[tmartini]

Just when the MyCoupons scraping thread fades, someone at Retailmenot posts our exclusive iFrogz coupon (alexscoupon) on their site:

http://www.retailmenot.com/view/ifrogz.com

This kind of crap has got to end. I am getting very tired of working my a$$ off to establish a good relationship with a merchant, only to see some scraper come along and benefit from my work. (They even listed the code as their exclusive code!)

The only way to stop it is for merchants to start tracking exclusive coupons. Only by giving credit to the site that was issued the exclusive coupon can we stop this stealing of obviously exclusive codes. The good news is that iFrogz is doing exactly that. They're going to run a report tracking our exclusive code and we'll be receiving all of the commissions.

Oh and Connie they've got several of your coupons (flamingo) on their site too including Botanic Choice:

http://www.retailmenot.com/view/botanicchoice.com

...and ACLens:

http://www.retailmenot.com/view/aclens.com

...as well as exclusives from Coupon Mountain, DealNews and other coupon sites.

-- Todd

P.S. I know that Retailmenot is a user submitted coupon site, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be held accountable when their users post our exclusives on their site.

[flamingoworld]

Different merchants I know of are aware of this site, they are getting mad because of all the unauthorized coupons too.

It is scum like this that gives the rest of us coupon sites a bad name.

[tmartini]

I can imagine. It doesn't look like they have any quality control built into their system. The codes are posted without anyone looking at them, which means there is a lot of crap (spam, fake coupons, etc...) in there. Unfortunately Google seems to love them at the moment (Google loves crap?), as they've achieved some high natural search rankings.

They even posted Computer Geeks exclusives from FatWallet, TechBargains and DealNews back to back with their own affiliate link. From what I can tell visitors to the site can only post a code, not a link, so it appears this might have been posted by Retailmenot's staff.

-- Todd

[tmartini]

To the Major Affiliate Networks,

It's obivous these guys are in violatation of your TOS (terms of service). It's not hard to figure out what their affiliate IDs are, as they're not hiding them, so I guess the question is how quickly can you guys shut down their accounts? Your loyal and reputable affiliates would greatly appreciate it.

-- Todd

[flamingoworld]

Their site breaks all the rules. I don't think this is the kind of site to have user imput without some controls in place. I am pretty sure that probably most of the coupons they put in themselves. They just use the excuse that users imput them when they get people contacting them upset.

And really, who would want to use a site with no controls? I would want a site that has quality control, one where the coupons work.

[tmartini]

Just emailed my reps at CJ, Linkshare and SAS and pointed them to this thread. Anybody feel like blogging about this?

-- Todd

P.S. I agree with Connie, who would want to use a crappy site like this, but unfortunately they have great natural search rankings, so obviously someone is using it. By the way iFrogz got back to me and 34 orders have been placed using my exclusive coupon in the past 12 days. About half of those orders came from my site, so it appears the other half came from Retailmenot.

[netnow22]

How do you think the merchants feel when they send you a catalog as a user or a tv commercial that displays a coupon only to figure out that it came from an affiliate, instead of the user that was suppose to get it. This screws up there stats on promotions to repeat buyers.

Thats why we need.....................http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread...coupon+network

Edit note:
sig reduced to 3 lines per TOS
The rest of the edits are cleanup items per member request.

[Trust]

Jason, what you're talking about has nothing to do with this.

[tmartini]

Hey Jason,

You've got some good points, but this really isn't the thread for it. Let's try to keep this thread on topic, so we can actually get some action taken against these guys.

-- Todd

[tmartini]

Hmm... The Retailmenot site just went down. Okay which of you guys pulled the plug on them! (just kidding)

-- Todd

Update: Too funny they're not down, it looks like they blocked my IP address so I can't see their site, which means they're probably monitoring this thread. Dude do you really think I only have one IP address that I access the Internet with? LOL

[netnow22]

Lets talk, come on TRUST what is your input?

[Trust]

Jason start another thread, so I don't have to split all the off topic stuff out. The rest I'm just going to delete.

[tmartini]

Hey Anne,

Saw you lurking. They got you too:

www.retailmenot.com/view/1800flowers.com

-- Todd

[netnow22]

Originally Posted by TrustNo1

Jason start another thread, so I don't have to split all the off topic stuff out. The rest I'm just going to delete.

http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=84715

[tmartini]

And the saga continue. So they banned one of my IP addresses (I have plenty of others), so I couldn't access their site and took down the notice I had posted about their need to remove my exclusive code. So at this point they know it's an exclusive code, they know they're not supposed to post it and yet they choose to ignore it. Of course it's kind of funny to me since I'm now going to get credit for any purchases that are made using that code, so at this point they're working for me! Of course if that's the case I only have two words for BClark @ Retailmenot. You're fired!

[Trust]

lol:

"stop posting exclusive coupons from other sites a$$hole, you have been outted on abestweb!"

[tmartini]

Originally Posted by TrustNo1

lol:

"stop posting exclusive coupons from other sites a$$hole, you have been outted on abestweb!"

LOL!

Hey it wasn't me, they banned my IP address and I'm hiding my other ones from them so I can further research their site!

[Trust]

I know, I left the first part off Site is down for me too now, at least the home page. I guess they're doing a little cleaning up. So whatever you put on their submit.php page, automatically shows up on the home page? They don't check it out first? That's not smart if that's how it works.

[tmartini]

Originally Posted by TrustNo1

I know, I left the first part off Site is down for me too now, at least the home page. I guess they're doing a little cleaning up. So whatever you put on their submit.php page, automatically shows up on the home page? They don't check it out first? That's not smart if that's how it works.

From what I can see there is zero oversight, which explains why I came across fake coupons for extra large dildos!

[Trust]

Ah, they're the same people behind the popular bugmenot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BugMeNot

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3399081

[tmartini]

FYI: BClark is lurking in the Review RetailMeNot please thread.

http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=83981

Can't wait to hear what he has to say for himself...

[Kevin]

This is not the only place they're being watched...

[EmDub]

Thanks for the heads up, Todd. I'll have to investigate and make sure they didn't take anything from me, either.

Michael

[tmartini]

No problem. Always happy to expose the cheaters in our business and we're seeing some results already. So far one network and one merchant have dropped them. Anyone who knows this business probably knows which network dropped them already.

-- Todd

[UncleScooter]

Todd and Connie, perhaps an attorney on retainer for these type of things is in order. MyCoupons only opened the door and seemed to legitimize this for others to continue. There are indeed laws against this and I would guess that full recovery of attorney's fees in successful cases would be an option.

This is only going to get worse unless someone makes an example of them.