Bogus Nike Coupon is Offering Discounts to “People of Color”

It seems Nike can’t escape having a headline about Colin Kaepernick lately.

The sport apparel retailer had put the former San Francisco 49er’s player into its 30th anniversary campaign for “Just Do It” that led to an explosive uproar of people protesting the company’s brand.
One Louisiana town mayor even banned the brand.

Now it seems that fake Nike coupons featuring Kaepernick are floating around offering a discount to “people of color.”

The bar code in one of the coupons which had been found on 4chan, came up as “invalid” when USA TODAY Sports took it to a Nike store.

Nike has sent out alerts to relation locations across the U.S. to warn employees about the fake coupons.

One of the coupons reads “To show solidarity with the things WE believe in we are offering people of color 75% off any purchase of Nike’s shoes or apparel.”

“I wouldn’t characterize this as a scam, but a full on racial epithet,” said Jack Gillis, the executive director of the Consumer Federation of America.

“This is nothing more than a dog whistle to a small, and unfortunate, segment of America. Another way to put it is that this is a racial statement masquerading as a scam.”

Some other fake coupons according to Snopes included a QU code that when scanned reads “This is a ROBBERY, Move slowly and put all the LARGE bills in the shoe box OR everyone DIES.”

Nike shares hit an all-time high this week.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) and have not been compensated for this article.