Seems more and more stores are phasing this out, though, probably owing to customer dissatisfaction. Bed, Bath, and Beyond, my own personal heaven, has ceased doing this.
I don’t like annoying people by asking for their numbers - either telephone or ZIP code - so I usually put the 9-string instead, until I got reprimanded for doing so and not getting enough customer information.
Thankfully, my store only does these information drives every six months.
Thanks racinchikki for a bonified store employee’s answer. I’m pleased to see that my new response of choice will be well-received by at least one cashier (but I won’t even know it because you wouldn’t ask for the number to begin with :))
That was Wurfect, Purd. I’ll just finish wiping off my monitor now.
Offer your number in exchange for the cashier’s.
Whether he’s a he, a she, young, old, hot, butt-ugly, etc…
I just say “I don’t give out my phone number” and I’ve never had any problem. I do give out my zip code for demographic information.
Oh, I don’t give out my ZIP code either. The store doesn’t need that information to complete my transaction and I’ll be damned if I’m going to help them with their marketing (unless they want to pay me a consulting fee). There’s only one store I ever go to that asks me for my ZIP code. Luckily the cashiers always ask “may I have your ZIP code” so I can answer “no you may not.” They always type in the store’s ZIP code and never give me a second’s trouble about it. Now if only they were as reasonable about being told “no” to add-on sales pitches!
I do remember now that I have used fake phone numbers at my hair stylists. At the one I used to frequent the fake number was 1,000,000 but that confused the hell out of people who tried to count the zeroes (hey, they picked it for me, I didn’t). Where I go now the number is 444-4444 (also picked by them). Invariably when I give that the desk person asks if that’s really my phone number and invariably I reply “of course not!”
It’s the same invasion of privacy and threat to personal security as asking me to sign my name into an electronic storage pad at Sears. I typically write the name of the sales person standing before me. The electronic sig pad just needs SOMETHING.
I’ve sometimes asked the person promptly, ’ Yes well I need your home telephone number now, please’. They become infuriated, and yet are pissed off that I’M infuriated. I realize that what rainchikki said is right, you don’t really care what my home # is.
I don’t care. It’s not freely disseminated, so I just answer as I please. My cash expenditure gives me the right to make that decision, yes?
Cartooniverse
Cartoonverse, as a former Sears employee I can tell that we’re supposed to compare the signature from the magnetic capture thing to the signature on your credit card/photo id. It’s a security issue.
Not necessarily. It merely means that as a cashier, it is not required of you to have that information.
Give them another number. Time & temperature, maybe?
But as a cashier, I don’t CARE to have that information. Yes, you’re right, I don’t need it. The company wants it, not needs it - I don’t even want it. But I have yet to hear ANYONE say “you don’t need that information” in a tone of voice that was not extremely snippy/snotty/accusatory. Now, if you can say it without sounding snippy, snotty or accusatory - and keep in mind that you may not be consciously using that tone of voice, but that’s how it comes out - well, you go right ahead. I still think that it is inherently less polite than “I would prefer not to,” which manages to convey the same declination to share information without even hinting at an accusatory tone.
Just say, “Sorry, Ma’am. That’s classified.”
Went to a Lane Bryant near me recently and was asked the phone number question. I have a tendency to space my phone number, have had too many of them I suppose. So I give my very first phone number, the only one I can rattle off without thinking.
Sales lady looks at me suspiciously. “Where’s that number from?”
I reply with the name of my hometown.
Her eyes narrow. “There’s a much larger Lane Bryant up there.”
“Yes,” I say.
She’s just writhing, I can tell, wanting to ask me why I am shopping there. I give her an unfriendly stare so she doesn’t feel obliged to probe further.
I hate nosiness. HATE it.
Early Out: Great choice of number! That’s funnier than my preference, 202-456-1414 – the White House switchboard.
A quick check of www.whitehouse.gov turns up two other useful numbers: 202-456-1111, the public comments number, and 202-456-7041, the visitor center info line.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
As a current Sears customer I can tell you that my family’s security and the safety of my household is a heck of a lot more important than whether or not Sears gets ahold of an electronic simulation of my personal signature.
You and I both know that the truth is that I can sign the sales slip JUST as easily without placing it into the electronic scanner as I do so. The Sears employee is then free to do exactly the same comparison as they would have done if I’d signed the slip while it was slid into the electronic scanner.
That argument holds zero water.
Additionally, as is the case with some people, my signature doesn’t always match perfectly and you know what? That’s not against the law. 
I just bet Terry Nichols made a very nice signature every time, including the time he rented that Ryder truck. Fat lotta good it did Ryder to have his I.D. checked eh?
When people demand my Social Security #, I immediately ask for theirs in return ( as I do with phone # demands ). Doncha know, that distresses employees to no end as well. See a pattern here? No store has the right to demand a Social, and yet many do.
No store selling me something has the right to demand my home telephone number. They’ve issued me a charge card, that means that they have both work and home telephone numbers already. So, why harass customers each time with a re-demand? It’s a mystery. Except for the fact that it creates a completely hollow sense of empowerment for the cashiers over the customers, wherein if all of the demanded information isn’t proffered without comment, the customer might just be disallowed from making their purchase.
Money talks. Attitude walks. I always get my purchases.
I politely tell them, truthfully, that I have an unlisted number. Once in a while the cashier calls the store manager over, and I repeat, “I’m sorry, I have an unlisted number, I don’t give it out.” The manager has always OK’d that.
Come on, are you serious? The cashier is told by his/her manager to ask for the info. The computer/cash register prompts him/him to ask for it. The cashier would probably prefer NOT to ask you, and actually has to be coached (and sometimes reprimanded) to do it. They feel uncomfortable, because they know it’s an invasion of your privacy. They get absolutely no “hollow sense of empowerment” from asking you. It’s the marketing department of the store that wants the information, not the cashier getting paid $7 an hour to ring up your purchases.
And usually, the reason they ask again and again is because their point of sale database doesn’t talk with their financial database, so they (1) can’t retrieve your information real-time, and (2) can’t run reporting that matches the customer records. Sad, but true. In fact, they probably keep the two databases completely separate, because legally they’re unable to share/use your data if linked to a financial service, but they can use it if linked to a purchase.
I have no beef with your unwillingness to share your personal information. However, I see no need to take this out on cashiers.
I have said “Why don’t you just make one up, 'cause that’s what I’m gonna do”