Rou

Let the buyer beware.

Or rather, in this case, let the buyer protect himself. You have to be worried about more than just the thing you decided to purchase. You also have to defend your life. Not in the life or death sense perhaps, but the privacy of your life is under constant bombardment anymore.

When we buy things, we step up and give them money. Back in the day, this was a simple cash for product exchange. Now, we have bank cards, credit cards, checks. All of them contain a little piece of data about us. But we give up that little bit because there are laws that protect it, in some manner, from being misused. We take them on their word and accept it.

But the companies want more. They want to know more about us. More details on what we’re buying. Since the law prevents them from taking it forcibly, they have taken to tricking us for consent. They’ve been very subtle about it. It started very slowly and impersonally. They wanted your zip code.

Most people waved it off because really, your zip code doesn’t mean much by itself. It also wasn’t really required. You could say no, or just make one up. But as time has passed, cashiers have grown more insistent. A handful of places have begun to refuse sales with out info. Or otherwise made the checkout process even more complicated with twenty questions. Best Buy, for example, asks for a zip. Even if you refuse to give it up, they ask you to sign up for a “free” magazine, which is a not-so-clever ploy to get your whole address through the subscription process. Then, even with a double refusal, they have the unmitigated gull to ask for a phone number. What the hell here guys.

They don’t need any of that. They WANT it. They want it so bad they can taste it. They want to take you apart and figure out what makes you tick so they can sell… Sell… SELL!! Personally I consider that an invasion of privacy and I’m fed up with it.

So here’s my thought. Let’s fuck with them. Let’s break their database some and piss off their managers. When they ask for a zip code, give them one. From Germany. I think Berlin’s post code is 1. Just… 1. Some of the British ones are similar things. Go nuts. Their database will not like that. Then give them a phone number. German numbers are nice and freaky. Give them the country code too. Like this: (011-49) 30-70-32-34. Let’s see their database try to deal with that.

I know I shouldn’t take out my annoyance on the poor minimal wage cashiers and lowly store managers, but quite frankly, I think it’s the first step in showing other people that these stupid questions are annoying. And when you annoy customers, they may be willing to make your day at work more aggravating.. Like giving you data that your database won’t accept. Hell, I’m thinking of making individual item purchase from now on. Go through the line six times and make each process excruciating.

Of course, I won’t. I’m an asshole, but not that much of one. But I still refuse to hand over information about myself just because some corporate weasel thinks it would be helpful.