![]() They fought the coupon company – and the coupon company won. But if the program was wildly successful and impervious to fraud, it’s hard to imagine Target dumping it so unceremoniously. Target representatives took issue with the mere suggestion that the fraud had anything at all to do with its decision to end Cartwheel Perks. Target has introduced a number of mobile innovations this year, merging its Cartwheel app into the main Target app, and adding a mobile payment capability. ![]() Still others took screen grabs of their bar codes and sold them to others who could scan them and get free stuff, without being Perks members at all. Others shared ways to misuse their reward coupons on items for which they were not intended. ![]() Some determined users spoofed their cell phone locations in order to gain access to the program, then signed up for multiple accounts and sold them on social media to others who wanted in. Instead, scammers figured out ways to reward themselves. The program, introduced to limited areas back in 2015, was meant to be a fun way to reward loyal customers with free items through Target’s Cartwheel app. Try telling that to Target, which pulled the plug on its fraud-plagued Cartwheel Perks program over the summer. Proponents of digital coupons and promotions prefer them because they’re “fraud-proof”. This long-running story appears to be over – but if Balsiger has his way, the epilogue hasn’t been written just yet. That’s when the former coupon processing company CEO was sentenced to 10 years in prison, was ordered to pay $65 million in restitution to more than two dozen coupon-issuing manufacturers, and was penalized an additional $21 million.īalsiger was found to have falsely submitted some $250 million worth of coupons to manufacturers for reimbursement that were never actually used by shoppers, keeping the cash for his company and himself.īalsiger’s request for a retrial was denied in September, and now he’s pursuing an appeal. Today, he’s inmate #08784-089 at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center.įollowing Chris Balsiger’s conviction late last year, the decade-long International Outsourcing Services saga officially came to an end in March of this year. He was once a key player in a coupon industry he derided as a “lying, cheating, dirty business”. So before you ring in the new year, we invite you to take a few moments to look at the top ten stories of 2017, and how they could affect the way you use coupons in the year to come: Coupons in the News turned five this year, after publishing more than 1,600 unique and original news stories about the coupons you use and the stores in which you use them.īut that milestone was only one highlight this year – the world of couponing itself was busy as ever.
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