They even had the audacity to ask for the area code, too!
Nice trick. Sadly, I’m sure a good deal of people fall for it, or gaspactually want Best Buy’s purulent, information-hounding tentacles to stroke, caress, and gently squeeze their thusly plagued-upon numbers for all they’re worth.
She-it. I was ready to lay down my CD and leave upon being told “we can’t process your order without it”, but apparently a press of the ‘No’ key is just fine when a customer says, “Uh, no”.
I feel dirty from even being asked! Cojones of death, I swear.
Area code? You mean like the phone area code? Wouldn’t your # be pretty much useless without that?
If you mean zip code, I don’t see the harm in giving them that. Most companies just do that so they know where their customers are coming from.
Could be worse. Radio Shack used to try to force people to give them their address. An ex-coworker of mine, who used to work there, said they paid the salespersons commissions according to how many addresses they collected.
It’s amazing how much social pressure people feel to provide such information. I routinely say, “I’d rather not give it,” and while intellectually I feel fully justified in saying that, I still have a negative emotional reaction when I do it.
At my last job, we were instructed by the corporate office to say, “What’s your e-mail address,” not “Would you like to be on our mailing list,” or anything similarly polite and sensitive. If you act like it’s a requirement for the sale, and there’s no option given, most people will fork over the information. I really hated that part of the job.
Our number is unlisted. If anybody at a store wants to know what it is, too bad. If I ain’t givin’ it to the general public, I ain’t givin’ it to you, either, pimply cashier person, and nothing you say can change it.
I did this once, and then my cell phone started to ring. The cashier gave me a go to hell look and I said, it’s a company phone and we aren’t allowed to give that number out for personal business.
I used to work there, and never heard of such a thing. They encouraged us to get the addresses, and AFAIK, never, ever sold them or used them for anything other than sending sales flyers once a month. As nice as it is to have a mailing list, it seems weird to pay people based on it when their jobs are to sell merchandise. If QED sees this, I think he managed a Shack, perhaps he could offer a bit more insight.
Honestly, just say you’d rather not give that information. I’m sure you all feel SO superior putting one over on the cashier with lies and fake numbers, grow the fuck up. You don’t have to act all insulted either, the cashier doesn’t want your number, they just want to get through another day of a shitty retail job without the customers getting all over their ass.
I’ve come up against that one - “But we can’t process your order without your name and address” - allowing your gaze to wander dreamily off into nowhere and saying to yourself “I wonder if [insert name of competitor] would need my name and address to sell me this item” usually works quite well.
I’ve never been asked my address to buy anything. Zip code, yes, all the time, and as soon as someone explains what it is I’m protesting I’ll withhold the information to protest. I’ve never been asked for my phone number except when cutting my hair, because it seems they have me in some kind of “system,” but they’ve never called me so I don’t care.
Anyone who says “they asked me for my nine digit phone number,” I have to wonder what the fuck you’re talking about anyway. Phone numbers have been ten digits since I was a kid. I imagine they asked for your zip code. I go to Best Buy all the time and they never ask for phone numbers.
