The saga of SnipSnap continues…

Coupons In The News has a lengthy follow-up story about SnipSnap, the app that allows users to photograph and share paper coupons. Retailers Rebuff Snipsnap: So Is This App Ill-Advised, or Illegal? is worth a read as it delves into many of the legal issues surrounding the app — and there are numerous statements from stores that state they simply won’t accept “snapped” coupons. Some excerpts:

For a coupon app that boasts that it “works at most retailers,” retailers across the country are lining up in opposition to SnipSnap.

“We do not currently accept coupons via the SnipSnap app and are not working with the company,” says a Stop & Shop spokesperson. “We do not accept them,” Wegmans says flatly. “Digital reproductions of offers will not be accepted (such as using a mobile application to reproduce an image of an offer/coupon),” Kroger clearly states in its coupon policy.

So why are there currently a combined 595 coupons for these three grocery chains on the controversial coupon app? Why are some of them highlighted as “Staff Picks”? And why are users reporting up to an “88% success rate” using SnipSnap coupons at these stores that insist they won’t accept them?

SnipSnap is facing an increasing amount of scrutiny and skepticism, after some recent national media exposure shined the spotlight on the app a little more harshly than its owners likely anticipated.

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Mann said Kmart has okayed its coupons appearing on SnipSnap, yet the retailer can’t be particularly pleased about what one SnipSnap user reported doing. She recently bragged to a New Hampshire newspaper, and on her own Facebook page, that she used a SnipSnap version of a “$10 off your purchase of $10 or more” Kmart coupon over and over and over again, dozens of times, and ended up getting nearly $2,000 worth of merchandise for next to nothing. Kmart did not respond to a request for comment about whether this incident has affected its decision to work with SnipSnap.

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Give that coupon a try, the app appears to suggest – the worst a store can do is turn you down. But in reality, the outcome could end up being far worse. Just because SnipSnap might qualify for legal protection from any retailer that might object to its coupons appearing on the app, no such protection extends to users. Just read the terms of service to see SnipSnap essentially sell out its users: “You acknowledge and agree to indemnify and hold SnipSnap, its affiliates, officers, employees and agents, harmless, including costs and attorneys’ fees, from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the App or Services, your violation of these Terms, the infringement by you or made under your Account(s), of any intellectual property or other right of any person or entity or arising out of or related to any products or services purchased by you in connection with the App.”

In other words, if any retailer or manufacturer comes after SnipSnap – SnipSnap may just sic them on you.

Read the entire article at Coupons In The News.