Everyone loves a free deal but at what cost are you willing to take to get one.  Lately there has been a lot of talk about the subject of buying and selling IP’s. If you are new to the idea it is a very lucrative idea. Why bug your kids to print coupons for you when you can purchase what you need in large quantity at a low price.  They all have unique tracking numbers so they are all good, right?  If that is what you think you are not alone. Many buyers of IP’s feel safe  purchasing printable coupons because when they receive them they see that the tracking numbers are all different on the 10 coupons that they got but what they don’t know is that the coupons they received may have been mass produced by a re seller that bought from one seller and resold the same batch over and over. This was the case last week on Instagram.  One seller sold a set of coupons to a buyer and that buyer then up sold and re-sold the coupons to another re seller (or possibly just sold under another name). Making that one set of 10 unique coupons not so unique., and they were resold at a higher cost than they were originally purchased for making this #BadIGTrader a nice profit and no way of tracking the IP back to them as the original seller is the one that will take the heat for the bad coupons once they get tracked back to the original IP address.  I assume the up-seller thought she had it all figured out at least that was until the original seller discovered her set that she sold her being resold and called her out on it in a public service announcement  last week.   There is no way to tell how many times this one set of  coupons has been resold but I am guessing if you purchased them you are feeling a little sick to your stomach right now.

What can you do if you find out you got bad IP’s?  Destroy them. Stop purchasing IP’s.  If you have not used the coupons you may file a claim with Paypal and send back your IP’s to the seller.

If you took part in my open conversation last week about the buying and selling of IP’s you may want o take a look at the last comment made by Bud from the CIC. I first read it and thought it could be a bit of a stretch to think it could lead to illegal activities but then a few days later  the above info was dropped into my lap and for those very reasons we will no longer leave the conversation open in any of our groups and have updated the  group rues to not allow any mention of sellers or IP fishing comments to take place.

If you are a couponer that has recently started selling or purchasing IP’s you may want to rethink your decision very carefully. There is no need to put your self at risk for coupon fraud to make a quick buck. You never know what the next person you sell to will do with the coupons once they have them in their hands and there is no way to know if  the coupons you have purchased have already been mass produced. The only way to ensure you avoid getting yourself in a heap of trouble is to avoid the temptation.