TLC's Extreme Couponing or Extreme Fraud?

Yesterday, we dissected the concept behind the show and all the flaws that it had (it’s impractical, it doesn’t actually teach you how to do the couponing, it sheds a bad light on couponers and makes us all look like hoarders, etc…)

I also mentioned a case of outright coupon fraud on last week’s new episode.

Lauren at Luxury Living, Frugal Style has been doing some research on this particular segment of the last week’s show and the “bloggers” featured on it.

I wish TLC had done their homework before selecting people, like Jaime Kirlew, who has shown that their coupon ethics and usage of coupons, is not always ethical or legal, there have been many blogs posting about this person. Using coupons on products that they are not intended for is FRAUD and STEALING! In my opinion by having this person on the show, TLC is saying that unethical coupon usage, fraud and stealing are acceptable!

There are plenty of posts that have been written with a lot of time invested in them showing that fraud was done on national TV. Here are the 2 that I think show all the proof needed:

Proof of Using coupons on the wrong products
Another Article about the Coupon Fraud

Another thing that really upsets me about this, is that some of the people on the show magically had blogs as well, what upsets me about that is that some of them their archives start in MARCH! For some people they may not understand about Alexa ranking, it is a ranking tool used to rank a website. The closer you are to #1 (which is google and facebook is #2 and Luxury Living Frugal Style is currently 143,117 – just so you have an idea of the numbers that I will be posting and what they mean ) the more traffic the site has. Websites (including us) work VERY hard to bring in traffic, gain readers and followers and its not like a 1 day BAM! people have found me process. However these extreme couponers, I went to check out their blogs before the show aired, and here is what I found: (please remember these are MY opinions)

Jessica – has a blog called Living On A Coupon and there is no archives to be found. Her Alexa ranking went from over 16 Million to just over 4 Million with in a few days of the show airing. So basically this blog was made as a way for TLC to have another link to their website and show.

Jaime – has a blog called Extreme Coupon Diva which is not her first blog, she had another one that she stopped using, but the posts on that one only start on March 7, 2011 but then on March 16, 2011 she changed her blog to the new one. Which I think is a bit weird personally, because mine changed names when I changed my domain to my own .com and my old blog (midgetmomma1200budget.blogspot.com) i set up to be redirected….makes me wonder. So why the need to make a brand NEW one when you have one? Was it not what the show wanted her to have? She also has 2 facebook pages, one that she uses now (that she has turned off the ability for people to comment on) and one that she has stopped using, why the need to a new coupon page? The names are similar but the new one has Extreme in the title, seems like a marketing plot to me.

Rebecca – Her blog is Coupon Phenomenon -Brand new blog as well, posts started in March 2011

The other 2 blogs that are from people on the show, have been around a long time (since 2008) and you can see a big big difference between the ones made for show and the 2 that are long standing (IHeartTheMart.com and mylitter.com). And while I don’t think they need as much stuff as they do, these 2 have not given in to the hype of TV and made a blog just because, they have been around for a while!

Most blogs start off being hosted by free hosting, and when the person feels that they can afford to go to a .com they do (which is why you see paid posts on here at times because it costs money to run a blog that is a .com, hosting fees, domain fees, designer fees, etc) So to start out as a .com and spend the money (especially someone who is an EXTREME COUPONER – who loves to save money) why would they waste the money if they were not getting something out of it?

More about fraud and bending store coupon rules:

Are there stores that allow unlimited double coupons? YES. Acme is one of them, I have pictures of my hauls from Acme. Acme did not have a limit on transactions, however I was considerate I went in at night so I didn’t clear shelves for others so when the truck came at night it was restocked. Here is a post where I did 20 transactions, I made a trip to NJ for a visit and the whole Acme knows I no longer live there and so when I come in they do allow it. However it did not start this way, over the course of 2 years, much explaining how coupons work, involving the management team in to understanding coupons and showing them and them checking that i was doing everything LEGALLY I have come to know the people at Acme, and it is not because I was there all the time, but because while I was shopping I was helping the store (by using my coupons the RIGHT way), showing the cashiers how they too can save money and donating my excess (both in the store donation bins and by just giving it away to customers who there shopping as well) . It is obvious to me that some stores have bent their rules because of the TV cameras being there, and there is a BIG difference between bending coupon POLICY and allowing someone to do many transactions. When I first started shopping at Acme I was on the stores Loss Prevention list. I threw a red flag with the amount of coupons I used and my low totals, my transaction and totals and coupons were looked at because it was not normal, they had to make sure I was not doing anything wrong. The store had to make sure that what was going on was legal and I had no problem working with them.

I would love to see a comparison of the receipts and the items that were purchased for this show, I think that it would have been smart of TLC to show the coupons that were going to be used with a whole shot of all the products that were bought.

Coupon Fraud is no joke. TLC Allowing the fraud on national TV is only giving couponers a bad name, and they are portraying couponers as hoarders which makes us all look bad. It will make manufacture’s mad, which in turn they could stop putting out coupons!

People may not think that the actions of these people will affect anyone, but it WILL! It will make it harder for those who need coupons to survive have difficulty at stores, more then they already do.! As you can see I have many issues with this show, the practices that were shown, they way they portray couponers!