BrokeScholar.com: A Warning to Affiliate Advertisers

In our effort to combat spam in the affiliate marketing industry, we're publicly documenting one clear example of spam and attempt to mislead consumers in an apparent example to defraud affiliate advertisers. If more affiliate publishers call out these false and misleading sites like these, we can create even greater pressure to clean up our industry such that we're creating greater value for our advertising partners.

Disclosure: we're in litigation against Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams (the founders of the website brokescholar.com) - read the full complaint here.

Mazza and Williams have renamed the website originally referenced in this article. PromoCodeWatch.com was changed to BrokeScholar.com. This article has been updated to reflect this new name.

Mazza and Williams left our company, took with them confidential information and trade secrets and utilized those to copy a portion of our website and then marketed that website using improper SEO techniques known as link spam and paid links. BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch also runs schemes to improperly inflate clicks which it monetizes with affiliate advertisers.

Patrick Williams and Mark P. Mazza had access to substantial confidential information while employed with us. They misappropriated this information in direct violation of their employment contracts and used it to create an illegitimate copy of our website.

As is documented further below, Mark and Patrick even discussed with each other the potential legal risks of their violations of their employment contracts over text messages in 2015 and 2016. They even discussed the possibility of stealing information from companies for which Patrick M. Williams contracted as a UI / UX Designer and Web Developer in Los Angeles.

Mark and Patrick had access to confidential documents, code repositories, file systems while employed with ZipfWorks. While employed with us, they utilized our company messaging system to engage in one-on-one chats during which they conspired to steal information from ZipfWorks and create an illegitimate, shell clone of our website. We've recovered these chats to utilize as evidence in our lawsuit.

Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams are continuing to run their website based on information, trade secrets, and documents they stole from ZipfWorks. They are continuing to run improper marketing schemes to deceive users and advertisers which are harmful to consumers. Due to their illegal and unethical actions , as well as the overwhelming evidence we have collected in the course of our litigation, we're publicizing this information to create a record of their improper actions.

Patrick M. Williams is currently hiding his employment with ZipfWorks from his LinkedIn profile and other career websites

Patrick MK Williams was employed with ZipfWorks in Santa Monica / Los Angeles from March 20, 2015 through November 2015. Here's his employment letter:

Patrick M. Williams offer letter

Here's a photo of Patrick M. Williams (UX Designer) at a ZipfWorks team dinner, sitting with Mark Mazza (Affiliate Operations).

Patrick M Williams UX Designer

However, Patrick has since completely deleted ZipfWorks from his employment history. We believe that given that he stole confidential information from us and used that to create his new company (BrokeScholar in Los Angeles, CA), he has decided to conceal his relation to both companies in the public sphere.

Patrick Williams

Here's the CV that Patrick Williams (UX Designer and Software Engineer) submitted to us with his job application for our UI / UX Designer position in March 2015. It's also notable that 309 Media was nowhere to be found on this resume, despite that Patrick is currently claiming that he's been continuously employed there as an Associate Producer since 2013:

Patrick M. Williams resume

Patrick M. Williams appears to be re-writing his employment history to hide the fact that he has founded an illegal and illegitimate business.

Mark and Patrick conspired to create a "blackhat" version of our website while they were employed with us via text messages

During the course of our investigation into BrokeScholar, Patrick M.K. Williams (UI / UX Designer and Frontend Engineer), and Mark P. Mazza (Affiliate Ads Manager) we discovered chats between them on our corporate messaging system.

In these chats, Patrick and Mark discuss conspiring to collaborate on various illegitimate or "spammy" businesses.

Mark Mazza and Patrick MK Williams

Mark and Patrick discuss wanting to "go blackhat" so bad, and "throwing morals out the window."

Mark P. Mazza and Patrick M. Williams

After leaving ZipfWorks, Mark and Patrick discussed ZipfWorks extensively via chat

During the course of our litigation, we've come into possession of chat and text messaging transcripts between Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams. In these chats, Mark and Patrick discuss ZipfWorks, our websites, and our founder and senior partners extensively. 

We're publicizing a selection of these chats to show how they clearly intended not only to steal confidential information from ZipfWorks, they also planned to harm our business and wanted to undermine our financial stability and well-being.

