A common question I get asked is “If a coupon listed here at Printable Coupon Spot says that a sign up is required, if the sign up is real or if it is some sort of scam?”

Well first let me assure you that each and every website we link to here for printable coupons is 100% legitimate and not a scam. We hate scams, spam and junk as much as you do! However some companies choose to offer a printable coupon when you join their website or mailing list because printable coupons are a marketing tool and these companies figure that if you are interested in printing a coupon for their product, then you are apt to want to join their mailing list in which they can send you recipes, tips, news about new products, sweepstakes they are holding and usually, more money saving printable coupons in the future.

That is not to say that your email inbox will not be flooded with emails from these companies. Here are 10 steps you can take to make the signing up process as painless as possible.

1. Set up a new free email account such as one offered from Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. I personally prefer Gmail because I find it easy to forward emails and set up filters.
2. Once you have set up your new email address, you can either decide if you are going to check that email address for new printable coupons, never going to check it, or if you want to set up forwarding. I personally prefer to have those emails forwarded to my normal email address.
3. If you have decided to forward emails from your new email address you should set that up and then also set up a filter, so that all new emails that get forwarded from your new email address are placed in a folder or file so that they don’t clutter up your in-box but you can read them at your leisure or when you are looking for new printable coupons.
4. Use an auto fill program to so that you can, with one click auto fill the sign up submission forms. Google has one, and there are others out there as well. I personally use Robo-Form Pro as it allows me to store my pass cards for every site that I have signed up for.
5. Decide if you want to give these companies your real information or fake info. I usually am OK with giving companies my email address, real name, city and zip code. I know that they use this information for demographic studies and marketing. However I am a little leery of giving many of them my phone number and my physical address. Unless they indicate that they will also send me coupons via the mail, I either leave this field blank or use a made up address. And I rarely, if ever give out my phone number because, frankly, there is just no reason whatsoever for these companies to need to call me.
6. Before signing up for anything, read a company’s privacy policy to see what they intend to do with your information. You can usually find a company’s privacy policy in the header (top) or footer (bottom) of their website. Every legitimate website has a privacy policy (even we do!) and if you cannot find privacy policy for a website, don’t sign up and give them your information. Period.
7. Don’t fall for offers that seem too good to be true. There are not any legitimate printable coupon websites that offer you gift cards, free items, or vacations for signing up for a printable coupon.
8. Don’t jump through hoops to get a printable coupon. If after you sign up or before you sign up a printable coupon website makes you click “yes”, “no” or “skip” for page upon page of offers that you might be interested in. Click the little red X in your browsers window. These are called “co-branded” websites and their interest is not to offer you a printable coupon, but to get you to sign up for as many mailing lists and offers as possible.  Usually when you get the end of all the available offers you won’t even get the printable coupon that you were promised from the beginning. It was just a scam to collect your personal information and email address!
9. Go ahead and feel free to opt-out. If you start getting newsletters from the companies that you signed up for and you don’t want to continue to receive these newsletters anymore, there should be a link at the bottom of the email that will allow you to opt-out of receiving their newsletters.  The process can take a few days to take effect but you should stop receiving more newsletters from them usually within a week.
10. If there is a product or brand that you frequently purchase check their website often for new offers, sometimes the company that you signed up for does not always send out a email letting you know about new offers. Most of them do, but some don’t. Additionally you can set up further filters in your email to highlight the brands that you use often. In Gmail I use their star system to let me know that my favorite brands have sent me an email so I can check it for new coupons.

These ten steps should prevent you from falling for a coupon scam, a full email inbox and unwanted spam or telemarketing calls. Signing up for printable coupons can be a great way to stay in the know about new coupons for your favorite brands, and most companies want to offer you those coupons so that you will continue to purchase their products.

Do you know of any other tips for making the sign up process less painful? Got a question about how to do any of the above steps? Or just want to ask if a site is real or not? We would love to hear from you. Reply to this post below and let us know what you think!