Staples' $20 Coupon Travels the Web October 14, 1999 Note to self: Do not offer a $20 coupon that only requires a five-digit code to be validated. That's what I'm sure several Staples employees have scribbled down on their yellow 3M Post-it notes with their Bic medium black ink pen and posted to their forehead. Staples in their collective wisdom decided to send out an e-mail to a select number of their customers that only required a five-digit code to be entered to redeem a $20 discount on an order. And in the process they assumed that only the people who received the e-mail would be using the coupon. And as quickly as Staples threw their promotion together, news of this $20 freebie spread and people were cashing in their $20.01 orders along with their coupon. alt.consumers.free-stuff Deja.Com has a copy of the a Usenet post that was probably the first to announce the hole in Staples' coupons from FLBoy1979 on October 11.

Staples' E-mail Response An e-mail Staples sent out to freebie hunters: "It is no secret that Staples offers customers a wide selection of coupons. We pride ourselves in extending savings above and beyond our everyday low prices. Occasionally however, one of our coupons intended for individual use gets posted on the Internet and we are forced to cancel orders that reflect its use. We regret that your order has been affected by this latest occurrence of coupon abuse, and has therefore been canceled. In the future we will be more careful with coupon regulation so that we can prevent situations such as this. Your order can still be placed at www.staples.com, but certain coupons can no longer be accepted." New restrictions? Staples seems to have updated their restrictions to reflect that coupon codes can easily be posted and distributed to thousands of people. But it's hard to believe that their current system of restricting who can use one of their coupons is even workable on the Web.

Related links [1] Staples' Web promotion a victim of its own success; News.Com [2] Staples -- $30 worth of products for FREE (You pay S+H); Deja.Com