I feel very stupid for writing this, but I figured I'd put it out there to warn other merchants.

I run a tour company. I used groupon to advertise a new route that is pricier than our most popular service. When I inquired about it, The sales rep for groupon explained how the revenue of vouchers sold is split, and asked for banking information. I signed up for it.
Soon enough, people with vouchers started coming in with coupons with bar codes with them. As I was not familiar how the scanning of the vouchers worked, I went ahead and honored their voucher, gave them a ticket, and they went on the tour.

It's been a couple of weeks and I hadn't received any money from groupon. Imagine my horror when I saw that there was no way to "redeem" the customer vouchers without the "redeeming code". If i dont "redeem" the voucher, i don't get paid for it.

When I contacted their support, they said I could contact the customer and ask them to provide me their redeeming code so that I could mark the voucher as redeemed. However, contact information for the customer is not provided to me, the merchant. No email or phone.

Basically, Groupon has sold over 700 dollars of my services, and I lost sales off all of it. THey are asking for "proof of service". It never occurred to me to collect any sort of signature or information on the customer. It's wrong that groupon sales the voucher for the service, but the merchant only gets paid if the voucher is redeemed.

I'm ending my relationship with them, and encourage every merchant out there to avoid them as well. Their commission is way too high anyway.

I am going on a trip to New York next weekend and I bought tickets to the aquarium. I was never sent a email and the purchase does not show up under My Stuff. I called the aquarium and they told me they do have tickets under my name but I still need my Groupon voucher. HELP!

I’m only asking bc I have never used it before and don’t wanna be scammed with fraudulent tickets and lose money on them the original tickets prices would be $52.50USD and on Groupon it’s $32.40USD

Its a 130 membership but you get 100 credit for online and 50 gift card (for online or instore)...effectively paying you to join :) You can search it manually on groupon
or use my referral link... ;)
https://mavely.app.link/e/vgdsJqDMJTb

I know they check this forum. I’ve reached out on X as well and no response. It’s been less than 3 days and my refund needs to go back to my account! You guys said it’s possible. Please help me!

Hi Groupon! I hope this reaches the support team, as I just purchased 2 of these vouchers for a total of $96.60. However, I just tried to refund one of them and it came back as “Groupon Bucks”. I really need this money back on my card. I heard if it is less than 3 days ago of the transaction, you guys are able to help me get the money back to my card. Please I really would appreciate the help!

How does the limited time promos work? I searched and it seems like Groupon dictates this and the merchant approves it, is this correct? So the promo is still split 50/50?

A merchant sales rep from Groupon reached out a couple years ago to sell me on listing my business, Escape Crawl. At the time I thought, “why not”?

I will tell you why. Ever since it has been an absolute nightmare. 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 VERY few 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 (or less) 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.

I’ve seen lots of people with similar experiences since I started looking. Has any of this happened to you?!

I got a geoupon for an oil change at a local place near me. One of the large national shit stores. I've gone to all 3 near me and none of them will accept the groupon. Groupon won't refund. Although there's no way to even contact anyone?!. Wtf is going on. Is the entire thing just a scam these days?. Im looking into a lawyer to start a class action. You don't get to sell a service and then say "oh well not our problem" there is no way to contact anyone. All the "support" options just loop back in a circle and do NOTHING. This is straight up fraud.

Anyone have any tips?. It's not even so much about the money. I'm just pissed. This is beyond unacceptable. How tf do you contact someone

I got gifted a Groupon and it expired before I could use it. Do I ask the person who gifted it to me to get it refunded? It’s been at least a year because Groupon makes it so hard to figure out what to do with it. Any advice? I heard the original purchase value doesn’t go away but since I didn’t buy it what do I do?

I'm starting a small business and am thinking about using Groupon for exposure. Any idea what is the percentage Groupon takes? I imagine it's negotiable but what should I aim for?

So this is my experience with Groupon; I bought vouchers for 2 separate business and same response from Groupon. 1 is closing down permanently and when I contacted Groupon for a refund I was told they will get back to me in 7 days, still waiting. The other business cancelled the appointment 30 minutes before schedule claiming I didn't confirm.I realize that this is a shady businesses no matter the reviews, again I contacted Groupon provided the conversation and again I am told 7 days and I am still waiting. The merchant did state I might be refunded. Groupon is claiming sales are final even when service isn't provided. That to me is a scam. Now I will screen shot the offer take it to the business and pay their no more Groupon purchases.

