Frustrated with places asking for P.I.I.

eMeS

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Out of curiosity, why would Radio Shack attract it more? Did something happen in the news lately that I missed?

Having been to RS a few times over the last 30 years, I think they've always had a policy of collecting a little too much information at the point of sale. It's always been one of the annoyances about shopping there that I've heard numerous people mention. Perhaps this is what he means?

Really I don't know how RS has continued in business...they're like a Best Buy with less selection and higher prices....

MS

Zartanasaurus

eMeS wrote: »

Really I don't know how RS has continued in business...

Even their CEO doesn't know.

veritas_libertas

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Even their CEO doesn't know.

Oh that is just too funny!

I couldn't help but laugh at the one below it...

U.N. Acquires Nuclear Weapon | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Kaminsky

The one that really annoyed me was when paying for shopping with a brand new debit card. The scanner was having some issue and before I could take it out and re-insert it, the checkout woman took it out and started whiping it on the waisband of her skirt... even though it was obviously brand new! I freaked and started getting very loud even with a queue of 5 people behind me with full shopping trolleys.

Wouldn't take much to have a little card reader in the waistband and in her position, could quite easily get 10, 20, 30 card details per shift.

Called the supervisor over, made her show me there was nothing in her waist lining. I got a lot of odd looks and "oh cr*p we got a freak in front of us in the queue" but i've never worried what people think of me. They looked bemused when I explained what could be happening.

I made such a fuss that I doubt she will be touching anyone's cards again. Would just take something as simple as that 2 second lapse and you could be a victim and I've always though large store checkout operators are the perfect people to steal card details.

Pash

Kaminsky wrote: »

The one that really annoyed me was when paying for shopping with a brand new debit card. The scanner was having some issue and before I could take it out and re-insert it, the checkout woman took it out and started whiping it on the waisband of her skirt... even though it was obviously brand new! I freaked and started getting very loud even with a queue of 5 people behind me with full shopping trolleys.

Wouldn't take much to have a little card reader in the waistband and in her position, could quite easily get 10, 20, 30 card details per shift.

Called the supervisor over, made her show me there was nothing in her waist lining. I got a lot of odd looks and "oh cr*p we got a freak in front of us in the queue" but i've never worried what people think of me. They looked bemused when I explained what could be happening.

I made such a fuss that I doubt she will be touching anyone's cards again. Would just take something as simple as that 2 second lapse and you could be a victim and I've always though large store checkout operators are the perfect people to steal card details.

A very valid point. Sometimes we feel a little too safe about handing over our cards when paying for goods/services. There were a bunch of pubs in essex a few years ago that got investigated for card cloning when people would pass their cards over and not watch what was being done with the card. I am probably not as careful as I should be sometimes, especially with a few drinks down me!

I guess there are several avoidance strategies we can all take as well as measures which ensure minimum impact if we do full victum to theft, who keeps their monthly cash in their current accounts for long periods of time..........do you have full fraud insurance from your bank?

But yeh I do hear you all,very vald points made as usual. Like skrpune I was asked for my post code when I went into a shop to buy myself some boxer shorts (not a briefs guy me), I outright refused and they told me it was for market research. There were a bunch of people before me giving out their postcodes without actually asking why the shop attendants were asking them. It is a crazy world we now live in, that is clear.

7lowe

To me, zip codes aren't personally identifiable. I mean there are thousands of households in any given zip code so how they would track that back to you individually I don't know. Granted if you give zip+4 then that would give an individual household, but I've never seen anyone ask for that and it looks like they can only enter the 5 digits anyway if you did give it to them.

Personally, I care about things like SS#, license#, and CC#'s. I could care less about giving out info like a zip code.

Then again I'm one of those people that puts lots of stuff on Facebook. I don't see how anyone is going to make any money by knowing what movie I went and saw last week if they did figure out a way to hack into Facebook. If they did I don't see how it would hurt me any, so why should it bother me? FYI it was Surrogates and it was great!

7

cbigbrick

202-456-1414 - White House Switchboard

20500 - White House Zip Code

skrpune

7lowe wrote: »

To me, zip codes aren't personally identifiable. I mean there are thousands of households in any given zip code so how they would track that back to you individually I don't know. Granted if you give zip+4 then that would give an individual household, but I've never seen anyone ask for that and it looks like they can only enter the 5 digits anyway if you did give it to them.

On the surface, zip codes seem pretty safe to give out, until you realize that they're commonly used to verify credit card transactions such as gas station purchases.

Plantwiz

7lowe wrote: »

To me, zip codes aren't personally identifiable. I mean there are thousands of households in any given zip code so how they would track that back to you individually I don't know. Granted if you give zip+4 then that would give an individual household, but I've never seen anyone ask for that and it looks like they can only enter the 5 digits anyway if you did give it to them.
7

Well when I go into a store and make a purchase, I'm making a vote with my dollars that I enjoyed my experience. I will be back to spend more if I had an overall good shopping experience and they carry the products I'm looking for and I will not return if I had a bad experienced, am bothered by sales staff or their selection is just poor.

I have some European friends who always are amazed at how the US stores and resturants have survey cards and such that they seem to force on you...their response is, "I voted with my dollars why do you need me to fill out a survey too? I tipped the server." So I learned this from them many years back and it really makes sense to me.

I do not know if it is that way so much in Europe these days, I'll try to remember to ask them next time we chat.


But giving up my zip just is the 'ok' to send more mail to me, and I have worked very diligently to eliminate as much wasted mail as possible.

msteinhilber

Plantwiz wrote: »

I have some European friends who always are amazed at how the US stores and resturants have survey cards and such that they seem to force on you...their response is, "I voted with my dollars why do you need me to fill out a survey too? I tipped the server." So I learned this from them many years back and it really makes sense to me.

...

But giving up my zip just is the 'ok' to send more mail to me, and I have worked very diligently to eliminate as much wasted mail as possible.

This is true, my former employer got the survey kick and I along with a couple other branch managers were strongly against it as we already had a couple other routines we were supposed to go through at the POS and did not want to keep adding dialog.

My defense against it was through my management exceeded monthly gross sales and profit margin each month for 2 years which facilitated growth to a store double in size. I also added a significant amount of customers to my base in doing so. So I was clearly doing something right, if my customers were angry with me none of that would have happened.

We also asked for zip codes, it allowed us to determine which areas our advertisements were working more effectively so we could either eliminate some regions from our direct mail ad's or try to re-target ad's in those regions.

7lowe

Maybe it's different for me since I live in a small town where everyone has the same zipcode and if I refuse to give them one that's what they put in anyway since it requires something.

7