More and more supermarket deals are requiring you to use digital coupons to get the low advertised price.
If you have the store app on your phone, it is so much easier than the old method of clipping paper coupons.
But it has become a problem for many seniors and digitally challenged people, who are unable to use these new coupons.
And it has all come to a head in recent days, as shoppers with no smartphones found themselves unable to get many of the best holiday sales, such as these.
For instance, Kroger advertised one of the lowest Thanksgiving turkey prices in the country, at just 49 cents per pound for a frozen store-brand turkey in many of its markets.
However, you needed the Kroger smartphone app and digital coupon to get that incredible deal.
Stop & Shop stores on the east coast, meantime, advertised chicken breasts for just $2.99 a pound.
But you needed a smartphone app for that too.
Shopper Robin Casagrande says it's unfair to people who can't figure out how to use the store apps.
"They are annoying," she said. "They are obnoxious in the sense that if you can't figure out how to use the app then you don't get that discount."
Consumer groups ask stores to help digitally challenged shoppers
Now, 6 months after a report in ConsumerWorld.org that first called this "digital discrimination," a coalition of groups is asking stores to help the digitally challenged.
Consumer Reports, Consumer Action, the National Consumers League, and PIRG have sent an open letter to grocery chainsrequesting a workaround.
ConsumerWorld's Ed Dworsky, who first brought the issue to national attention, says digital coupons shut out older retirees who need the savings the most.
"25 percent of them are not on the internet," he said. "How do they get the discounts? The answer is that many of them don't."
Dworsky says he is not asking for a return to the 1980s, understanding that we are not going to see a return to paper coupons because digital coupons are such a marketing and inventory aid for stores.
But he says he wants stores to "empower cashiers to charge the digital price upon request," allowing those without the app to get the same savings.
Or he says, put a paper option back into the weekly circular, where shoppers can again clip for savings.
Shopper Tanya Lovett agrees.
"I think they should go with the paper ones for a while," she said. "Or half and half, how about that?"
We reached out to Kroger for comment, but have not heard back. Stop & Shop, meantime, told us it has not yet seen the consumer groups' letter, but will review it when it receives it.
ConsumerWorld says the way things stand now, many retirees struggling to make ends meet on Social Security are unable to get the discounts younger shoppers can get.
As always don't waste your money.
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