Patrick Williams expresses feelings of malice and intent to do harm towards ZipfWorks' management

Patrick discusses how he hates seeing images of his former boss's children on his social networking feeds, because he's "taking food out their mouths." He also mentions that he's "taking their daddy's car."

Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams chat transcript

In this chat, Patrick Williams and Mark Mazza discuss abusing their position of trust with their former employer, as well as the possibility of being sued for their actions. Patrick mentions acts of vandalism against our founder.

Patrick Williams Mark Mazza PromoCodeWatch

Patrick Williams discusses "sucking the life" out of our founders

Mark and Patrick discuss how they are utilizing confidential information to target and attack our business, leading to a decline in our revenues ("sucking the life" out of our founder) while benefiting their revenues.

Patrick M. Williams makes reference to acts of physical harm to ZipfWorks' founder and family

As our efforts to communicate with the various advertising networks were leading to BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch being banned from a growing number of networks, Patrick says he might have to "burn his condo down" in reference to our founder. 

Patrick Williams and Mark Mazza were concerned about their legal exposure due to having signed confidentiality agreements with ZipfWorks

Mark Mazza was under a misguided impression that he had not signed a confidentiality agreement with ZipfWorks. He thought this gave him protection while running BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch. He was concerned, however, that Patrick Williams (UI/UX Designer) had signed a confidentiality agreement, which he apparently found problematic. In reality, both individuals had signed confidentiality agreements prohibiting them from utilizing non-public information from ZipfWorks. 

Mark also expresses his viewpoint that, if he were also doing contract work like Patrick was doing, he would be tempted to steal confidential ideas from his clients to launch competitors.

Patrick and Mark were concerned about being penalized by Google for using improper marketing tactics

Patrick MK Williams and Mark Mazza were aware that if Google reviewed their website, they would likely receive a manual action penalty which would negatively impact their business.

Patrick and Mark were becoming concerned that they were starting to gain some visibility, which might increase their exposure to a penalty.

Patrick and Mark discussed ways to make their site appear to look more legitimate

The founders discuss how they could modify their website to make it appear to be more legitimate.

In-depth look into BrokeScholar's illegitimate business scheme

Their partial copy of our website is essential a "shell" clone of ours since it only resembles our website visually as well as in site structure and page structure. They did not replicate the technology and processes underlying our site (which enable us to curate real content that meets the needs of users).

A major portion of the difficulty and resource allocation involved in running an online coupon business lies in creating, editorializing and maintaining content. In our industry this means adding, editing, and updating tens of thousands of coupons and coupon codes every day.

In our case, we utilize crowdsourcing whereby nearly 200,000 community members edit and update our deals to ensure accuracy, and we employ a staff of 40 full-time team members to moderate and manage this community. In other cases, companies like RetailMeNot and Coupons.com employs hundreds of employees to maintain high editorial standards. Contrast this with Brokescholar.com, which has just 3 employees.

The online coupons industry faces a problem in it is that it is relatively easy for any company to setup a site that visually resembles RetailMeNot.com, Coupons.com or our site, but then populate that site with fake coupons and coupon codes. Then, given the importance of search engines as a source of traffic for coupon sites (as this is how most people search for them), these "shell" site operators can invest in schemes to boost and manipulate their search engine rankings and derive profits, because the search engines have yet to develop a way determine that these shell sites don't actually have real coupons.

In fact, displaying a large number of fake coupon codes can actually have the effect of boosting a site's rankings on search engines like Google, because if visitors are clicking to view and trying out numerous coupon codes, in a search engine's eyes, this may indicate that there is something of interest on this site (a concept known as dwell time).

This is a challenging issue to address in the coupons industry, and is among the driving reasons why, for consumers, so many coupon codes online seem to be expired or simply don't work. Currently, there is no solution for this - Google and other search engines have not figured out a way to differentiate a good coupon site from a fake coupon site.

