Friday, April 8, 2011

Extreme Couponing--or Fraud??

I hate to even give this show space on our blog.  
Judy and I were both hesitant to watch TLC's new series Extreme Couponing, but we felt like we needed to be informed and able to answer any questions that might come up due to what was shown.   I think that most of us can agree that the women portrayed on this week's show might just be in need of an intervention!
One that I really had a hard time watching was the first girl, J'aime.  
(you should read THIS article)

Let me back up a bit.

Back in January someone called me with questions about "reading" bar codes and using coupons for items they weren't intended for.  She was sure that there was a girl in Montgomery County area teaching this, but I couldn't imagine someone doing that!  It's not only fraud, but just plain unethical. 
Well, don't you know this J'aime seems to be the girl who was doing that!  I find it interesting that TLC (and maybe even Safeway) allowed her to do this just for the sake of ratings.  I would hope that they were all blind to what was going on (instead of turning their heads), and sadly enough this girl doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it. 
Judy and I both know HOW to do this but we have never, ever thought about it.  We even removed part of our class presentation because the slide gave a bit too much information about bar codes and we were afraid someone would walk away with the temptation to do something they shouldn't.
It is wrong and really, we don't need to be doing things like this to get good deals.  

If you feel led, you can go to the address below and email TLC about this show. 
http://corporate.discovery.com/contact/viewer-relations/

I think this can be a good reminder to us that we need to be honest.  One person's actions can ruin it for everyone, and my hope is that this show doesn't do just that.

Your opinions?
 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. The first lady was unethical and simply a bad representation of couponers. And I hate shelf clearers. I liked the husband and wife... I regualrly check his walmart blog for deals.

I wish they would have shown some of the other ladies first instead. I blog with two other ladies who are going to be on the show. They did realistic deals and refused to do the 'extreme' trips. And they promote moral and legal couponing.
Don;t give up on the show yet. There's always a bad apple in the bunch. lol

Becki S said...

Honestly, I haven't watched it in a while. It was too frustrating for me to see these people hoarding and being greedy and then everyone being so impressed with them. If they stopped by a food pantry on their way home or something, maybe I'd be more okay with it. It's amazing to watch the deals they get, but I'm disgusted with most of their attitudes.

Admittedly, I've only watched a few shows, so there are probably some exceptions, but that's my general take on it. The code reading is just wrong and I'll definitely be contacting TLC about it. Thanks for the link!