Coupons.com, as you probably know, is the most popular source of online printable coupons. FreeCoupons.com is one of many coupon blogs that gives savvy shoppers access to Coupons.com coupons. A recent change made by Coupons.com is generating some controversy among couponers.

A website called Coupons In The News reported that Coupons.com has removed the box on their website that previously allowed users to enter their zip code. From this point onward, Coupons.com is only going to show you coupons that are available nationally and the ones that are only available in your zip code.

This might not seem like a big deal to people who put their real zip code into the box and browsed the coupons that appeared. They can continue to use Coupons.com as they typically would. Nothing really changes for this group of consumers.

The people who are going to have a problem with this new change are those who have been entering a zip code that was not their own into Coupons.com. The change will also affect people who liked to enter several different zip codes into the box. Why would someone do that? They were doing it to get extra coupons that were not offered to consumers in the zip code that they actually lived in.

When Coupons.com originally allowed people to enter their zip code into the box on their website, the assumption was that people would simply enter the zip code they lived in and browse whatever coupons appeared.

Eventually, some couponers realized that entering different zip codes gave them access to coupons that they would never see if they only used their real zip code. It didn’t take long for people to figure out which zip codes had the best regional offers.

Extreme couponers, and some coupon bloggers, got into the habit of using several different zip codes at Coupons.com. So did people who lived in zip codes that rarely received the special coupons that some of the other zip codes got.

In other words, they were “gaming the system”. They were using Coupons.com in a way that was not intended. The tactic probably wasn’t illegal, but it was dishonest. As a result, Coupons.com has made a change to their website. The box that people used to enter zip codes has been removed. The zip code box has also been removed from affiliate sites that offer access to Coupons.com coupons.

Food manufacturers offer coupons to specific areas for a reason. They might be testing a new product in that area before making the product available nationwide. Or, they might be trying to increase sales in a specific area where sales had fallen off by using a coupon to tempt consumers. None of these plans work if the coupons are being used outside of the intended zip code.

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