As long as we're knocking RFID, what about supermarket "club" cards?

[derby378]

Corporate club cards, like the ones used by Safeway/Tom Thumb, Albertsons, Kroger, CVS, Petsmart, Petco, etc. are used to track and monitor your purchases. These stores sucker us into using them by stopping the practice of traditional discounts and then offering us "discounts" - but only if we're willing to use that store's corporate card and feed our personal purchase history into the corporate database.

I know most of us have at least one of these cards - I got them, too, before I realized what was going on. The best antidote, if you can get away with it, is to shop at supermarkets and pharmacies that don't use corporate tracking cards.

[DS1]

1. Or simply ask them to use the universal number

At CVS is was something 9122288888

anyway, they can't offer sales to some and not others

[MADem]

13. Are you sure about that???

The stores will argue that the cards are FREE, and it is the consumer who is the one opting not to use them. That's not discrimination, that is the choice of the shopper.

Frankly, I hate the cards too. But that argument won't fly in some stores, I think. Easier to say you left your card at home, and see if that works. Or, if you have a hated neighbor that you KNOW has a card, you can sometimes key in THEIR phone number to get the discount (that's morally wrong, of course...!).

I still say sign up your dog, and share your card with anyone and everyone in your extended family or network--this is easy to do when they give you those keychain extra cards, especially, but if they don't, just leave the cards in a communal place where anyone going shopping can grab them. It will totally screw up their profiling process, if Grandma is buying Ensure and Depends one day, little Joey is buying Jolt Cola, zit cream and chips the next, menopausal Edna is buying herbal hotflash remedies and green tea the day after, and Paw goes in and buys two cases of beer and some hemorrhoid remedy the day after that!

[DS1]

17. I used to work at a CVS

Pharmacy / cheap crap nobody in their right mind would buy - sorta chain in the NE

Anyway, there was a universal card number we had to type in whenever someone wanted the sale price on something but didn't want to sign up for the card

[MADem]

21. CVS may be the exception--my dog has a CVS card, BTW

Stop and Shop will key you in if you claim to have lost the card, and the checker is a nice person. Every SAFEWAY I have been at insists on the card or a phone number. ACE Hardware and GIANT will do it with a phone number. PETCO and PETSMART want the card...

But they are within their "rights" to deny you the discount if they so choose. At least the legal rulings I've seen to date play it that way...

[coffeenap]

2. You are right--but I have found that you can just give a name, any,

and no more info than that and still get the card and its "benefits". The staff doesn't ask for ID. Just a thought, even though the concept of tracking is repugnant.

[Protagoras]

4. Just understand that if you use a debit card in that same transaction

then they are able to cross index the two and they still know who you are. What is being done with data mining would freak most people out.

Yet despite their ability to GET deep data on every consumer, safeway still gives me coupons for Folgers Coffee over and over again...which shows that having data and UNDERSTANDING and using that data are very very different things.

[derby378]

5. True, you can "spoof" the trackers by feeding false info

I think there are several DUers who do that, actually.

But I still think the best way to tackle the problem is to starve the beast into submission. These stores have literally millions of dollars invested in these little cards and keytags, and if these cards start losing money for the supermarkets, CEOs and shareholders will have to sit up and take notice.

[MADem]

9. Give them the name of your dog, cat or gerbil

And be sure when filling out the form, to make old Fido a Doctor or a Professor.

Fido will even get solicitations for credit cards in the mail if you do that!!!!

[corkhead]

3. I have a Kroger Card

and I hated doing it, but it became a matter of economics. My way of dealing with it was to put totally bogus info on the form I filled out to get the card. I only pay with cash in the grocery anyway so they have no way of knowing who I am, and the card gives me the discounts without invading my privacy.

[Lost-in-FL]

6. I decided not to use mine

And if they ask me what is my phone number I would said is not listed and won't share it.

[HereSince1628]

7. I know we've knocked them in the past.

[Midlodemocrat]

8. They don't bother me. I use my Kroger card to get discounts

on gas as well as groceries. I guess I'm just not that paranoid.

[Warpy]

10. I don't go to any place with those damned cards

because they jacked the prices up the second those cards came in. Even when you think you're getting a deal, you're probably paying either the regular price at another store or the sale price you cvan get at a non card store without having your purchases traced.

Sure you can get a card under the name Mickey Mouse if you want to and if you don't generally pay with a check, but why would you want to?

Those places are ripoffs, even for card holders.

[Nobody]

11. Used to be, if they wanted you to be in a focus group, you got paid

They pay enough to make it worth the time you spend. You could also say no and they'd leave you alone.

I hate corporate club cards. I will never use them. Tehy want data tied to my name, they must pay me in cold hard cash. They must get my permission to use my name and my data.

I don't have deep pockets and I would love to get the discounts offered, but I can usually find a different brand that is already that inexpensive and that's the brand I'll buy. Or I'll shop somewhere that doesn't do the cards. Though I usually use cash, I sometimes have to resort to a checkbook no matter how well I plan.

[laylah]

12. I always ask them

to use the courtesy card because I have left mine in my other purse :evilgrin:

Jenn

[Lars39]

14. I've never forgotten that immediately after 9/11,

some of the major grocery chains voluntarily turned their customer information over to the government, without a search warrant used.

[derby378]

15. I have not heard of this - by any chance, do you have a link?

It's really scary to think how many of our fellow Americans will sell out our privacy like that.

[Lars39]

19. Can't find it,

but I know Katherine Albrecht has stated this.

[Extend a Hand]

16. this guy was arrested for arson based on a safeway card...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/29/030223

Philip Scott Lyons found out the hard way that supermarket loyalty cards come with a huge price. Lyons was arrested last August and charged with attempted arson. Police alleged at the time that Lyons tried to set fire to his own house while his wife and children were inside. According to KOMO-TV and the Seattle Times, a major piece of evidence used against Lyons in his arrest was the record of his supermarket purchases that he made with his Safeway Club Card. Police investigators had discovered that his Club Card was used to buy fire starters of the same type used in the arson attempt. For Lyons, the story did have a happy ending. All charges were dropped against him in January 2005 because another person stepped forward saying he or she set the fire and not Lyons."

I always pay cash and ask the cashier if they have a card they can swipe for me (they usually do) when I have to shop somewhere that has the cards.

[Speck Tater]

18. Where's the risk?

Are the broccoli police going to come for me if I don't buy enough veggies?

Not likely. I signed up with a phoney name and a made-up address, so I use the card risk free. I may not buy enough expensive prepared food to suit them, but the GG (Grocery Gestapo) will never find me and haul me off to the Dairy Dungeon or the pickle Prison. Never I tell you!

First they came for the vegetarians, but I wasn't a vegetarian, so I said nothing...

[DemoTex]

20. Publix, Fresh Market, Whole Foods, don't have club cards.

I trade mainly with a couple of local "mom & pop" groceries, but when I absolutely have to go to Bi-Lo or Engels I tell them that my wife carries the card. When they ask for my phone number (to enter it that way), I give them my old cell phone number. When that doesn't work, I play dumb and the cashier swipes the store card (and I get the $2/bottle discount on Yellow Tail Shiraz!).