RadioShack Stops Being Nosy

jackbang writes "One small but positive step in the gradual erosion of personal privacy and increase of corporate intrusiveness - RadioShack will no longer ask for your name and address when all you want to do is buy some batteries. Now if only they would agree to remove the motion sensor that rings a bell every time someone walks in or out of the store..." Always freaked me out being asked my address just to buy some solder or something.

Comments

I remember that

[racerx509]

It was funny, I used to work as a Radio Shack store clerk, and we were REQUIRED to get names. The computer would actually keep a log of how many names were gathered by each employee, and if your percentage of gathered names dropped below 90%, you would get a verbal warning. If they stayed below 90% for a month after the verbal warning, you would be fired.

Also, I remember when they put up the privacy policy in late 2000. It didn't seem to allay customers fears. Instead, I would tell them to just give me fake information

Toys R Us owes me $5!

[Anonvmous Coward]

I made a purchase at Toys R Us one day and gave them my info. I got a call about a week later. They wanted feedback on my shopping experience in exchange for a $5 gift certficate. I spent the time with them, but never got the certificate.

I don't think they were trying to mislead me, but they blew an opportunity there. I'm happy to share my info as long as they reward me for it, but failing to send me the gift certificate changed my mind about that. Now, when I go there, I decline to give them my info when they ask for it and I explain why.

Companies like Radio Shack need to realize that they have to reward their customers if they're made to jump through extra hoops.

The inside perspective

[jkastner]

I used to work for a Radio Shack dealer store and the pressure to get the addresses was constant because we got money from Radio Shack for each address we provided. When I was taken to task about my low address count one day, my buddy was offered up as an example: HE got over 90%. So I asked him how he did it. His secret? He used to copy random names down from the phonebook when the store was slow!

Re:Mailing lists?

[McSpew]

Yes, you got added to a mailing list--Radio Shack's. Nobody else got your address. They were religious about that and if anybody ever suggested to the people in marketing that it was otherwise, they witnessed somebody turning purple with apoplexy.

They jealously guarded their lists because they viewed their mailing list as a competitive advantage. Nationwide, marketers who send direct mail advertisements are ecstatic if they get a response rate of 1/2 a percent. Radio Shack had something like a 40% response rate on its direct mail advertisements. They weren't about to give that up to anybody else.

If only Curcuit City would stop

[MCMLXXVI]

I myself have been victimized by this. They keep track of what you have bought and returned. If you returned too many things that costs a bit ( The stuff they make commision on ) they will stop selling you anything and have that manager tell you that you can't buy the item. I have had this happen on more than one occasion.

I can assure you that this is totally commision related. The last time they told me NO they looked up my history and said "You return too much stuff". This is what is so bad about tracking your name is now the salesman can check your name to see if your someone he should waste his time on.

Re:If only Curcuit City would stop

[stratjakt]

Yes they can. They can sell to whomever they want, whenever they want, so long as they don't discriminate based on race, sex or religion.

I got treated just like the parent poster, but the bitch of it is - they denied selling me a DVD player, based on the persons past history who USED to have my phone number.

They asked my phone number, looked it up, and this happened:

THEM: "We can't sell you this. The computer says we cant serve you any longer"

ME (confused): "Impossible."

THEM: "It says so on the computer"

ME: "Impossible."

THEM: "Well, that's what it says here."

ME (Craning to see computer screen): "Thats not my name, or my address"

THEM (Scurrying to block my view of the screen) "Well, I'm sorry sir.. blah blah.."

ME: "Let me talk to your manager"

THEM: "I am the manager"

ME: "I just moved here from another country a week ago. I've never even heard of Circuit City in my life. You people are fucking morons. It's not like I'm writing a bad cheque, I'm standing here with 4 100$ bills in my hand and you dont want them?"

