buying and selling coupons is a gray area, an area that everyone should be aware of the pros and cons of this controversial issue. There are two sides of the story and it's important that everyone is aware of them.

Do couponer truly realize the real reason(s) of why there's a mass elimination of the sales of coupons? Is it a question of where the large amount inserts are coming from or a question of the transferability or "void if sold" clause written on the coupons?  Does anyone question where these coupons came from or understand the fine print on the coupons?  Ebay changed their auction policies on selling coupons on their site so is Facebook taking charge too?  Based on Tiffany Ivonovsky, from TLC's Extreme Couponing show, she said this was going to happen sooner or later and by the looks of it, way sooner than we think! I had chatted with her a few minutes, after the Extreme Couponing Workshop yesterday, to discuss insert/coupon sales and she said that she discourages it. Even though the show highlighted the mass amount of coupons used, she said that she doesn't extreme coupon as much due to stores and coupons posting limits and now she focuses on what she reasonably needs, not a insurmountable stockpile from floor to ceiling.

Where do the inserts come from? Well, in most cases, inserts are collected in an unethical manner and considered stolen property. Most of them come from people who work for the newspaper company. Since the companies receive the inserts about a month before they are placed in the papers,  paper deliverers take them and sell them. Even when a few days before the inserts are featured in the papers, the paper vendors can pick up their papers to prep for the deliveries, they sell them in bundles to certain couponers. This is not in the paper vendors' contract. They are not allowed to remove papers from the premises without permission (companies are not going to allow vendors to take any, let alone sell them!) nor are they allowed to sell bundles to specific people. Their contract states that they are to sell papers, NOT inserts, to the general public so that everyone has an equal chance to buy them.

Another way people obtain inserts is from stealing from the paper machines, putting coins in for 1 paper and end up taking all of the papers. Again, stolen property.

Tiffany also mentioned that in Houston, they are cracking down on this. They are doing away with the La Voz paper due to severe abuse of inserts being sold. The La Voz was offering a perk by having inserts but now, they are eliminating the paper and the inserts altogether.  

Please note that participating in sales of stolen property could lead to arrests.

There are ways to obtain inserts ethically and it has been done this way. You can ask the following establishments after the Sunday the inserts are premiered:  retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, libraries, stores (if they don't have to send them back.) and apartment complexes.

Check out the Coupon Information Center website. This is a great website to offer insight on coupon sales.

 

Now, let's talk about the fine print......

Almost all coupons state in the fine print that "void if transferred, sold, auctioned, reproduced or altered from original". How would the companies know if they were transferred? Does that mean we cannot trade coupons at the coupon swaps? Most sellers that sell coupons state that they are charging for their time to find, clip and for gas to mail the coupons to make it appear that the coupons are free.

So is eBay and Facebook  helping these manufacturer companies curb the sales of coupons? Do you feel that coupons/manufacturers have a legal standing on their fine print? Personally, I say no but I do foresee a lot more changes for eBay, Facebook and even the newspaper companies.

Now that you know both sides of the story, I advise you all to make the decisions that is in the best interest of you and your family. Partaking in buying/selling inserts means you accept responsibility if the transaction is compromised. You have to decide if it's the risk worth taking.