Groupon.com

Myself and 843 other people in Belfast bought a voucher for the local Aquarium which was to expire June 9, 2001. When I received my voucher in the mail, the expiry date had changed to April 9, 2011 without any notice. I asked Groupon about this and they said they had made a mistake and it was supposed to expire April 9, 2011.

You may think this was just a simple mistake, but these 'mistakes' are very profitable for Groupon, and here's why. Let's say someone bought the voucher and thought it expired June 9th, they don't check the expiry date on the voucher and don't use the voucher on time. Who gets the money from the voucher? Do they get a refund? Does the Aquarium get the money? Nope! Groupon keeps ALL the money from unredeemed vouchers! So these expiry date mistakes are VERY profitable for them.

Another Groupon trick is to oversell items. Last month Groupon Belfast sold 2000 vouchers for an overnight stay in the Millbrook Lodge. The problem? Millbrook lodge only has 16 rooms! What happens when people inevitably don't get booked in? If their vouchers are unredeemed Groupon keeps all that money. Overselling for services that people will never be able to get is also VERY profitable for Groupon. Beware!

I operate a horseback trail ride company on a small resort and spa in Bodega, Ca. The Resort and I teamed up to run a Groupon add because my horses eat rain or shine and winter is slow money flow in the winter. Anyway I have had a HORRIBLE experience with this company! When the Groupon was posted online whoever designed the coupon put in that our customers could upgrade to " outlaw mode" and get a wild west shoot out and a bubble bath. This is something we do not offer ever! That makes if false advertisement, and last time I checked that is illegal! When we contacted Groupon about this problem they simply told us it was a joke, NOT FUNNY! Being a separate business I decided to try to run a separate Groupon ad for my business, well that did not work out. They sent me a rejection letter saying they were to busy and to try again later. No thank you, after hearing more and more people that are having these problems and more I will NEVER use or recommend Groupon to anyone!

I didn't realize that business owners got 50% taken off their profit. No wonder they tried to make it up out of me by changing terms, removing previous discounts/internet deal that had nothing to do with groupon. I ended up paying more than what groupon deal promised, got myself locked into a deal where the business owner and I no longer see eye to eye because we fought over terms being changed. At the end, business owners lose in all counts because customers like me (who got harrassed and pushed by business owners who try to recover profit) will not come back after the committment period. All the negativity generated from these initial transactions will come back to haunt business owners. RECOMMENDATION: don't use groupon. Bad deal at the end.

As a business owner, I can tell you that Groupon and other companies like it are laughing all the way to the bank...but that will end pretty soon. Yes, you must discount your product or service by AT LEAST 50% to be featured and they get your deal and company in front of thousands of people. They take 50% of the sales. We have used these companies to generate lots of foot traffic into our locations, but have found that these customers are hard to convert into long term customers and difficult to cross-sell to. They are tire kickers. Good for them, though. The consumer wants their great--practically free--deal. However, Groupon and their competitors are basically killing the geese with the golden eggs. The way it works is like complete exploitation of hardworking business owners who are trying to offer something sustainable. They'll tell you the price they want to offer your deal at. If you balk because selling 700 of them at that price will cause you to lose money, you will see that they run the deal with your competitor--causing a HUGE dent in the demand. This is not good for you or your competitor--who also most likely feels totally held over a barrel if they don't do this deal--because someone else will. It's gotten to feel like price fixing, blackmail, etc. The good news is that I totally believe this situation is not sustainable. While our company (a medical spa) has always treated the clients we service through Groupon and the like with the absolute same respect we treat our other clients, I can see through the bad reviews that this is killing merchants and irritating consumers. I will do a little happy dance when Groupon etc is extinct.

Halunen & Associates is a class action law firm that is investigating Groupon for violating certain laws that make it illegal for a company to sell gift cards that expire after a certain period of time. The goal of the investigation is to determine whether Groupon customers may be entitled to reimbursement for expired gift cards. You can get more information and contact them through their website here: http://www.halunenlaw.com/news/2011/01/07/430/.

On Sept. 18th I purchased a 50% off coupon for the Gap($50.00 coupon for $25.00). When I found I had to wait 3-4 days for the email coupon I immediate requested a refund. I was responded to quickly and the charge hit on the 22nd and a credit was posted on the 23rd.

This was all good, but then on the 24th I received a call from Capital one due to unusual charges to this same card. They started on the 22nd and the Groupon charge appeared again, then there was a Pizza Hut charge, 2 Skype charges (15.00 ea), 2 Netflix charges and more. I do not use Skype phone and I am not a Netflix Memmber and have not been to a Pizza hut in 15 years. Then after the card was canceled on the 24th there was another email for Groupon saying they could not process my order due to the card being declined.

Groupon had a severe security breach or they have an untrustworthy employee in charge of confidential information.