Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Ebay Coupon Policy Change (Update) & Proof P&G Is Part of the Reason

Good morning fellow couponers and consumers. If you have stumbled upon this, thank you for taking the time to read. We have some follow up to Reality Couponing and Retail's post regarding who's to blame for the eBay coupon policy changes that were supposed to take effect on 12:00:00 AM PST on 9/1/2013 regarding the sale of coupons. We here saw a post on "Coupons in the News" and decided to jump on that to correct some common misinformation regarding the legality of selling coupons and to offer coupon buyers a new forum to get deals on, webstore.com, while eBay sorts this all out. Because as of 9/4/2013 at 11:00 AM CST, clearly it is not sorted out:


Still over 50,000 listings and more coming in as fast as they are ending. Still Free item coupons, still BOGOS, still bulk coupon and insert sales, still fake coupons listed en masse in excess of the montly $100 limit. Sellers still ramping up 20 lots of 20 coupons shamelessly, in clear violation of the 25 a month rule. Basically everything that went on before is still going on now. Except there are 20-30,000 less listings.
We suspect those aren't there anymore because the people that are actually complying with the policy changes removed theirs prior to the 9/1/13 drop dead date. What to do? Reality Retail and Couponing will contact eBay this afternoon to get some answers. If they aren't going to enforce it, well golly gee willikers I will let you all know so that we can go back to making money. Stay tuned.

Now back to who's to blame. In our previous post we singled out P&G as the #1 reason why this change has taken effect (or at least is supposed to.) Rumors must be valid of them (and the other coupon mfrs and distributors) filing that multimillion dollar lawsuit against eBay for allowing the sale of coupons. Why do you ask? Well, here's some proof from the latest batch of 9/30/2013 expiring coupons that P&G wants it gone once and for all :


The first portion states "VOID if transferred, sold, auctioned..." Auctioned? Oh my friend where else are you going to sell these at "auction" other than eBay or the handful of other coupon friendly websites out there? Surely you are not going to sell them at an auction house or estate sale. This is direct proof that P&G is involved and has knowledge of coupons being "Auctioned." By the millions. And the kicker is the 2nd circled portion below that states "No cash or credit in excess of shelf price may be returned to consumer or applied to transaction." Where did most people find out about this? Extreme Couponing! 

So to the "self boasting" club who says that manufacturer's have a right to do whatever they want with their coupons and cry about ethics, what do you say about that last portion? Because the way I see it, P&G is telling the supermarkets and stores what to do with their money and store policies. The simple translation is if we see a Cover Girl item on clearance and it's the classic $1 off any Covergirl product coupon in say Wal Mart priced at 88 cents, they can't give you the money back of 12 cents or apply it to another portion of your transaction (which is Wal Mart Coupon Policy)  because "P&G says so." Does this seem right and ethical to you? Grant it, that portion of the coupon will probably get read and enforced by less than 1% of every one redeemed at best, but still, it is the awareness and thought process behind it that reinforces our claim that P&G is the #1 reason behind the eBay coupon policy change that was supposed to take effect on 9/1/13.

Their rationale? If someone can go to Wal Mart and redeem this coupon and get any portion of the difference back, then it's another P&G coupon being redeemed, hence another dollar being taken out of their coffers. Another dollar less toward marketing research aimed to gouge the consumer. Another dollar less toward their million dollar CEO Christmas bonus. Do you get a Christmas bonus? Another dollar less for travel for "Marketing Conferences", another dollar less for their paid vacations. Another dollar less for their Cadillac Health Insurance plans. How many of you actually can afford health insurance?

But all P&G cares about is well, another dollar out of your pocket. Case closed.

Stay tuned for future updates. And yes, we here at Reality Couponing and Retail think it's cool to refer to ourselves in the third party too. Seems to be the "in" thing on internet forums, blogs and coupon websites.

*Update* We spoke to an eBay rep named "Nathan" this afternoon at 12:30PM CST. He stated that the policy wasn't actually in effect until 9/3/2013 due to the holiday and that action will begin to be taken against those non compliant. "Give it some time and we will catch them." Hope so. What's fair is fair. Thank you for reading!

*Update* Down to 34,000 as of 9/11/2013 at 4:08PM CST. Keep reporting, It will drive customers to other sites where we all can benefit. Especially webstore.com.


No comments:

Post a Comment