However, in this case, we can expose the inner workings of at least one such "shell" coupon site. We're familiar with the creators of BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com (they are our former employees) and we've obtained evidence of their intentions to create a fraudulent "blackhat" coupon site after leaving our company. They discussed this matter extensively with each other while employed with us on our internal chat systems, and during the course of our litigation, we've recovered these chats as evidence. The founders, Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams, discussed leaving ZipfWorks to "throw morals and Google's judging eye out the window" and setup their own "blackhat" version of our coupon website. 

We further conducted a detailed analysis of their website, brokescholar.com / promocodewatch.com, over an extended period of time and documented with hundreds of screenshots, how they posted primarily false and expired coupon codes and utilized sophisticated UI cloaking techniques to mislead their site visitors into thinking these were real coupons, verified by editors. In fact, 93% of the coupon codes we examined on Brokescholar.com / Promocodewatch.com were invalid or expired. Contrast with a site like RetailMeNot, which in our latest study had only 24% of expired or invalid codes displayed, or our site at 22% expired / invalid.

Brokescholar.com / Promocodewatch.com even displays promo codes for e-commerce stores that explicitly do not offer promo codes as a matter of store policy, such as 23andme (see screenshots). Not only did Brokescholar.com / Promocodewatch.com display codes for these stores, they featured them prominently with their signature "verified" green checkmark label, and continuously changed their expiration dates each night with an automated script. These techniques appear to be an intentional effort by BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch to deceive their own users and search engines into thinking their website contained superior content than mainstream coupon websites like RetailMeNot (which correctly displayed no coupon codes for 23andme).

This article serves to document the details of how Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams operate their website BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com. You can read more details about our litigation and full set of chat records here and read a copy of our formal complaint filed in the state of California here.

Our original analysis was conducted in early 2017. Based on our updated analysis in 2018, we've captured evidence that BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continues to display fake and invalid promo codes on a systematic basis.

Table of contents:

False expiration dates which are programmatically updated nightly to mislead users

One of the important pieces of information that a coupon site provides about each coupon they list is that coupon's expiration date. At Dealspotr we spend enormous effort getting these dates correct, so that shoppers will know how much time they have to use a particular coupon before it expires.

We tracked BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch in detail from December 2016 to February 2017, and we observed a highly unusual pattern on their website. Each night, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch appeared to systematically update the expiration dates of a large percentage of its coupons across its entire site, with seemingly no regard to whether such dates were actually accurate. In particular, PromoCodeWatch auto-generates random expiration dates for coupons that are fake, invalid, or expired.

Here's just one example of what we observed as a general pattern across BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's entire website, for IT Cosmetics:

PromoCodeWatch.com fake coupon code scheme, auto-generated expiration dates for IT Cosmetics

We tracked 31 store pages on PromoCodeWatch in detail over a two month period, and we observed this technique being used on 28 of them. Here's just one more example this time for Fabletics:

PromoCodeWatch.com fake coupon code scheme, auto-generated expiration dates for Fabletics

In over a hundred instances in our test alone, we observed BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch using this technique on its coupon codes, even on codes that were invalid and those that had obviously been expired for a long time. For example, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch listed for Bass Pro Shops the code "HUNT2015" which had obviously expired in 2015. Over the three dates we checked that coupon code, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display this code with a green "verified" label, and its date was altered three times, pushed back each time by a few days. This made the code appear to be valid, encouraging visitors to click on it, and ensured the coupon never appeared to expire. You can see screenshots further down this article.

This appears to be a proactive scheme intended to make what amounts to thousands of invalid coupon codes appear to be continuously valid.

Update on May 9, 2018: We've completed an updated analysis of the fake coupon codes displayed by BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch which shows that they are continuing to display fake and expired codes across their site. In our latest study, we observed them actually increasing the levels at which they display promo codes for brands that do not offer promo codes. See the updated study here.

Posting "verified" codes for retailers that do not offer promo codes

BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's intent to mislead users became even more clear to us when we observed that they posted promo codes for 23andMe, a retailer that explicitly does not offer promo codes as a matter of store policy. We emailed 23andMe to reconfirm this fact, which they did:

Promocodewatch.com

Not only does BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com display 3 promo codes for 23andMe, they display them as "verified" at the top of their page, and they continuously alter the expiration dates of these promo codes so that they never expire.

