A Coupon Trick

by Charles

A manufacturer's coupon for 30 cents off Philadelphia Cream Cheese was found inside the lid of a prior purchase.

The UPC code was very short and there were repetitive numbers in the second half of the code.  Knowing that the first portion is the manufacturer's ID number and the second half being 23030, I wondered if the 3030 was the face value of the coupon repeated.

The original coupon UPC code was: 5 21000 23030 8

Knowing the last digit 8 is the checksum, I popped over to www.barcodesinc.com/generator/barcode and typed in: 52100027575? (the question mark causes the CGI program that creates UPCs to determine the new checksum on its own).

Now, popping over to the Kraft website - I got some graphics and quickly pasted them all together with some text in Photoshop (just to prevent any potential problems if someone saw the coupon - a black and white UPC on plain paper might get some attention!).

Now to put it to the test - could hacking this 30 cent coupon up to a 75 cent coupon be that easy?  I went to a local store with a self-checkout and purchased one container of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (which was $1.99 and had 30 cents off [store sale]).  Now the test.  Scan the coupon.  The worst that could happen is that the UPC would be "not on file," right?

Bingo!  75 cents off, plus 75 cents off (my store doubles manufacturer coupons!) , plus 30 cents off (store sale).  Total sale: 19 cents.

Now I'm wondering about other coupons that use this short-form of the UPC used with coupons.