FAILURE MODE: Auto-generating 'WELCOME15'-style guesses to look stocked

FAILURE MODE: Auto-generating 'WELCOME15'-style guesses to look stocked
A worse-than-useless tactic still in the wild: pages padded with invented codes (WELCOME10, SAVE20, FIRST15) the site never verified, just to look like it has more inventory than competitors. Every failed code is a trust hit the user remembers, and merchants notice the redemption-failure spike on codes they never issued.
The fix: Show fewer codes, all confirmed. A page with two working codes and a visible success-rate beats a page with twelve mystery strings. If you must list community-submitted codes, gate them behind a 'X% reported working' upvote signal and timestamp the last confirmation.
Why it matters: 'Success rate' is becoming the metric users screenshot and share — and the one AI answer engines quote when they recommend a deal site.