“Unicorns” in the wild: A new name for counterfeit coupons

“I love your website and I want to show you what I got from a Facebook group for unicorns.  I love unicorns, but it this case I have learned that it is a nickname for counterfeit coupons, not the white horses with horns on their heads.  How can people do this sort of thing with a clear conscience?  They look so real, but aren’t they ruining it for everyone in the long run?”

Sandy

One could define “unicorn” as something rare and exciting that simply doesn’t exist – and this definition also applies to unicorn coupons. “Unicorn” is a coupon term that’s grown in popularity over the past year, and it refers to a high-value coupon that doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s a counterfeit. Often, these unicorn coupons are based on a genuine offer from the same product and brand – they may match a legitimate offer’s style, design, fonts and offer code.

Counterfeiters also go to great lengths to make counterfeit unicorn coupons look as legitimate as possible. Many legitimate, high-value and free-product coupons feature a foil holographic strip bearing the logo of the Coupon Information Center, an industry watchdog organization dedicated to fighting coupon fraud.  In the four years since this foil hologram feature was introduced, counterfeiters have created convincing duplicates of the hologram, including these on their counterfeit unicorn coupons. In fact, “foil” is another term that buyers and sellers of these counterfeit coupons use to refer to counterfeit coupons that also feature a foil hologram strip.

In December 2015, the CIC announced it was changing its hologram to a gold foil strip with additional security features to further combat counterfeiting. The new hologram was formally introduced to manufacturers and retailers at the CIC’s annual summit in March 2016.

By April 2016, gold holograms began appearing on counterfeit coupons too. This month, the availability of gold-hologram counterfeit coupons exploded on Facebook.

“I know you say never to buy coupons, but the CIC says if they have the gold foil strip, they are real. I have bought some online and they have the gold CIC hologram, and they worked at the store. As long as I stick to the gold ones, I’m okay right? I know you are all about doing the right thing, but you have no idea how I need to save money right now. This Facebook group has so many great coupons, please check it out.”  

Maria

 It’s important to keep in mind that just because a coupon contains a holographic foil strip, the foil strip’s presence should never be considered an indicator of a coupon’s validity. In today’s world, sophisticated print technology is available to anyone, and as the industry continues to add additional security features to their genuine coupons, the counterfeiters also up their game and create even more convincing counterfeit coupons.

As Sandy notes in her email, there are Facebook groups devoted solely to selling and trading both “unicorns” and “foils.” If you come across these groups online, steer clear – you could face prosecution for buying, selling, trading or using these counterfeit coupons.  

Keep in mind that these online groups do make themselves very attractive to their customers. They make their activities appear as legitimate as possible, and some groups even offer contests and giveaways to their members. Wouldn’t you love to win a pile of coupons for free soda, juices, paper towels, and bath tissue? Unfortunately, if you trade, buy, or win anything from these groups, you’ll receive pieces of paper that could land you in a great deal of trouble if you actually use them.

I understand it may be tempting to participate in these groups. The face value of the counterfeit coupons being  offered is often so high that people may find them hard to resist – especially when they look so authentic. Ask yourself, though – would you use a counterfeit dollar bill knowing it was counterfeit? Is it worth the risk of being arrested and prosecuted?

You may wonder why groups like this are allowed to exist online. In the case of Facebook, their terms of use expressly prohibit using the network for illegal activity, but because these unicorns and foils look so real, Facebook may not shut them down right away. Additionally, outside the coupon world, groups with names like “We Heart Unicorns” or “Fabulous Foils” may not raise any red flags. Criminals often speak in code, using innocuous words that don’t attract attention to those outside their target community. These names also attract new users by sounding harmless. (After “glitcher” coupon groups were called out, many changed their names to “glitter” groups to continue to fly under the radar.)

Additionally, administrators of these unicorn groups will likely tell you that these coupons are genuine. If you express any doubt that these coupons are real, they’ll be right there to assure you that “they will work.” Remember, it’s in their interest to tell you anything you want to hear — they’re making a huge profit margin selling pieces of paper. For example, one unicorn group is selling these counterfeit coupons for a free 6-pack of soda… for $2.50 per coupon. Considering that the same brand of 12-packs of pop have been on sale for $2.50 and $3 over the past month at nearly every grocer in our area, it doesn’t even make financial sense to buy many of these coupons.

