Coupon website seeks protection

Two websites founded on the premise of giving consumers a great deal on a range of products and experiences are now doing anything but that, leaving both consumers and merchants in the lurch.

Couch Commerce, which is one of Canada’s largest coupon deal companies, has filed for bankruptcy protection and is allegedly not honouring coupons its customers have paid for and is not paying its vendors.

Couch Commerce is the parent company of TeamBuy.ca and Dealfind.com, two websites which merged into one company back in December of 2012.

It works on the business model where a deal will go through only when enough people sign up for it.

But even though the websites were both very popular, Couch Commerce went into financial restructuring at the end of last month.

This month, it sent out an e-mail to customers explaining the situation which in part stated that because of the legal and financial restructuring process, it cannot honour any credits nor issue any refunds related to purchases on or before August 29th of this year.

The e-mail then goes on to say that the reason for the restructuring is to provide the companies with a more stable environment to continue operations and develop a plan to allow them to continue in business before ending with they appreciate the prior and continued support of customers through this important process.

Vendors also received a similar letter, but they were also provided with a 76 page list of all the companies that are owed money by couch commerce.

One of those is Budd Gardens in Gloucester Ontario near Ottawa.

Its owner says one of the companies on the list is owed over $5 million, leading him to believe that he won’t ever see a cent of what is owed to his business.