Here's BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch's page for 23andMe taken on Jan 21, 2017:

Promocodewatch 23andme coupon codes

Here's the same page a few days later on Jan 29, 2017. All 3 fake codes are still there (re-ordered, but they are the same codes) - see how all the expiration dates have been altered:

PromoCodeWatch

And again a few days later on Feb 3, 2017, see how the expiration dates for these 3 fake codes have been altered once again:

This appears to us to be an explicit a practice designed to deceive shoppers into clicking on these codes and boosting BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch revenues.

Deceptive visual cues such as the green checkmark "verified" label

BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com also exploits consumers' familiarity with and trust in larger, more reputable coupon sites such as RetailMeNot. Not only does BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch emulate RetailMeNot's overall look and feel, the site copies RetailMeNot's well-known green "verified" checkmark. RetailMeNot posts this label next to any coupon that its staff has internally tested and verified. RetailMeNot invests heavily in actually verifying its codes, so this checkmark has meaning to many shoppers who have found working coupons on RetailMeNot.

BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch also utilizes this green checkmark, but they include it with all of their deals, even fake and obviously expired ones. These labels, when combined with BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's auto-generated expiration dates, combine to create a compelling illusion of a trustworthy, established coupon site that currently hosts a million shoppers each month.

Continuing to post and promote non-working coupon codes

Like RetailMeNot, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch also displays a percentage value indicating the success rate users are experiencing with that coupon. There are a few important differences, however:

In the above example, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch left these two codes at the top of this page over a period of weeks, with very low success rates. They even altered the expiration dates every few days.

Posting coupon codes that are over one year old and advertising them as valid and current

We saw that BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch listed three promo codes for MyFonts.com: besotted, TWITTER, and THEOPIUM. MyFonts rarely offers discount codes, so we looked into this.

PromoCodeWatch

We checked with a representative to see if they recognized these codes; perhaps they were real codes that had recently expired. Here's what the MyFonts rep said:

PromoCodeWatch

Further evidence that BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch simply posts fake or extremely old promo codes and masks them as real, even going so far as to update their expiration dates each night.

How posting false coupon codes helps BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch rank better in search engines

Fake coupons designed to look real can also artificially boost BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's ranking in search engines. This is because search engines like Google give higher rankings to pages with the following characteristics:

BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch, with its small staff, would struggle to keep its tens of thousands of store pages updated with real, working, tested coupon codes. So, rather than suffer the poor search engine rankings that would result from displaying empty ("thin") coupon pages (and resulting high bounce rate), BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch appears to be resorting to posting fake coupon codes, claiming that the codes have been “verified” and updating their fake expiration dates frequently to create the false impression that the codes are current and regularly verified.

Updating fake coupon codes with constantly altered expiration dates can improperly benefit a website in two ways. First, this can trick search engines into believing that their pages contain a high number of valid coupon codes that are constantly updated, since their expiration dates are specific and updated frequently. Second, these specific expiration dates (along with the green verified label) can trick users into thinking that these codes are real, and encourage more users to click on them. Since users frequently click on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's coupons and spend more time trying out their coupon codes (even if they are fake), search engines may reward them with higher search rankings.

At this time, Google does not have the ability to know whether coupon codes posted on websites are real or fake, so the strategy of posting fake codes and masking them as real is likely effective.

Internal chat records show the founders of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch conspiring to leave ZipfWorks to create a "blackhat" version of our coupon website

To illustrate their intent, we're publishing a sampling of the conversations Mark and Patrick conducted on our company chat systems in which they discuss creating a fraudulent business together after leaving our company.

Patrick Williams and Mark Mazza

A couple weeks later, they discuss "throwing morals and Google's judging eye out the window" after their employment with us:

Patrick Williams and Mark Mazza

In chats, Mark Mazza has demonstrated his familiarity with the notion that continuing to display coupon codes after their expiration date can result in clicks (and revenues), even expressing sarcastic disdain towards our internal policy of actively removing such expired codes.

