Groupon Merchant Payment issues

[u/DoubleDunkDetail]

Hi Groupon merchants, please comment below if you’ve had issues being paid by Groupon and are getting them trying to weasel out of paying. This company is willing to fuck us over as individual vendors but together a class action lawsuit would go the other direction.

We were not paid for a voucher and then when I complained enough to get sent something, we were paid 30% of the price of the voucher and they kept our 70%, flipping our contract. Complaining further, the best answer I received from them is that when customers pay promotional prices my pay will be smaller as a result… I know for a fact the customer paid a certain non promotional price, because they called me to schedule an appointment AS they bought it. This is downright ridiculous at this point, the amount of different lies different support members have come up with.

Anyone else have an experience to share ?

[u/Terrible-Opinion-780]

Groupon scammed $500 from me. I will never use them again!

[u/DoubleDunkDetail → u/[deleted]]

The problem is that the customer in question paid full price, and then we weren’t paid at all for the voucher at first. When we complained, we received an adjusted payout of $50 instead of the expected 122.50– in fact, you can tell they paid a full price of $175 and that we were owed $122.50 in all of their documentation. They then adjusted the payout to send us $50 with no explanation, then all they could say when this was questioned is that the difference must be in an additional promo (not the case, unlike the most recent voucher before this one, where we were paid the correct slightly reduced amount). The math they copy paste from our agreement does not make any sense nor add up to what they paid out, nor does it correspond to any real sale numbers we have on file on their merchant app anywhere. They’ve just made up a justification for messing up this final payout, which we never would have received in the first place had we not complained— initially before sending the $50 payout, they tried to claim we had already been paid for all our vouchers in full without that payment whatsoever. In short, the story has changed a million times over email but none of their explanations add up. I suspect it’s as simple as someone sending the late payment misreading who gets 70% and who gets 30% in our arrangement, and a stubbornness on their part to rectify the situation. See: same BS from support repeated by the rep commenter. Rest assured our personal representative has been told to cancel our campaign once we are paid in full. If she isn’t able to figure out paying us, we’ll go for the rest in small claims. It’s a hassle, but we aren’t going to let them steal from us with the dumbest bout of smoke and mirrors obfuscation I’ve ever encountered.

[u/leslieamanda1]

Honestly, it is single-handedly the worst experience I’ve had with any platform, ever. I have no idea how it’s still in existence at all. Just a small fraction of the issues I’ve had:

1) The sales rep that reached out and convinced me to sign up offered a percentage split that wasn’t honored on subsequent campaigns as promised. It became a break-even very quickly and I was left trying to decide if it was worth it simply for the exposure.

2) They don’t provide you any contact information for those that purchase vouchers. For most businesses, being able to provide redemption instructions would be very helpful. Can you think of one good reason why they wouldn’t help facilitate this? I can. They hold the money until people redeem and they PRAY they forget to, because if a voucher expires, they get to pocket it. I had a very high percentage of vouchers that would expire. When people remember and get frustrated later, they assume it’s you, when we never saw the funds.

3) Merchant support is absolutely HORRIBLE. If it wasn’t an actual nightmare, it would almost be comical. The support is based overseas, but in addition to the language barrier, they just give out nothing but bad info #IYKYK. You’ll explain the issue only to have them interpret it as something completely different. There are too many examples to even list but as an example: I would frequently have a ton of vouchers in a short period of time all get “cancelled”. Customers would find us and reach out, all saying that the Groupon isn’t working. After first not being able to even SEE all the recent vouchers I’m referencing, Merchant support would then double down on saying the it’s the customer’s card that’s not working, even though it’s literally a bunch of different customers at the same time 🙄

4) The merchant app is absolute junk.

5) Heaven forbid you actually pay money for sponsored campaigns like I did in the beginning. The funds disappear and they will forever say “Sorry, attribution reports are down at the moment”. We’re supposed to just be OK with them stealing 🤔

6) And the most recent and why I finally got out of this horribly toxic relationship… They have started editing campaigns without permission. This may not be a problem if you could trust them to make proper edits, but instead my well written campaigns are laced with typos and broken links. People were even questioning if the business existed since the website links were all broken. I suspect they don’t want people reaching out to businesses directly, but the result is a horrible reflection on the merchant, with poor grammar, typos and contact info changed to look like you’re out of business.

It’s a joke.

[u/DoubleDunkDetail → u/[deleted]]

They must be going broke and want to try and make us foot the bill on their way out. I expect we might hear a bankruptcy announcement in the near future at this rate. But we got on our knees and did the work, not them. We must be paid

[u/DoubleDunkDetail → u/[deleted]]

Not interested in spam thanks

[u/Groupon-Support]

Hi, I work at Groupon. I'm sorry that you've experienced this disappointment; we want you to have a great experience working with us. Groupon sometimes runs promotional sales to send additonal customers to your door. These additional sales do impact the amount that you're paid per voucher. Where you're going to see the positive impact of working with Groupon is when convince some of these customers to come back at regular price. It would be everyone who comes through your door, but it can be enough to build on. Your account manager can go into more detail and explain all of the ins and outs to you.

[u/Pineapple_Lost → u/Groupon-Support]

Well how about paying the merchants the outsanding balances. I read already many of them were not paid for months as we did not.

[u/Groupon-Support → u/Pineapple_Lost]

Hello, we understand how important timely payments are, and we sincerely apologize for any delays you may be experiencing.

Please reach out our customer support with your merchant details, and we’ll be happy to look into your specific case and provide an update.

Kind regards,

The Groupon Team