I want to make sure I understand this correctly, so this might be a bit rant-ish.

I have read through a number of posts that say a manager at "whatever" store has said it is stealing to redeem a coupon and walk out of the store paying little to no out of pocket. How can this be? A coupon is a form of payment, is it not? Time is money. If I spend time reviewing an ad, clipping and trading for coupons, and time loading my kids up in the car to drive to five stores a week to get the best deals, I am not getting something for free, just for no actual OOP.

Secondly, companies are not stupid. Proctor and Gamble knows that the price of Olay soap at WalMart is 2.XX, and with the coupon it is cheap. Walgreens knows that there is a coupon out there that will give us an overage if it is used in conjunction with a deal. Walgreens wants us in their store, getting the soap for free. Otherwise they would not have phrased it in the ad "FREE" after RR. They want us there so we think, "hey I need some milk" and we end up getting free soap, but buy another item or two that gives them some profit.

Finally, for everyone that has been told it is "illegal" to use a coupon to get an item free and their coupon has been price adjusted, wouldn't/ shouldn't it be illegal for the company to redeem this coupon with the manufacturer? If they are only letting me reedem a 1.00 q for .80, then turning around and getting 1.00 back when they redeem it, aren't they being fraudulant?

These are questions more than anything. I just want to know why there are people out there making things so difficult. On a side note, most of the cashiers and managers I run into seem genuinely excited for me when I save a lot, and I remember that. When I have to get something for which I don't have a coupon, I will gladly go to the store with the best customer service, even if it may not be the one with the best price.

I like it when people come into my store and get a great deal. I guess some people get some kind of pleasure from raining on other people's parades but I don't get it. I'd rather have a customer leave with a smile and come back later to spend money instead of giving them a hard time over nonsense and losing them.

EXCELLENT POINT!!!

I was the one that was told that it would be stealing if I tried to use a $3.00/1 Q on a $2.99 product by an asst. manager..I have never used my Qs in a way that was questionable and totally felt offended at the way that I was spoken too, and feel the same that I did nothing more than invest my time and $ to buying newspaper, trading for Qs, or purchasing Qs online and then spent a bunch of time looking at the ads to compare the prices and see where my Q makes the most sense to use or logging on here and seeing what others are getting and matching up my Qs to those deals..I was so offended because I am in this store daily and have never had a cashiers drawer come up short after taking my Qs...that I called corporate. Well yesterday, I got a call from the actual store manager and he apologized profusely and said that I shouldn't have been talked to that way and that he personally has helped me find my deals in the past and couldn't believe that they (asst mngr) had thought that I was somehow getting over on WAGS..needless to say he apologized, said he wanted me back in the store and looked forward to me "finding the good deals" he also said that if I found a good deal from WAGS that matched up w/an existing coupon that didn't mean I was doing anything wrong, just that I had done my homework...now I didn't think that I was doing anything wrong in the first place, since I had specifically grabbed the Visine Tears .5 oz that it stated on the Q, so he said that YES I could use the Q even if it meant that the store would essentially be giving me a $.01 overage!! I had initially told the asst. manager that I couldn't believe that they somehow thought that I had the power to decide which products would go on sale and then have the power to generate the printing of a Q for that same product..these companies print their ads at least 6 months in advance as well as the Qs, so they know exactly how much of a good deal we will be getting on these products, I just think that there needs to be a cohesive coupon policy across the board that applies to all stores and not have individual store managers or asst. mngrs make policies up as they go along!!

I totally agree with you.

Amen!!!

OMG staviles! I am so glad he called you! I agree, there needs to be an across the board policy.