CUSTOMER BEHIND ME: "Hey, you know Best Buy will beat their sale price by 10%"

ME: "Sweet, thanks bud"

I haven't been back since. That's one god-awful store full of overpriced crap for dipshit execs with more cash than sense.

Re:If only Curcuit City would stop

[Chasuk]

The last time they told me NO they looked up my history and said "You return too much stuff".

I'm sorry, but I work sales, and I have done for years, so I know from experience that most customers who "return too much stuff" aren't worth retaining as customers. Every time I wait on you, and you return an item, either because you found it cheaper mail-order, or you were really borrowing it and not buying it (this happens more frequently than you would imagine), or you bought the wrong printer cartridge because you were too fucking stupid to check what type of printer you owned before you walked into the store, or you realized that you needed to buy tickets to the football game and after returning that keyboard you have enough cash - every time you do one of those things, you cost the store money.

I get paid to sell you the item orginally, and to take it back, which is usually a longer process, so there is lost revenue. If you lie to me and tell me that it is broken, which happens all too often, then our technicians in the back waste money verifying that you are a sack of shit and it does indeed work fine, or that you spilled coffee inside it but you paid cash so we don't know who you are. If the packaging is less than pristine, we lose money again because the next customer won't pay full-price for something that is used.

Other examples: the customers who buy several cables because they don't remember whether they needed a parallel cable, a firewire cable, a USB cable, or a serial cable. But it's okay if we buy them all and return the ones that we don't need, right? I live 5 miles away. Certainly, Sir, Ma'am. Of course, the extra time and paperwork diminish our profits, but the customer is always first.

Or: Can I return this ream of paper, I've only used half of it? Or: Can I return this CPU, it's only two months out of warranty? Or the customer who buys RAM (which has a life-time warranty) at $29 for X capacity, and, if price rises to $49 for that same capacity, tries to return it it? And if they have paid cash, is often successful? Or: the customer who deliberately damages equipment just so that he can return it? Or: the customer who tries to return products that he knows he didn't buy at our store?

All of these things have happened to me on numerous occasions, so I entirely understand the need to collect customer information. We aren't selling it to anyone, and if you are so fucking paranoid that you worry about such shit all of the time, please take your business elsewhere.

Be careful: don't step into the blade of the black helicopter on your way out.

Footnote: Yes, I know restocking fees would solve many of the problems listed above, but then we would be penalizing the customers who do have legitimate cause to make a return.

Re:If only Curcuit City would stop

[Tim Browse]

Wow, those are some scary stories. It must be tough in retail.

Still, at least retail outlets themselves are squeaky clean, and would never employ people who are "too fucking stupid" to know the difference between VHS and SVHS VCRs. Or push expensive extended warranties onto people using scare tactics like telling the customer how unreliable the item they've decided to buy is (just after telling them how reliable it is in order to get them to buy it). Or force their staff to describe extended warranty schemes to every customer, even if the customer says they're not interested, on pain of losing their job if they don't. Or routinely misrepresent items that they sell. Or point you towards an item that is not really what you want, but they get better commission on it. Or argue that a software glitch in your STB is not a valid reason to return it, because "everything has bugs in it these days". Or put up "No Refunds" signs which are illegal (in the UK). Or take 12 weeks to service an item under warranty. Or put a hold on your account without telling you because they screwed up and undercharged you by $50, when you have put about $30,000 worth of business their way in the past year. Or sell you a DVD and AV amp together that they know have an incompatibility, and refuse to refund the money for either item. Or refuse to accept a return of a reference book on the grounds that it is factually inaccurate in many important ways.

You're right - customers are a real problem, damn them.

Tim

Data has value

[jhines]

I remember a few years ago, when Radio Shack was the talk of the takeovers and such. The customer data base was valued as much as the rest of their assets combined.

Just Say NO!