Mark P. Mazza

Beyond planning to launch a fraudulent website, we further allege that Mark Mazza and Patrick Williams stole confidential contact lists from our company to accelerate their online marketing efforts. We further allege that they proactively cloned a large percentage of the backlinks (a search engine marketing concept) of dealspotr.com with the knowledge that this would have the effect of redirecting traffic from our website to theirs. This allegation forms part of the basis of our monetary damages claims against PromoCodeCode, LLC.

BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch makes false claims on its "About" page to further mislead users

On their About Us page, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch claims that their mission is "to provide the most accurate, up-to-date database of promo codes online." They claim to do this by "leveraging cutting edge technology which tracks promotions in real-time."

PromoCodeWatch false claims on its website

While this is a laudable mission statement, one might find irony in the fact that BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch is doing the exact opposite; they are utilizing their site technology to intentionally deceive shoppers into thinking that outdated and fake promo codes are valid and accurate.

We know from our own experience that keeping an accurate and up-to-date database of coupon codes for thousands of stores is a challenging and expensive endeavor. On Dealspotr, we utilize a sophisticated system involving crowdsourcing, gamification, and rewards, along with a community of nearly 200,000 deal posters, to accomplish this goal. Other companies like RetailMeNot have large internal staffs to keep their coupons updated.

BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch has just 3 employees. They do not provide any details into how their technology enables them to achieve their lofty goal of providing "the most accurate, up-to-date database of promo codes online." And, when hand-tested, 93% of the coupon codes they displayed did not work. They were old, expired, or even outright fake coupon codes.

Study methodology and key findings

Over a span of approximately six weeks, from December 2016 to February 2017, we monitored 31 pages on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch. Each page was advertised by BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch as offering promotional codes for an individual US-based retailer.

How we selected the 31 stores for inclusion in our study:
How we tested the promo codes for each store:
Key findings:

Study data: summary of coupon codes displayed by BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Overall, we found only 9 of the 126 coupon codes we tested to provide valid discounts, which equates to a 7% success rate. 117 of the codes we tested returned an error from the merchant website, indicating they were expired or invalid.

PromoCodeWatch, Mark P. Mazza, Patrick M. Williams

Below are tables summarizing the high level results of the accuracy test across all 31 retailers. The complete backup data including screenshots is available in the last section of this article under "Detailed backup for entire coupon code test of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch."

