Strike Two for Coborns

Shopping at Coborn's for me is about as frustrating as figuring out this coupon

Warning: rant ahead

Strike One
Early February I got over $10 worth of groceries, had a coupon for 2 free cans of veggies with $10 purchase, no restrictions stated.  Of course there were more coupons and my total came down to about $5-6.  They didn't let me use the free coupon so I returned the canned veggies.  This would've been okay other than the fact that I've used the free item coupon before with over $10 total before coupons.  The cashier said they were told to hold the coupon to the end in case the total after coupons was under $10.

I stayed calm, maybe there was a policy change.  So I emailed their corporate a polite note to ask to clarify their coupon policy on Feb 6.  There was no response, just an automated acknowledgement of my email and
I even listed my number.  I decided that I'd only shop there if there were really good deals that I wanted.

Strike Two
I finally went today and used some Penny Pincher coupons.  My Fresh Express salad coupon was printed from their website, $ .75/1.  It didn't go through so the cashier looked at it and said it wasn't valid and it was a copy.

A COPY?!

I don't copy coupons and I do my very best not to commit any type of coupon fraud.  I limit myself to what I can legitimately print and purchase.  I told her that it was printed from Fresh Express' website and not a copy.  She later apologized but it was humiliating to be told this in front of a line of people for a $ .75 coupon.

Also, my coupon for free cheese coupon didn't ring through either, so I'm going back tomorrow to return the items that I had to purchase to get free cheese.  Plus they don't carry the snack bars that were on sale.


It's going to be awhile until I'll want to shop there again.  And I wonder, is this the reason that none of the bigger coupon bloggers follow Coborn's?  I really would like to support the smaller local grocery stores but they make it hard to coupon at.  It would be nice if they could be consistent with their coupon policy so then I'd know what to expect.  But when you can't get an answer to clarify things, well, my answer is to shop somewhere else.