Groupon Gets Complaints But I've Got Nothing But Praise For Them

There's a story in the New York Post about complaints concerning the online coupon service Groupon.  I'll give you part of the story, but my personal experience with it has been great:

Laura Yasinitsky hates Groupon-ers.

The online deal-a-day coupon giant, which now also finds itself the subject of a lawsuit, is increasingly coming under fire from customers and retailers alike.

For Yasinitsky, when she worked as a waitress for the now-shuttered East Side Social Club, she would encounter a Groupon customer at least twice a night after the restaurant enrolled in the program — which guarantees significant discounts when enough consumers purchase the “group coupon,” or Groupon.

It was hardly a hit with staffers. For them, a Groupon table was a “red flag.”

Yasinitsky says customers almost always tipped based on what they had to pay after the discount — not on the total of the check.

“As soon as you found out it was a Groupon table, you knew you were going to get screwed. So as you can imagine, that has a negative effective on service,” says Yasinitsky, 28, a premed student.

“The managers were constantly complaining that we were losing money on the deal.”

We've used several Groupons for meals and services and have thoroughly enjoyed the discounts and the chance to visit some places we've never gone before.  I get Groupon emails for deals in several areas (Orange County, San Diego, Las Vegas, Sacramento and Napa/Sonoma) because the coupons are active long enough that we can use them on future visits.

The day before we left for Las Vegas a Groupon came out for Margaritaville, a restaurant next to the Flamingo Hotel where we were staying.  We had dinner there and with the Groupon savings our bill was...$0.  I was careful to tip on the full amount before discount, but apparently some people don't.  Our waiter told us they had sold out 2,000 coupons in only about 90 minutes.  We were the first one he had seen (maybe that's why he was nice to us - he hadn't had any other experiences with Groupon yet).

Another time my wife was walking by one of those stores where you paint your own pottery piece and they fire it for you and she commented that she would like to do something like that sometime.  Just that morning I had seen a Groupon for that very place.  I bought it using the app on my smartphone and gave it to her for Valentine's Day.  She'll be going over there soon to work on her project.

I recommend the service.  If you'd like to sign up (it's free) you can click here.