Earlier today I read an article about fake coupon sites which are only after getting as much of your personal data so they can steal from you [later] if they can. It reminded me of a couple arrested for using fake coupons to buy pampers. Supposing someone gets coupons from a fake coupon site and in good faith tries to use them, would they get arrested, too?
I got a bad coupon once from a blog. Since the rest of my coupons were valid and from a well known site, the cashier just tore that one fake coupon up and didn't do anything to me. I would imagine that if you walked in with a whole stack of fake coupons, you could get in real trouble. Some people use $300 in coupons, so when you coupon at that level, fake coupons are not harmless. One Youtube coupon vlogger was banned for life from a store because they thought her coupons were fake.
I highly doubt they would get arrested. They would simply not honor the coupon and you'd have to pay full price. It really sucks that there are so many scammy sites out there that would do stuff like this.
Fake coupons are really big right now with the huge growth of couponers. Some couponers have the itch so bad that they'll do anything to get a coupon whether it be real or fake. What people don't realize is that they are being watched at the stores they coupon at. These stores know who and what coupons you use at any given time. I work for a retailer so I know this.
I think I get your point but I don't think the act of using a fake coupon in good faith would merit an arrest. That's like being arrested for buying something using a counterfeit money. Money that you didn't know to be counterfeit. There are a lot of fake coupon sites today and it's often easy to identify if a site is fake but a lot of people don't bother checking things out before making deals.
I doubt anyone would be arrested. I read that with the increase of shows on TV that involve huge amounts of coupons being used there are more fake coupons circulating the internet because people are trying to have massive hauls that mimic what they see on TV. I would bet a store would not honor the coupon, alert the buyer of the issue and maybe recommend not using that site again for coupons.
I am lucky because I haven't used any fake coupons. I think that the store will not really do anything bad to you if the amount is not that much. But, if you will use a lot of fake coupons, then that is a different story.
There are a lot of these kinds of sites. They are everywhere and if you're not really careful, you could be tricked. So it always pays to keep a double eye on every site, even those that at first glance already looks reliable. There are a lot of swindlers as always. It's everyone's duty to himself to protect himself from these swindlers.