Edible ArrangementsData captured on 1/21/17
Coupon codes listed for ediblearrangements.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
SAVE1911Expired
CAWH8214Expired
rtmn12131Invalid
RTMN1231Expired
SURV2015Expired
HTAG0161Not applicable
MAPC1110Expired
SAVE9912Expired
EDBL2266Worked
UNIQLOData captured on 1/23/17
Coupon codes listed for uniqlo.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
Spring2016Invalid
42500Invalid
INES2016Invalid
KawsFebVwX2J33wInvalid
MERRY20Invalid
LUCKY8Invalid
TAKE15Invalid
Bass Pro ShopsData captured on 1/29/17
Coupon codes listed for bassproshops.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
HUNT2015Invalid
FALL2016Invalid
SPRING16Invalid
SHOP16Invalid
ARROWInvalid
FISH25Invalid
FLAT5Valid
Blue NileData captured on 1/29/17
Coupon codes listed for bluenile.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
VISAW2015Expired
ESSENTIAL2016Expired
AQ4KRKNKTInvalid
10EXTRA2016Expired
GEMROPE40Expired
SPECIAL20Valid
CNY75Expired
Lane BryantData captured on 1/29/17
Coupon codes listed for lanebryant.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
DECGIFTInvalid
DECGCInvalid
6THLANEInvalid
SV30LBInvalid
30OFFSVLBInvalid
050007035Invalid
30OFFCSLBInvalid
Tractor Supply CompanyData captured on 1/29/17
Coupon codes listed for tractorsupply.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
LC4WATOInvalid
Party CityData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for partycity.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
TREATSHIPInvalid
PC4LT7ZInvalid
PCFRCZMInvalid
PCEBEB9Invalid
JOLLY2Invalid
PCLPFR2Invalid
SAVEMOREPCWorked
PCGPU6LInvalid
TJ MaxxData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for tjmaxx.tj.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
ship89Expired
ship75Expired
MissguidedData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for missguided.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
litafInvalid
20SPENDUSInvalid
heycoatsInvalid
vote30Invalid
trend40Invalid
hurry20Invalid
summer25Invalid
GIRLDCODE30Invalid
PARTY50Invalid
save12Invalid
steal3Invalid
FableticsData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for fabletics.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
47468514Invalid
64455928Invalid
119446474Invalid
fkj92aInvalid
JusticeData captured on 1/21/17
Coupon codes listed for justice.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
222144277Invalid
67566612Invalid
DoorDashData captured on 12/27/16
Coupon codes listed for doordash.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
PA18Invalid
KURAHValid
INbhTaInvalid
Gg9VDrInvalid
HH7eG2Invalid
2QoTawInvalid
5gLP7CInvalid
roLOo6Invalid
CHI497Not applicable
retailddValid
TatchaData captured on 1/21/17
Coupon codes listed for tatcha.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
IPSY15Invalid
FIRM2016Invalid
MASKFOURInvalid
23andMeData captured on 1/21/17
Coupon codes listed for 23andme.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
99onlyStore does not offer promo codes
EPFXY8Store does not offer promo codes
GFPCX9Store does not offer promo codes
IT CosmeticsData captured on 12/27/16
Coupon codes listed for itcosmetics.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
INSIDEInvalid
FSSRM15Valid
FRIENDS2015Invalid
DISCOVERInvalid
INSIDERInvalid
PRETTY50Invalid
VALENTINEInvalid
HollarData captured on 12/27/16
Coupon codes listed for hollar.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
JOLLYExpired
d7afcaInvalid
c6f574Invalid
SNOWBALLExpired
Tilly'sData captured on 12/27/16
Coupon codes listed for tillys.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
fs16Expired
CA4815162342Expired
SLEIGH20Expired
CA1678934I2641013Expired
226379794109567526Expired
226379794501460670Expired
far200033Invalid
MOBILE20Expired
order20Expired
SHIP16Expired
Qatar AirwaysData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for qatarairways.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
SUPER1Expired
QRHKSTUNot applicable
WINUPGRADEExpired
Albee BabyData captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for albeebaby.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
15OFFNot applicable
LABORInvalid
DADInvalid
Forever 21Data captured on 1/27/17
Coupon codes listed for forever21.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
SPRING30Not applicable
DENIMDAYSNot applicable
AbeBooksData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for abebooks.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
A79EU9GROUPONExpired
AdoramaData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for adorama.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
12SAVINGSExpired
1LENSSAVINGExpired
120MOREOFFExpired
NGUITAR31Expired
Audible.comData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for audible.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
kaylin69Invalid
J5UCMK6NN2JQMInvalid
Listen5Invalid
Big LotsData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for biglots.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
WELCOMEExpired
FandangoData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for fandango.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
2SEPTMOVIEInvalid
Harley DavidsonData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for harleydavidson.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
10297Invalid
ModellsData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for modells.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
SHPNOWInvalid
MDLW105Valid
HOHOHO16Invalid
HolidaysInvalid
MyFontsData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for myfonts.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
besottedInvalid
TWITTERInvalid
THEOPIUMInvalid
Nyx CosmeticsData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for nyxcosmetics.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
9NYXInvalid
4NYXInvalid
Tackle DirectData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for tackledirect.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
FINISH17Invalid
TempurpedicData captured on 2/2/17
Coupon codes listed for tempurpedic.com on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatchResult
wf9128Invalid

Screenshots documenting programmatically updated false expiration dates on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

During December 2016 through February 2017, we observed a phenomenon on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com in which expiration dates for invalid and already expired coupon codes were adjusted en masse across the site on a daily basis. We observed this across 28 of the 31 merchants we examined.

IT Cosmetics: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

Below is a screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for IT Cosmetics taken on Dec 27, 2016. On this day, they display code INSIDE as verified with an expiration date of Jan 26, 2017. When tested on this day, the code did not work.

IT Cosmetics page on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com on 12/27/16 Below is a screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for IT Cosmetics taken on Jan 27, 2017 (one month later). On this day, they continue to display code INSIDE as verified, but now with an expiration date changed to Feb 26, 2017. When tested on this day, the code still did not work.

