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  Geebo 9:00 am on December 8, 2022 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: coupon scam ( 2 ), Facebook ( 179 ), Kroger's, Scams ( 1,368 ), supermarkets   

  There’s no free lunch, but are there free groceries? 

  

  By Greg Collier

  We could all use a break on our grocery bills. Food prices have been the highest they’ve been in years and are only recently have they started to come down. Well, what if a major supermarket chain was willing to give you a coupon for $150 off your order? The store is celebrating their 140th anniversary after all. And you found this great deal on Facebook, what could go wrong? All you have to do to get that kind of discount is enter your personal information on a third-party website. What could the harm be to get those kinds of savings? A lot, actually.

  Kroger is one of the largest supermarket chains in the country. They’re also often the target of hoax coupons like the one mentioned above. Currently, there is one of these coupons circulating on social media that promises a $150 coupon in honor of the chain’s anniversary. If you were to follow a link that promises one of these coupons, you wouldn’t be taken to Kroger’s website. Instead, you’d be taken to a scammer’s website, where you’ll be asked for some personal information in exchange for the coupon. If personal information is entered into the scammer’s website, you’ll more than likely have your identity stolen.

  If you think about it, no supermarket is going to offer $150 off to millions of its customers. While it sounds like a great deal, that’s not how supermarkets make money. Kroger isn’t the only retailer to be targeted in scams like this. Costco also finds itself as targets of this scam. The name of any large retailer can be used in this scam, and probably has.

  According to experts, if the value of a coupon is almost the amount of an item or order, it could be a scam. No consumer should have to exchange sensitive information for a coupon. If you have any questions about a store’s coupon, don’t hesitate to contact the customer service number on the store’s website.

  And as always, while it is a cliché, the adage of ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ really applies here.

   

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  Geebo 8:55 am on July 31, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: malls, retail ( 49 ), supermarkets   

  Can supermarkets save the mall? 

  

  We’ve discussed the decline of the American mall many times before. Thanks to all in one retailers like Wal-Mart and giant online sites like Amazon, mall after mall have been shutting their mirrored doors in the wake of these giant merchants. It almost seems like the only use for malls anymore are for YouTubers to explore dead malls.

  Now, the San Francisco Gate is reporting a new trend of supermarkets moving into mall space. While items like electronics are now mostly ordered online, most consumers still like to make food purchases at the store. Could this new trend make it more convenient and give consumers more choices for their groceries? Maybe not.

  As the old adage goes, the three most important things in real estate is location, location, location. Unfortunately, the old malls tend to have terrible locations. They were originally designed to be destinations in themselves and supermarkets depend more on convenience, like picking up a few things on your way home from work. To drive off of your commute and pull into an old mall parking lot, then driving around the mall to wherever the supermarket is located turns a quick stop into a major chore.