Asklemmy

44149 readers

1782 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Do stores use bank account info to analyze shopping patterns? (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Out of a reflex of distrust, I refuse to participate in any kind of loyalty program of the outlet of the large retail store around the corner.

I tell myself that by refusing to join the loyalty program (which basically comes down to scanning an anonymous loyalty card every time I make a purchase), I prevent them from adding my correlations (what products I buy, in what combos, at what time) to their data.

But since I normally pay by card, I guess they can (and do) already do that with my bank account information?

If I would pay with cash, they can still see those correlations per purchase, but they can't track my purchases over time?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I think paying in cash cuts down on trackin massively. Can you still be tracked? Yes. But are most stores going through the effort? I don't think so. Depends on the store too, I guess.

Maybe my tin foil hat is getting rusty, but to me it just feels like they'll just move on to the next dude who payed by card instead.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"can we have your address for warrantee purposes"?

[–] wildbus8979 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I always answer "no thank you". It's polite for the worker yet direct. I've never once had someone insist

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

The latest version of this I've seen is fucking fast fashion of all things asking for your phone number to send invoices to, as part of their "digital sustainability initiative". If they really gave a shit they'd set fire to everything the company owned.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Does that mean that anonymous loyalty cards don't really add any extra tracking capabilities?

Then what is the benefit for retailers? That some people don't use those cards and are thus paying too much?

[–] pipes 10 points 3 months ago

Most people give their real full name, phone number and email for any loyalty card wothout batting an eye, plus even with anonymized data it's useful to the owners to track correlation of purchases, time, location. Definitively what you said too, we all make mistakes (some more than others), every needless complication of a system is a disadvantage to the customer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Loyalty cards are more for getting the customer in the door, right? Usage patterns come second if I understand the model correctly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Other way around. Loyalty cards have always been about getting that sweet sweet data about customer habits.