Just bought a 2m section of flexible tube for a gas stove, and the sales clerk asked first for my phone number, to which I replied “I don’t have one”. Then she asked me for my name, to which I replied “I’ll pay in cash”. She then insisted it was so “the cashier will call you by name”, to which I replied “I’m not giving you my name, I’ll pay in cash”. [Edit: she apparently got a bit upset when I refused to give info, but ended up entering “no name” according to the receipt]
Am I wrong for not wanting to give personal data for an item paid in cash, in person? No other hardware store ever asks me for my personal info.
“I’m Devin Null, but I prefer Dev, I live at 777 segfault drive, phone number (192) 168-0101.”
Hopefully someone is going to lose a day tracking that down when they validate the database.
John O’Malley. 132 Main St, NYC, NY. 11001.
Its incredibly close to a real address but off enough to be considered someone entered something wrong. Plus I don’t live in America.
Well you see now this is just a but embarrassing… my name is actually “Fuck-Home-Depot”
Last time I bought something at Dunhelm Mill in the UK:
“Can I have your email address so we can send you the receipt?”
“Lol, no.”Edit to add: OP should have said: “Coincidentally, my name is Cash. Johnny Cash.”
So turns out thermal receipts have unhealthy levels of BPA on them which can absorb through your skin.
So I’m considering getting proton mail and having a separate email just for receipts and loyalty programs that dont require a login.
Yeah, places have done that on and off since the 2000’s. Brick and Mortars want your data just as much as online places.
It’s always been easy to just say no and move on and if they insist because their managers are corporate junkies, I’ve always given out random area code + Jenny’s number along with any given random name. Dirk Diggler will live on buying things as long as I live.
Saul Goodman 1 (505) 503-4455
I live near a microcenter and they are like this. I had to pick up an Ethernet cable and I just paid cash. When I didn’t want to tell them my phone or email the cashier looked at me like I kicked a puppy.
Bruno is my go-to name. No matter where I am in the world, Bruno sounds right.
Ya personally I would have just given a fake name and minimized the interaction instead of expanding it.
Phone Number? “no Thank you”
Name? “bob”
Bobby Tables
First thought was that they were flirting with you.
…I guess not though.
WOW. That is really invasive. I always refuse to give phone number. I don’t need more garbage phone calls. I definitely am not giving some rando my name to help track my purchasing more. Geez. I usually stick to no thank you and I don’t give that out. If there is a problem, I will leave the stuff on the counter and go to a different store entirely. I have done this in the past due to pushy tactics. I did tell the manager on duty that this is truly invasive and I will not be back though. I was never back as a result. Apparently normal people don’t get any privacy anymore :(
“So the cashier will call you by name” means they don’t care if it’s your real name, just react when they call it.
This is in a Spanish-speaking country, so maybe should’ve said “Aquiles Baeza”
I often use Turd Fergusson
Bruce Alfonso McGuinty
Raúl Diaz
John with a W
Jawn your order is ready!
Smug achually-voice
“It’s pronounced Yawn”
You win.
The other option is “Jon Withanhache”. You can then complain they spelt it wrong too.
I used to say ridiculous names to acknowledge their policy and politely rebel against it. It’s fun when the hostess calls out “Batman, party of 4”
I can just use my own name while traveling. They have no idea how to spell it. And even if they ask and get the spelling correct, the next person has no idea how to pronounce it.
How else would you pronounce it? It’s H-F-U-H-R-U-H-U-R-R, isn’t it?
And my companion is Anne Uumellmahaye
Sitting here drinking my coffee and seeing someone got this reference is brightening my morning.
As a webdev, I’m proficient in coming up with names to test the limits of the interface. I would probably have to stick to ‘Konstantin Konstantinovich Konstantinopolsky’, since they are unlikely to accept the last name of ‘O’er-thirtythree-thirtythreefootfences-Istretchmyleg’.
Not wrong at all. More people need to learn to say no instead of mindlessly complying to every request.