There’s yet another issue to consider here too: Not only are the criminals creating knockoffs of the CIC’s gold foil hologram, some of them appear to be using genuine gold CIC holograms on their fake coupons. 

This week, I received some news. My colleague at Procter & Gamble explained that a bunch of counterfeit Pampers coupons came back to the company, and they appeared to be printed on genuine CIC hologram paper. P&G shared some of these known counterfeit coupons with me so that I could do my own comparison to a sheet of genuine hologram security paper.

Indeed, these are fake Pampers coupons printed on genuine CIC gold hologram security paper. Every security feature in the genuine paper is present in the counterfeit coupon’s paper too. P&G has confirmed this as well. In fact, P&G removed the CIC holograms from all of their high-value coupons more than six months ago, recognizing the hologram’s ineffectiveness as a validity tool and opting to use its own security features. If you see any coupons for P&G products with foil holograms on them, they are, without question, counterfeits. 

I’m writing about this at length because I’ve also become increasingly disturbed by the number of comments and inquiries I’ve gotten recently from my own readers. For years, I’ve advised that no one buy coupons online, particularly free-product coupons. The chances are ridiculously high that you’ll be buying counterfeits, and you can be prosecuted for using them. 

However, there’s just something about these gold-foil counterfeits that has piqued people’s interest in them — even people who know they shouldn’t be buying these! The “word on the street” (in this case, Facebook) that all gold-hologram coupons are 100% real seems to be unshakable at the moment. Because the CIC has touted the new gold hologram as the newest indicator of what’s genuine, consumers looking for coupons in the grey areas of “is it real or isn’t it” are using the gold hologram’s presence as the indicator that the coupons are authentic. Here are some reactions I’ve received from readers:

“I just bought some a couple months ago and was so excited to buy more, I wonder if the lady I bought from is legit or selling fakes ??”

“I’m having trouble believing this. I have bought the gold foils from my FB group and they do work in the store no problem. Theres nothing fake about them. My seller says hers are all real and that anything with the gold hologram is 100% real. The CIC made this new hologram to show the difference between the fake ones and real ones and only they can put it on a coupon. My seller says she gets them from the brands. She has a new list every week. All of them have the gold hologram and there is just no way these coupons could have that unless that hologram is real. That hologram is brand new and is made just for free coupons and that’s what I’m buying. None of what I’m buying is on the CIC counterfeit list either!  She doesn’t even have any silver foils anymore because those are all fake and she said to stay away from any groups selling silver foils. THOSE are the fakes!”

Many consumers check the CIC list of counterfeits before they buy “unicorns” and “foils” online, but again, it can take several months or more for a new counterfeit coupon to be discovered and documented. Even then, not all counterfeits make the CIC’s list for a myriad of reasons. Not every brand is a member of the CIC. Not every manufacturer chooses to issue an alert when a counterfeit is discovered. Some brands choose not to tip their hand to the counterfeiters that their fake coupons have been identified in order to further their own investigations. You cannot use “well, it’s not on the CIC’s list” as proof that a coupon is genuine. As I’ve watched trends over the years, it seems that the moment a coupon appears on the CIC’s list, counterfeiters will stop production on it, switch gears and create a brand-new one.

With regard to readers’ insistence that “these coupons work” — again, of course they do. They’re excellent counterfeits. They’re designed to fool both customers and cashiers. While it’s easy for people who work directly for the brands to recognize counterfeit coupons for their brands, most shoppers and cashiers are not scrutinizing every detail of every coupon. There is no easy way for a cashier to look at a coupon and determine that it’s real or fake, which is exactly what the counterfeiters are banking on. (Cashiers are not US Customs agents!)

The only way to know when a coupon is genuine is to obtain it through legitimate means. No manufacturer is providing free product coupons to anyone to sell. Manufacturers coupons state that they are void the moment they are sold. The industry is vehemently against coupon sale, and what reason would there be for any manufacturer to give thousands of free-product coupons to a random Facebook user to sell? These groups will sell you as many as you want. They’ve got new shopping lists of what’s available to buy each week. They’re counterfeit. 

With the exception of the counterfeit Pampers coupons provided to me by P&G, my reader Sandy provided me with all of the counterfeit coupons shown in this post. I’ve blurred the barcodes in each photo.