For as long as I have been using the Internet I have shopped online. I learned early on how to protect myself or I may have never shopped for the first item. The below info graphic is a snapshot of what I do to make sure shopping is safe and secure.

It’s always wise to know who you are about to make a purchase from before hitting the enter key. Do a little homework if you have never shopped a site before and it isn’t well known. Read their FAQ page. Find out if they have a tracking system, a return policy, what their shipping fees are etc. Once you know more about them, go ahead and make your purchase. ALWAYS print a copy of your receipt. If you are shopping a rewards site, take a screen shot of your last page so that it includes the URL at the top.

Now check out these great tips…

Via: TrendMicro

SavingStar.com is the newest coupon savings for you to use to manage your budget into full submission. This is the first and only coupon rewards service. It is completely digital too so there is NO printing, filing or sorting involved. SavingsStar is FREE to use and there are no cost associated with signing up as a member.

Easy Registration!!!

Login/Register with SavingStar.com:

• Enter all of your store shopper cards. Most stores participating including drug stores.
• Load all the coupons to your cards.
• Shop as usual with all of your clipped paper coupons.
• Redeem for rewards once you hit $5.00 or more.

Easy Use:

• Select the eCoupons you want to use on the website or mobile app, and they are automatically linked to your store card.
• Coupons will be loaded to every loyalty card you enter so long as you have registered them.
• Use with clipped paper coupons.
• Use your card when you checkout and the money is added to your SavingStar.com account.
• The savings will NOT lower your amount due at the register and the savings are not printed on the receipt. Instead, they get deposited into your account within 2 – 14 days depending upon where you shop and how often the store transmits the data. Savings are put into an online savings account.
• Reach $5 saved get your money back in Paypal, Amazon gift cards or other options. SIMPLE!!!!
• Be sure to download the iPhone & Android apps for your smart phones so that you can save more.

Where Can I Redeem My SavingsStar.com eCoupons?

Currently there are over 24,000 stores that are participating in the SavingsStar program. There are in excess of 100 retail chains that are set up to help you save money. If your store isn’t participating, you can let them know about this program and see if they won’t join SavingsStar.

SavingStar eCoupons MAY be used with paper coupons and this will help you lower your amount due at the register.

If you are already a member of Upromise, you may have noticed that SavingsStar powers those coupons as well. YOU MAY PARTICIPATE IN BOTH! HOWEVER, you may only activate a particular eCoupon in one service during a single promotion.

Pick Your Payout!

Currently, when you save $5.00 or more you have the option of 4 different types of payouts. You may elect to have your funds deposited to your bank account, your verified PayPal.com account, redeem for Amazon Gift Cards or charity donations.

Eligibility:

If you are 18 years of age or older, have an Internet connection, an email address and are willing to accept Cookies, you are eligible to use SavingsStar.com eCoupons.

This is an incredibly easy way to save money and help your budget go farther. It is free to join and free to use so start saving today! Don’t forget to follow them on Facebook and Twitter to receive the latest info.

For years many Targeteers have questioned exactly how to get the coupons they want the very most and what they need to do to get them. As I have long suspected but could not prove, it is from data mining.

What is data mining:

Definition: Data mining is the use of automated data analysis techniques to uncover previously undetected relationships among data items. Data mining often involves the analysis of data stored in a data warehouse. Three of the major data mining techniques are regression, classification and clustering. Source: About.com

Targeteers have known this for years but we didn’t quite have the inside info on how or “WHOM” was behind it. Enter Andrew Pole, a statistician for Target Corp. It all started when the marketing team started working with Pole to define whether they could predict if someone was pregnant.

Pole’s most important assignment was to identify those unique moments in consumers’ lives when their shopping habits become particularly flexible and the right advertisement or coupon would cause them to begin spending in new ways. Source: NYTimes

THAT is when Target wants YOU to become their customer for EVERYTHING! Seems as though the gestational period for having a baby is a great time to be the gestational child for hatching a new long term customer for Target! “New parents are a retailer’s holy grail.” (Source: NY Times) This is the time in a customer’s life where they switch from shopping for items at stores specific for the items on their list. They become one-stop shoppers. MAKES PERFECT SENSE! AHH! The logic!

This is the precise time in a shoppers life when everything is reevaluated and time savers are implemented. Target swoops in for the gold (quite literally) at this appointed time. However, Target wants to be the FIRST choice so they want to reach you BEFORE you have your child. They want to nurture a relationship with you while you are pregnant, most specifically they want to start during your second trimester!