Like the guy at Walmart that wants to look at your receipt when you leave. I just say “no thank you” and keep on walking.
I always found that really weird. Like, what’s the point of self-checkout then? Just hire a damn cashier, or two.
They try to do this at King Soopers and I always say, “Not unless you’re giving me recipe ideas from the ingredients.” No one has stopped me yet, or offered any recipes.
They really can’t stop you.
If they honestly suspect that you are stealing, and have evidence, (They are recording and watching you at all times) they will take note of what you stole, but they won’t call the cops until they’ve caught you three times, or you’ve taken over $1000 worth of stuff. (Amount may vary by state) That way, they can easily prove that it was no accident, and that you have a pattern of shoplifting. It’s an easier case to win, and you get a third degree felony, instead of a misdemeanor or summary charge.
With things like that are, $1000 is like a weeks groceries for a family…
I thought places that identify as a membership club could ask to look at receipts.
Yes. That definitely is an exception.
The reason you always have to stop for inspection at those places, is because you legally agreed to it in the terms of membership.
If you decline, they can revoke your membership.
Yes. If other stores stop you it’s kidnapping
It would technically be false imprisonment in most places. Kidnapping would require taking you away/hiding you.
Depends on if that’s part of the membership agreement.
Oooh - now the game has advanced rules! I love it (I mean, I don’t really love anything about it, but am just trynna stay sane and fight the power).
As much as I recommend giving the finger to authority, always make sure you aren’t doing something that’s ACTUALLY illegal. If you’re drawing attention to yourself while committing a crime, you’re not accomplishing a damn thing.
I think Target does that also. They simply gather info about a theft until the dollar value is up to a certain amount and then they detain you.
Mine stopped doing it. I always said no but I’ve seen numerous people flip out on them after just leaving the checkout. Not even the self checkout. I flipped out on them once also after a long day.
Local walmart assigns the most pathetic people to the receipt checker job. Its always either the frail old lady or the 3ft tall guy.
I’m sure it cuts down on shoplifting, just the illusion of someone checking. They wouldn’t pay someone to stand there and do that if it didn’t work.
Absolutely! Appearing secure is MUCH more effective than actually being secure.
Appearing secure is MUCH more effective than actually being secure.
Cheaper too.
A new water company (currently the government want to privatise these) was checking water meters last week. long story short they broke one and the cap on the hole keeps popping up outside my house on the pathway. Rang them today to tell them about it “what’s your address?”
I had to obviously give them that - I guess I could’ve said I was a neighbour, and just given them the location. Wanted my name and phone number. I said “I don’t want or need to give that, I am just telling you about the manhole cover.”
“I need to get your name and phone number to continue”
“I don’t know my phone number, my name is private Jones. I have been put on hold two times already. a lady and a child already tripped over this cover, I don’t care if you can’t continue. I have given the information, and it won’t be me that anyone sues if they break something tripping over it.”
I stayed polite and we ended the conversation. but holy shit. You are not wrong to not give it to them. They are wrong for persistently asking for it.
I had the same issue when I called a utility company to report a cable hanging about sedan level on the street. I was on my way to work and got annoyed and said something similar: it’s your cable, so if it damages someone’s car or decapitates a motorcyclist, I guess the lawyers can cal you. What’s your name?
They thanked me for the time and when I got off work, it was fixed. 🤷♀️
Local area code + 8675309. Used it since the early 00’s. As an added bonus, many places have discounts set up for that number.
You as a matter of course pronounce the last digit “ni-e-yine”, do you not? De rigueur, I would think.
Why do places have discounts for that number? Guessing you’re american, I have no clue what that number is.
It was a popular song in the 80’s.
I hate that’s where the hyphen is, my brain is strongly telling me it should be 8675-309
Thanks. Why would that give a discount, though?