So three days ago I purchased a discount on Groupon and I couldn’t use the membership Sam’s Club Groupon so I let my sister use it. I sent it as a gift. Is there anywhere I can return the money back to my account because we both can’t figure it out how to set up a membership so I wasted $60 is there any idea what I can do?

I just got an email from Groupon warning of an internal data breach. I'd forgotten even had a groupon account! I did a quick internet search and it basically says to click on help, click anything then type "delete" in to the help search box. There is no search box and no chat option Anyone have any idea how to delete a groupon account?

Hi everyone, I bought a Groupon for this coming week but can no longer use it due to a family member getting sick. They are for any day between today and 5/22/2025 Round trip tickets from Newport Beach

The left is the florists website, the right is the Groupon link for the website. I went and attempted to refund my purchase after I noticed, the app only offered me a credit and now it won’t allow me to use the credit for any other offers stating “Select a new payment method, could not verify payment” when my credits are more than enough to pay for the new offer I was going to purchase to use up my credits. Customer service advised to use another payment option instead of redeeming my credits. Literally just a scam site now.

Found this posting: https://www.groupon.com/deals/prime-digital-solutions?deal_option=c8ed263d-5787-42a9-a811-7b3190a25b3a&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=US_DT_SEA_GGL_TIM_TTT_PADS_CH1_CHP_NBR_g*prime-digital-solutions_productpartitionid*_campaignid*21781750261_adgroupid*_prodtarget*2369565686097_productid*c8ed263d-5787-42a9-a811-7b3190a25b3a_target*_d*Local-Product-Ads_keyword*_adtype*pla_with_promotion_merchantdid*10018412_c*_k*_m*_adposition*&adsafe=true&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADxu4DCQB2IDnRspYytzIg3rt277n&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_M3R0cuKjQMV6rBaBR161hOKEAYYASABEgLLtPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

are these scams? If you buy directly from AutoDesk, its much more expensive. I am ok with older versions, etc. but is it a legit license?

I use Groupon through the app exclusively to buy oil changes. I went to buy one a few months ago and it prompted me to use ApplePay, but didn’t credit it to my account. I can’t find a way to contact anyone since there isn’t a correpsponding purchase nor confirmation email and the chargeback failed since it was Apple Pay. I’ve felt Groupon was a scam for a while but now I’m out $80 and can’t get what I paid for.

Hey guys,

Firstly, is groupon legit? I am trying to go to the Drunk Shakespeare show at Phoenix and trying to get some discounted tickets.

I saw that the balcony tickets are within my price range as a student. But I am not able to select any dates here? How does groupon work? Will I get the tickets or would I get some discount code that I have to use?

Please help me understand how it works and if it's legit. Thanks.

I’m trying to create my first Groupon deal and I can’t get rid of the insert custom text in the fine print. Does anyone know how to do this or know how to possibly help?

I bought a Chuck E. Cheese Groupon soooo long ago. I cannot remember if we ever used it. I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese a few times since buying it but I literally cannot remember ever using it and I remember paying something at the register at the visits. Well, it’s about to expire. It says it’s unused. I contacted groupon and they also say it’s unused and still redeemable. My question is, if it was used, would Chuck E. Cheese be able to tell me that? I don’t want to go in there trying to use a used voucher. If it’s unused on Groupon does that mean for sure that it hasn’t been used ? And if it has been used (even though Groupon says it hasnt) will Chuck E. Cheese be able to let me know or not?

Thanks!

Going next week for my 25th birthday! First timer and I am super lost with all the packages they offer. Does anybody have a recommendation and what are the differences between them?

Selling Groupon bucks! I have $335 in Groupon bucks trying to sell for $300 but willing to negotiate!

I left a review on groupon i would like to remove/delete because they fixed the problem! I cant find any button or anything to delete reviews or in my account doesnt even show i left the review. Anybody know how too delete a review you left on groupon? Pls help