Never Trust A Deal Without a Valid Source

Throughout Labor Day weekend, a certain "deal" have been circulating social media and getting people really excited. The problem is, the deal was just an image with text over it. I contacted the original company to verify the deal and they replied that they were unaware of any such promotion.

Some random person made this image and it quickly went viral as people were sharing what they thought was good news. Now the company looks like a bad guy for turning customers away. True it's only a select type of customer, in this case educators, however that doesn't stop the fact that they are upset.

Should a company be forced to give away free products because someone spread a wrong message? If the company had accidentally released the coupon I could understand them having to honor it out of fairness. This once happened to a different company when they released a limited location coupon without typing "select stores" in the fine print. They went on to honor the promotion nation-wide for the mistake. However in this social media case, what is to stop any random person from creating their own coupon when they want something.

The moral of this post? Check your sources. If you see a great deal being shared by your friend, or a blog you read, look for their link back. For example if it's a deal on Facebook, it should link back to the official page for the company. Not some fan page, or a random person's image. I always try to link back to the direct source or at least try to tell you where I heard something. This allows you as a reader to feel confident in the promotions and deals posted on Making Cents of It.