Steak Escape The Coupon Caper Memphis, Tennessee

I am a business owner myself that has had dealings with Enjoy The City.

I was contacted about their "coupon book." I reviewed the program and declined participating.

Several weeks later coupons start rolling in. What????

The first couple I honored, until I could figure out what happened and what to do. Miscommunication? A different location participated? Nope. Not only did no one authorize, I could not get an answer from ETC.

After attempting to reach ETC on several occasions, and through a variety of media, and failing to have ANY communication with them, I finally just filed a complaint with the BBB.

Although I could just "accept the coupons" on good faith, the reality is that this business is conducting fraudulent business activity. They sell these books to non-profits as a fund raiser, then create discord between business owners and their customers. They oversell books and undersell the contents. If they do not have enough, they simply place coupons in there without authorization. Most businesses-large chains-just simply accept them.

Our local BBB has 31 listed compaints on ETC.

The local merchant you dealt with may have had a simliar experience..I know I had NO luck in actually communicating with ETC, and have never reached resolution....

" Obviously, the owner of this particular location is trying to boost his revenue by using the coupon booklets to solicite business but doesn't want to uphold his end of the bargain by fully honoring the coupon. "

   This is obvious to whom?  I read your entire post and it is not obvious to me.   

    Let me tell you what is obvious.   You paid a company for a coupon book.   They were obligated to sell you valid coupons.   They obviously did not.   You have only their word that the coupons were approved by the merchant.   The merchant has absolutely nothing to gain (and much to lose) by refusing valid coupons.  Use some common sense,  and if that doesn't convince you, then follow the money.

   As ripoffs go, your only valid complaint is with the seller of the coupon book.  They were the ones that accepted your money.  

Right now this is nothing more than a He said/She said type of situation.  On one hand you have the owner saying that he never agreed to these coupons, and on the other you have the coupon book saying that he did.

Well if he truly did not agree to the coupon, do you really expect the coupon book to "come clean" saying that they did print it without his permission?

Now, if he did agree to the coupon his actions really don't make sense.  First of all if the large sandwich is less than 8 dollars, if you only buy one sandwich you are actually getting a better deal.  Second why would he buy these coupons and then "suffer" all of the "bad will" that comes from customers who are upset that he doesn't accept the coupon.

The real odd statement(that may actually explain it) you made is that it seems that this coupon was "spreading like wildfire".  After all it wasn't only you and your wife in the store it was "several" other customers who had this coupon at the same time.  Not to mention that by the time you got there they already had this sign up.

There are cases where coupons are easily duplicated and/or they were told that only a certain number of coupons would be issued.  So a business budgets a certain amount and when they get 2000 coupons when they only expected 200 it does cause them issues.

Then with all of this one has to wonder other than a little bit of time, how exactly were you Ripped Off?