But this is exactly what a small business is buying from Groupon. If the quality of their lot is worse than other advertising, then more the reason not to partner with them.

  > But this is exactly what a small business is buying from Groupon.

But this is not what Groupon is billing themselves as providing though...

What's that saying? - If it's free, then you're the one being sold. They make their money by selling to small business.

From the website:

  Groupon for Businesses
  With an unparalleled ability to drive hundreds - even thousands - of
  customers through your door ...

  > Dishonest consumers are the problem here, though
  > this is a problem that Groupon could do more to curtail.

This is what I was talking about. Groupon is not billing their subscriber list as a group of cheap-o's that will only use the discount and never return to the business and try to use the discount multiple times -- which they obtained by registering for Groupon multiple times under different names/aliases -- while they are there for their single visit.

If Groupon were to describe their subscriber list as such, then I could see their business start to decline, no?

It would be interesting to see what the average conversion-rate from one-time to repeat customer is based on Groupon coupons.