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Feds Bust a Dark-Web Counterfeit Coupon Kingpin
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: The dark web has become the go-to corner of the Internet to buy drugs, stolen financial data, guns...and counterfeit coupons for Clif bars and condoms? The FBI indicted Beauregard Wattigney yesterday for wire fraud and trademark counterfeiting on digital black market sites Silk Road and Silk Road 2. Wattigney allegedly spoofed coupons for dozens of products and sold collections of them online in exchange for Bitcoin. The FBI accused him of doing $1 million worth of collective damage to the companies he made coupons for, but a fraud consultancy believes the total financial cost of his actions was much higher. Wattigney also offered expensive lessons that taught people how to make their own coupons. "In his tutorials, [he] explained the simple breakdown of barcode creation using the increasingly universal GS1 standard: GS1 codes begin with a 'company prefix' that can be copied from any of the company's products. The next six digits are the 'offer code,' which can be any random number for a counterfeit coupon, followed by the savings amount listed in cents and the required number of item purchases necessary to receive the discount."
How about just stopping this manipulative fiction of "coupons".
1. Charge a fair price for your product.
2. Stop using "loyalty memberships" and coupons to track your customers.
3. Make your customer the customer and not some company that wants to buy data about your customers' buying habits.
4. Be competitive instead of predatory.
5. Charge a fair price for your product.
6. If you can offer me "cash back" on my purchase, then you can goddamn well lower the price.
7. Charge a fair price for your product.
End the ridiculous All-American practice of "coupons" and "customer loyalty" and the problem with fake coupons just disappears.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I hate those people and their giant binders of coupons. Why? Because if you get stuck behind one in line, they double or triple the wait time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
J.C. Penney tried this. It's become a textbook case study in retail management as to how not to run a retail store. Unfortunately, the "feeling of getting a bargain" is a powerful psychological motivator to purchase; treating customers like rational people is not.