IT Cosmetics page on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch.com on 1/27/17 Below is a screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for IT Cosmetics taken on Jan 31, 2017. The code INSIDE is still displayed as verified, and the expiration date has again been adjusted to Mar 2, 2017.

IT Cosmetics page on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com on 1/31/17

Forever 21: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we took this screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Forever 21. When we tested the displayed codes, SPRING30 and DENIMDAYS, both of these codes were invalid. They were both listed as "verified" and with expiration dates of Feb 26, 2017.

Here is the same page on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com, one week later, on Jan 29, 2017. They continue to display the same invalid codes SPRING30 and DENIMDAYS, but this time the expiration dates for both were changed to Mar 1, 2017.

We checked this page again a couple days later, on Jan 31, 2017. On this day, again the same two invalid codes SPRING30 and DENIMDAYS were displayed, and again their expiration dates were pushed back, this time to Mar 2, 2017.

Checked again on Feb 3, 2017 BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the same invalid codes for Forever 21, and again they had systematically pushed back the expiration dates for all codes to Mar 5, 2017.

UNIQLO: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 23, 2017, we took this screenshot of BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com's page for UNIQLO coupon codes. On this date, they displayed codes Spring2016, 42500, INES2016, and KawsFebVwX2J33w as "verified" and with expiration dates of Feb 23, 2017. When tested, all four of these codes were invalid.

On Jan 29, 2017, we checked this page again. Again, the codes Spring2016, 42500, INES2016, and KawsFebVwX2J33w were listed as "verified" but this time, their expiration dates were pushed back to Mar 1, 2017. Again, they did not work when tested.

On Jan 31, 2017, this same page continued to list the same four promo codes for UNIQLO. Again, they did not work, and this time their expiration dates were pushed back by an additional day, to Mar 2, 2017.

On Feb 3, 2017 BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display these four invalid codes as "verified" and again they had altered their expiration dates, this time to Mar 5, 2017.

Missguided: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we tested BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com's page for Missguided coupon codes. On this date, they showed the codes litaf, 20SPENDUS, heycoats, vote30, trend40; all five of these codes did not work. On this day, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch listed all five codes with an expiration date of Feb 26, 2017.

We tested this page again on Jan 29, 2017. BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the codes litaf, 20SPENDUS, heycoats, vote30, trend40; these codes continue to return errors, however their expiration dates were all simultaneously updated to Mar 1, 2017.

When checked a couple days later on Jan 31, 2017, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Missguided promo codes continued to display the same five non-working codes, and again their expiration dates were simultaneously updated to Mar 2, 2017.

For good measure, we checked this page a fourth time on Feb 3, 2017 and again we saw the same five invalid codes continued to be featured at the top of the page, with green verified marks, and again with new expiration dates of Mar 5, 2017.

Justice: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

We tested BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Justice.com promo codes on Jan 21, 2017. On this day, they showed the codes 222144277 and 67566612. Both of these codes did not work when tested. Both codes were displayed as "verified" and with expiration dates of Feb 20, 2017.

A few days later, on Jan 27, 2017, we tested the same page, and found the same two codes 222144277 and 67566612. However, on this date, their expiration dates were changed to Feb 26, 2017.

On Jan 31, 2017, we found the same two codes continuing to show on BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch as "verified." However, again their expiration dates were changed to Mar 1, 2017.

23andMe: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we tested BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for 23andMe coupons. On this day, they showed the coupon codes 99only, EPFXY8, and GFPCX9. During our test, we were unable to find a coupon code input field on the 23andMe website, so we checked with a company representative from 23andMe, and we confirmed that 23andMe does not offer promotional codes at all. So these codes are in fact fake codes. On this day, these false codes were listed with expiration dates of Feb 20, 2017.

On Jan 29, 2017, we checked this page again, and again, we found the false codes 99only, EPFXY8, and GFPCX9 continued to be displayed as "verified" codes by BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com. This time, their expiration dates were adjusted to Mar 1, 2017.

On Feb 3, 2017, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continue to display these 3 fake coupon codes, and again had pushed back their expiration dates, this time to Mar 5, 2017.

