I had a reader ask me to do a post about this and it was a good reminder to share something that seems obvious, but may not be.
Here in the burg we are lucky because most store still take internet printable coupons. Many stores across the country have stopped taking this type of coupon because of fraud. About a month ago I was at Martin’s and had a few printed Buy One Get One Free coupons. They would not let me use them because they have been hit with a lot of fraud on BOGO coupons. They still allow other printable coupons, just not the BOGO.
So here’s the deal. It is ILLEGAL to make copies of coupons!!!! It is FRAUD! Each coupon prints with a unique barcode or number, so making a copy of a coupon is essentially like making a copy of a bill in your wallet.
Now, you can have more than one printable coupon for the same item. Almost every site allows you to print two coupons. Generally, if you hit the back button on your browser after printing, you can print a second coupon. This is not fraud because the second coupon will have a different number and generally they have it set to only allow two printings. Sites like coupons.com (the bar on the right of the page) allow two printings as well, and then it will tell you the limit has been reached. About two weeks later they will reset the coupons and you can print them again.
There are rare exceptions to this when a coupon is released as a PDF. Obviously, multiple copies of those can be printed. But even with those, please use in moderation because they will stop accepting them.
So if you have someone willing to let you print some at their house because they won’t use them, that is just fine. But, making copies of the coupons you have already printed is NOT OK!! Doing this ruins it for the rest of us because stores stop taking them.
