How do coupon sites work?

[elcinda]

I have signed up for lots of free coupon sites. One is shopathome. You had to download something and you end up with the shopathome symbol in one of the tool bars. When you click on it and go on the site it says there are thousands of coupons click here. So you do and it takes you to another site that wants your email and name again and offers more coupons. Then the same thing happens over and over as long as you keep signing up. But I never see these thousands of coupons. Its like you are going in a circle because you end up sooner or later back at shopathome.

[GP]

Most of these sites just try to make you complete CPA offers, so that the owners earn for your sign-ups and registrations and clicks. If you are lucky they might provide you with a coupon or voucher or a rebate as a reward, but most of them are just scam.

[Donald]

You've been scammed.

There are legitimate coupon sites out there, but never, ever allow a site to mess around with your system or toolbar. Use an adware deleter to get rid of the malware.

The way some work is that they're affiliates of the sites. So you click on the coupon and it takes you to the site. The affiliate link gives the referrer a percentage of the sale.

Other sites just make money from online ads. People supply coupon codes, which are posted online. the sites get traffic from the availability of those coupon codes.

Hope that helps.