D’oh! I meant to say, I fill out fake information.
For Og’s sake, man, what the fuck kind of crazy-ass fad diet are you on?!?
This is actually perhaps a pitworthy subject in and of itself. I hate waiting in line behind someone who insists on writing a check (always for over!) at the grocery store. You dig through your stuff for the checkbook, write the check, dig around for a wallet, locate your drivers license (often next to the damned debit card), wait for the scan of the check to go through, etc. C’mon people, we can’t live in the future when you’re so tied to the past. Cash or debit, those should be your only choices at the store. Save your checks for paying bills or some other anachronistic task and let me get this beer home while it’s still cold.
Nope. There’s a store near me (actually it’s my preferred grocery store because it’s significantly less expensive than the one closest to me - with or without the card disc ount that the expensive store has). This store takes cash, checks or Discover - no debit cards. Most people in that store are writing checks. I do the same.
But I’m prepared - I fill out everything but the amount and signature before I enter the store. That includes writing phone numbers and license numbers on the check.
Sure, I usually use my debit card places. But get over it. Checks are still a valid form of payment.
Now, what drives me nuts are the overflowing carts going through the self-check lanes. Those are for quick in-out trips to the store, not a month’s worth of groceries! If it takes you half an hour to scan everything, you should have gone to the cashier-staffed lanes, lady.
There’s nothing tin-foil-hat about this. I’ve worked in the IT department of the largest grocery wholesaler, and this information is available for sale to anyone who’s willing ot pay for it.
Heck, your local on-parole child molestor could walk in and buy the list of people who bought childrens toys at the local grocery store. The company doesn’t do any checks on buyers (except to verify that they can pay for it).
And there’s no invasion of privacy – in the fine print on the bottom of that application you filled out, you agreed that they could use this info in any way they wanted.
I would have gone with “Bite, ME”, but it’s not bad.
[QUOTE=Lsura]
Nope. There’s a store near me (actually it’s my preferred grocery store because it’s significantly less expensive than the one closest to me - with or without the card disc ount that the expensive store has). This store takes cash, checks or Discover - no debit cards. Most people in that store are writing checks. I do the same.
[QUOTE]
This must be the only store on the planet with such a wacky acceptance policy.
But how would my health insurance company know where I shop, and how to single out just their subcribers from the other shoppers? What if there’s someone else out there with my name?
What about those times I buy $50 worth of cookies and crackers for snack time at work (preschool, I get reimbursed for it)? Are they going to say, “You’re buying a hell of a lot of vanilla wafers and graham crackers. That’s too much snack food. You no longer qualify for health benefits.”
Actually for me, buying beer requires an extra stop and my beer gets warm while I wait for some moron to buy lottery tickets and Slim Jims.
I can’t buy beer with my groceries, but I guess that’s be a whole other Pit thread.
Anybody hear of the Borders’ Reward Card? I have 2 at home that I’ve never activated. Yesterday when I was at Borders the cashier asked If I had one and I said “No thanks, I’m not interested”. Then she told me I really should and I cut her off and said " I’m not interested". She started a 3rd time and again I said " I’m not interested!" Then she had the nerve to tell me “You don’t have to be rude”. WTF I wasn’t being rude, she was! I understand she has to ask everyone if they want one, but “I’m not interested” means “I’m not interested” not “Please tell me more”! I wish it occured to me to complain to managment or at least tell her off, but I was in a hurry.
Y’know what? Sometimes we are all too much in a hurry. One more minute will not make much difference to your beer. 
When I’m paying by check, I use the time in line to write everything in the check except the amount and the signature. While the employee is checking the groceries, I’m bagging. When s/he’s done and is finishing bagging the last couple of items, I’m finishing writing the check. It actually takes less time than swiping the card, waiting for validation, typing in the PIN, waiting again, etc.
Of course, there are those paying *cash * who stand and do nothing while the cashier scans all the merchandise, does all the bagging, and then, when s/he says “That’ll be $89.47, please,” THEN they suddenly realize they have to actually PAY for the stuff, and go rummaging through the purse, find the wallet, laboriously count out the exact change, which is not easy because they have to find the last $1.47 in the bottom of the purse along with the used tissues and gum wrappers.
However, even with that, I try not to be too impatient. I realized years ago it’s inappropriate and not worth the stress. After all, there you are, in a huge building filled with more food and other merchandise than you could use in a year, and you can get almost anything, AND you have the money to pay for it. There are people elsewhere who stand in line for an hour because there’s a rumor that there are potatoes and rice available. And we complain because we have to wait 10 minutes. My husband visited some family in the “old country” a few years ago, and one of the old-timers thought he was making things up when he told him that there was a store a mile away in which he could buy fresh meat, vegetables and fruit all the time, including in the middle of the night.
Fred Meyers does their card “right.” You don’t need it to get the best prices; all it does is gather “points” with purchases that you can redeem for future discounts and stuff like that. If you just care about immediate savings, there’s no harm done.
Only 4 grocery wholesalers supply about 80+% of the food stores in the country. Just buy the list from all 4 and they’ve got the info for most people.
And the list has more identifying information than just your name. Usually there’s a key field, like Drivers License number of SSN. But even without that, just address or phone number are enough for modern matching programs to link up most records.
And, unless you paid in cash, there’s another identifying piece of info that can be llinked, a very accurate one: your credit card or debit card or checking account number. I don’t know that any suppliers are doing this yet, but they certainly could.
Just as I don’t know that any health insurance companies are actually purchasing this info and matching it to their customers. But they certainly could. In many states, insurance regulations would limit what they could do about it. They would be unlikely to be able to say “You no longer qualify for health benefits.” But they might be able to cut off any discounts you get on your insurance.
For example, it would be trivial to find an insurance customer who claimed a non-smokers discount, but who regularly purchases cartons of cigarettes. Many states would allow the insurance company to take away their non-smoker discount, maybe even go back retroactively.
Certainly, they would search for regular patterns. An occasional large purchase like this isn’t given much weight, just your regular, weekly grocery purchases.
Ok, guys, I’m going to give you a hint:
If you have a problem with using cards or signing up for extra crap, please voice your opinions with the store’s corporate management. The guy behind the counter can’t do jack and probably doesn’t care, and the manager on duty is just trying to keep the place from burning down - he/she also has approximately zero say in how the place is actually run.
Stores implement these systems because they are looking for something, anything that will net them another 3% or 5% or whatever increase in gross revenues and a loyal customer base. The grocery business is an intensely competitive market where profits are measured in pennies on the dollar. As such, company leaders are actually fairly receptive to customer complaints. A simple letter or a quick phone call is sufficient.
If enough people complain, the corporate bean-counters may come to the realization that their policies are counter-productive and only serve to piss off their customers.