DID YOU KNOW….
Target assigns each shopper with an internal number (a unique code) called a Guest ID Number. This number keeps tabs on E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. you buy if the number can be assigned. If you pay cash only, you probably won’t be tracked.

Some of the ways you can be assigned a Guest ID Number are:

• using a credit card
• using a coupon
• fill out a survey
• mail in a refund
• call customer help line
• open a Target email sent to you
• visit Target.com

Also linked to your Guest ID is ALL of your demographic info:

• age, sex, marriage, single, kids
• where you live, how long it take to drive to the store
• estimated salary, if you moved recently
• what credit cards you carry in your wallet, web sites you visit

Target can PURCHASE:

• data about your ethnicity, job history, magazines you read
• if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy, ever divorced
• year you purchased your home
• where you attended college
• topics you talk about online
• brand preferences
• political preferences
• reading habits, charitable giving
• number of cars you own

At the end of the research day, Pole’s data from all the data he  mined identified about 25 products that signals  a “pregnancy prediction” score AND an expected window for a due date. This is how Target can send specific coupons timed at stages of a mom’s pregnancy.

And, as I suspected, if you say anything, seek information, dig around, you are put on a list of prohibited visitors as the author of the article was. We know from calling the home office to ask, complain or attempt to get to the bottom of how to get onto a coupon list that the corporate offices told ALL of us who called that they couldn’t divulge such information. NOW we know why! It is Target’s HUGE SECRET! It MUST work. From the time Mr. Pole was hired in 2002 and thru 2010, revenues at Target grew from $44 billion to $67 billion. If you do the math, one man and his team earned Target $23 BILLION! Yep! He was promoted. I bet he doesn’t have to use coupons!!!

Don’t bother to call Target. They still won’t answer your questions about any of this. Likely you’ll be added to some sort of list that blocks you. If I go missing, would someone call Andrew Pole and get him to find me. I bet he can!

Source: NYTimes.com to read the entire article.

Printing problems “bricks” coupons? If you get an error message or get caught in a loop, this tutorial will help you solve the problems. Read on…

We as a group use many different browsers on our computers. Because of that, when you attempt to print a “bricks” coupon it may or may not work. You may even get frustrated and end up NOT printing the coupon. That can be a huge loss financially over the course of time. Here is what you need to do to correct the problem.For the sake of posting without the link working, I have altered the start of the link from “http” to “hxxp”.

Also, so that you get the idea of why you would do the following, a URL is nothing more than an instruction. It is a language that your computer understands. If you are giving your computer the wrong instruction, your coupons will not print.

The Fix:

Here are some simple things you can do to fix that problem:

Please make sure the coupon printer plug-in is installed. When you click a link to print the coupon, you will get a screen that looks similar to the graphic below. If the plug-in is installed the “PRINT COUPONS” button will be at the bottom. If the coupon printer plug-in is not installed, the button will say “Install Plug-in”.

If you have installed the plug-in, please reboot your computer so that it is recognized. After you do that and you are attempting to print a coupon and you get one of those messages saying to install the printer plug-in, it is a simple fix.  All you need to do is change 2 characters in the URL in the Address bar to make it work.

Here is an example of a Bricks URL:

httx://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=ri3peuo59687503&bt=wg&o=53740&ci=1&c=GM&p=TyQrvJAY

Do you see the wg in bold red in the URL above?  You will need to change whatever shows up in the URL you are given to the following depending on your browser:

• Firefox: change to wg
• Internet Explorer: change to wi
• Safari: change to vi

You will have to know what your browser name is and change the 2-digit characters in the URL will make them print.

Additional Bricks Coupon Info:

• You may print 2 of each “bricks” coupons by hitting the back-button.
• You may NOT copy these on a printer. They have unique codes.
• These coupons have a finite number of times they may be printed. As a courtesy, please do not waste a print if you aren’t going to use. Allow others to print & use.
• Sometimes “bricks” coupons will be reset and more prints will be added.

Please bookmark this post and/or print out this post to keep it hand for future reference when printing.

Last week my blog disappeared off the planet for an unknown reason. I’ll be putting a few things back as time allows. Unfortunately, I’ll have to recreate from scratch. Stand by as I do my best to help you out.

In the meantime, please visit ATTENTIONDEALSHOPPERS.COM for all of your Target needs. I own it too!