Lots of places have Reward Points for handing over your phone number. I’ve used Jenny’s number for years to get discounted gas. Usually only $0.03 but one time I got $0.40 off per gallon… been chasing that dragon ever since, lol.
it’s the Jenny discount
867-5309 is from a popular song in the 80’s. The song is Jenny, by Tommy Twotone. The lyrics are about seeing some “For a good time, call Jenny 867-5309” graffiti on a dive bar bathroom stall. The singer, being drunk and lonely at the bar, decides to call the number on a whim. Since the song was popular and lists the digits as part of the chorus, it is easy to remember… Memes were a thing, even in the 80’s before the internet. And basically any GenX person can recite the number, even decades later.
Which means it is commonly used as a fake number wherever you can make a loyalty account with only a phone number. So if the place has a loyalty/rewards system, the popular fake number probably has real rewards to be redeemed. I can usually get a few cents per gallon off at the gas station, for instance. Because with dozens of people using the same phone number all over town, the fake accounts quickly rack up loyalty rewards.
Sometimes called the Jenny Discount by those who use the number. Worst case scenario, you give the store a meme number and nothing happens.
I have used this in gas stations across multiple states over the past few decades. I don’t know how much the discounts have added up to over that time but it has to be at least hundreds of dollars by now. It is kind of amazing how widespread that number gets used, it’s probably the most popular phone number for these discount schemes by a wide margin.
So, after that song rose in popularity, phone companies de-registered it entirely. Because it’s a number that no-one has, my guess is that some stores/businesses use it as shorthand to put a discount under for something like employee discount or for “we messed up, here’s a discount” discounts.
I local plumber chain uses that number. YEARS ago they used to run a spot where they recited it with the same cadence of the song, but w/o the notes.
Apparently it’s been used for other promotional things like a cancer helpline. I think that’s pretty cool.
Interesting.
A bit odd, because the US is specifically the one country that definitely has an area code that’s mostly reserved from civilian usage, i.e. 555. Although not all numbers in it are reserved, afaiu they aren’t given to randos anyway, and the store’s spam system could be set up to never text or call these numbers.
I once looked up if there are numbers that I could safely use for testing purposes in my country, and we only have numbers from old popular songs, which curiously were also later referenced in tv shows. But it’s a toss-up as to whether they’re definitely unregistered in any particular area code. I’ll probably have to use ‘+1555…’ instead.
+1(555)867-5309 :)
So, after that song rose in popularity, phone companies de-registered it entirely
In my area code, the number was intentinally bought by a local guy who runs a small ISP. He has it connected to an answering machine that plays the song.
Yeah. Apparently that’s a thing. But there was a rise in prank calls that caused phone companies to just remove it from public use. But I guess that doesn’t account for people or companies specifically requesting it.
oh, that makes sense
Because so many people use it that it racks up tons of loyalty points.
Companies want you to associate your transactions with a phone number so they have data on who is buying what. For instance if you go to Safeway it’s common that the price of ice cream will be twice as expensive if you haven’t registered a phone number with them. But you can give someone else’s phone number that has already been registered and that will also work, or register a fake number, a number lots of people would have thought of is likely to have already been registered. At least that was how it worked last time I checked, that was a long time ago.
Oooh, not the store you’re giving the number to, but you can buy that number from a carrier as a dummy number for a discount because no one wants it due to prank calls?
Tommy Tutone had a hit in the '80s called 8-6-7-5-3-0-9, “Jenny”.
Any gen-x can sing it with no effort.
I’m not American; just gen-x.
God damn, I grew up in the '80s and I would have sworn that was a Huey Lewis and the News song.
Its Jenny’s number
??
All the major chain stores have loyalty programs. They’re really for tracking and marketing purposes, but they give discounts to incentivize participation. Most people just use the fake number for the regular discount.
But, these programs they also give rewards after a certain amount of spending. Rewards like 10c of per gallon of gasoline, or a free candy bar. With enough people using the same number for the discount, there are often a lot of rewards built up just waiting to be claimed.
Where I live that goes to a working number that plays a recording of the song.
Apparently it’s owned by a guy who runs a small ISP who did it just for the lulz.
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Local area code? Hell no --> 805