[xchino]

As it has already been said you can just say no anytime your asked for your personal info. But what you may not know ( or may not have thought of) is WHY they ask you in the first place. Ok yeah, tracking statitics and what not, but that's not what I mean. The reason this still goes on in many retail stores is because people don't say no. They figure it's part of the process of purachasing whatever. If people would start refusing to divulge information, companies would be less apt to attempt to get it from you.

I Fought Radio Shack and Won

[Dynamoo]

In the UK, Radio Shack traded as "Tandy" and for many years they insisted on asking for the customer's name and address for any purchase, even if paying cash.

Well, one day (this must have been 1989) I went in and bought something minor and the shop assistant asked for my name and address. Well, I knew darned well what they wanted it for, because I was getting three Tandy catalogues all with different variations of my name and address so I told him "no".

He said: "But you have to give me your name and address."

"Why?"

"Because I can't sell you this without it."

"Rubbish. You just want to put me on your mailing list."

Well, the argument proceeded and he wouldn't sell me the stuff and frankly REALLY pissed me off big time.

This was a bad move, because in the UK you're not allowed to collect personal information to store on a computer system without a) making it clear an b) registering that you are going to do so.

I checked Intertan's (Tandy's parent company) registrations details. It turned out that they hadn't registered properly. BIG mistake number 2.

So, I complained to the Data Protection Registrar that I believed that Intertan were breaking the law. They tried to contact Intertan. Intertan refused to talk to them. BIG mistake number 3.

Eventually this escalated and finally Intertan caved in and stopped asking. Well at least for a couple of years. I stopped shopping there in the end. Mind you, so did everyone else and they shut down :)

giving auth data where appropriate

[xeno]

Being the sort who appreciates some security in my everyday transactions, I actually like it when the Radio Shack people ask for my zip code. (They've never asked me for a name, is that unusual?) The fact that they have some idea of where they sell more batteries is fine by me -- it allows them to build market demographics without a notable loss of my privacy, and I get improved availability of products I like.

Likewise, I've been very encouraged to see some of those automated gas pumps now requiring that you key in a zip code from the billing statement -- not just possessing a credit card. Since I'm already providing my name and billing information through the credit card, this is not the invasion of privacy that some folks think it is. Yay authentication and authorization!

On the other hand, it used to be particularly irritating when I wrote a check and a clerk would insist that I provide a home phone number or even two phone numbers instead of some useful authorization info. (They're permitted to ask in my locale, but not allowed to require it.) After a particularly nasty incident at Ikea a few years ago -- when I declined to provide the number an assistant manager looked up my name in the phone directory and wrote the info on my check anyway, accompanied with a lot of foolish and insulting comments -- I decided to print TeleCheck's local phone number on the checks as a home phone. It doesn't stop the bad practice, but at least it protects my privacy a bit without wasting my time. (And it never comes up as a bad number :)

Most frustrating of all (recently) was an encounter with a certain large bank. To make a long story short, they informed me that electronic funds transfers can be executed by any merchant with my bank routing and account numbers. When I pointed out that the numbers are identification and not authorization, they replied (paraphrased) "Posession of the number IS authorization. If you didn't give them authorization, they wouldn't have the number." Can you believe a major bank thinks that possession of your authentication data is equal to authorization? AAUUUGGGHHH!!! When I pressed further and pointed out that the account & routing data is on every check that anyone writes, I was informed that they (the bank) know it's awful, but that's what the US Federal Reserve rules require. Double-AAUUUGGGHHH!!!

IMHO it's disappointing when the local Chevron station provides better financial transaction security than the bank managing my 401K.

-Jon

Re:giving auth data where appropriate

[Vegeta99]

Yeah. Thats the way it is at ANY bank. My bank, however, provides a separate account number on checks than your correct number, so in the case of anyone stealing your checks and trying to make transfers, they simply print you new checks with a new number on them, deactivating the old one.

PSECU =)

Opting out was always easy

[ColGraff]

All you had to do was say "No". I dunno about you guys, but the local Radio Shack people just let it go after that. It's not like you *had* to give your information.