Albee Baby: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we took this screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Albee Baby coupons. They showed the promo codes 15OFF, LABOR, and DAD. When tested, all three of these codes were invalid. On this day, they were listed as "verified" with expiration dates of Feb 26, 2017.
 About a week later on Jan 29, 2017, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the invalid codes 15OFF, LABOR, and DAD as "verified" working coupon codes, but this time all three expiration dates were simultaneously updated to Mar 1, 2017.

Fabletics: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we checked BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's website for Fabletics coupons. On this day, they offered the following promo codes: 47468514, 64455928, 119446474, and fkj92a. On this day, all four of these codes did not work. BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch listed them as "verified" and with expiration dates of Feb 26, 2017.
 We tested this page again on Jan 29, 2017, and BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the codes 47468514, 64455928, 119446474, and fkj92a as "verified." On this day, the codes were still invalid. However, their expiration dates were all updated to Mar 1, 2017.
 On Feb 3, 2017, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the same four invalid promo codes, and again 8the expiration dates had been altered to Mar 5, 2017*.

Party City: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 27, 2017, we tested BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's promo codes for Party City. On this day, they displayed codes TREATSHIP, PC4LT7Z, and PCFRCZM, among others. All three of these codes were invalid and did not provide a working discount during our test. They were listed as "verified" with expiration dates of Feb 26, 2017.
 Two days later, on Jan 29, 2017, we tested BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Party City again. Again, the non-working codes TREATSHIP, PC4LT7Z, and PCFRCZM continued to be displayed as "verified," however on this day, their expiration dates had been simultaneously updated to Mar 1, 2017.
 On Feb 3, 2017 BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display these 3 invalid promo codes, and again had altered their expiration dates, this time to Mar 5, 2017.

Tatcha: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

On Jan 21, 2017, we checked BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com for Tatcha coupon codes. They displayed the codes IPSY15 and FIRM2016. When tested, both of these codes were invalid, according to the Tatcha.com website. They were listed with expiration dates of Feb 20, 2017.
 On Jan 29, 2017, we tested this same page, and found the same two codes IPSY15 and FIRM2016 still listed as "verified" and current. These codes again did not work. On this day, however, their expiration dates were both updated to Mar 1, 2017.
 On Feb 3, 2017 BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display these 3 invalid codes, and this time had changed their expiration dates to Mar 5, 2017.

Edible Arrangements: false codes with auto-generated expiration dates

Above is a screenshot of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch's page for Edible Arrangements taken on Jan 21, 2017. On this day, they listed the codes rtmn12131 and RTMN1231 with expiration dates of Feb 20, 2017. When tested, both of these codes failed to provide a valid discount.
 This is the screenshot of the same page on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com taken on Jan 27, 2017. BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the invalid codes rtmn12131 and RTMN1231, but their expiration dates have been adjusted Mar 1, 2017.
 Checked again on Jan 31, 2017, BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch continued to display the non-working codes rtmn12131 and RTMN1231, but again has adjusted their expiration dates to Mar 2, 2017.

Detailed backup for entire coupon code test of BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch

During December 2016, January 2017, and early February 2017, we conducted a detailed assessment of the coupon codes published on BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com across 31 popular retailers. We've summarized the results of the test in this article, and have provided screenshots from the test here.

Blue Nile promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Edible Arrangements promo code test data from BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch.com

MyFonts promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

We asked a MyFonts representative whether they recognized these codes at all, to determine if theses are outright fake codes. Here's what they said:

Fabletics promo code test data from BrokeScholar / PromoCodeWatch.com

Forever 21 promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Justice promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Lane Bryant promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Missguided promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Party City promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Bass Pro Shops promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Tackle Direct promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Tempurpedic promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

IT Cosmetics promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Qatar Airways promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Tatcha promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Tractor Supply Company promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

UNIQLO promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Hollar promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Albee Baby promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

AbeBooks promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Adorama promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Audible.com promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Big Lots promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Fandango promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Harley Davidson promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

DoorDash promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Modell's promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com

Nyx Cosmetics promo code test data from BrokeScholar.com / PromoCodeWatch.com