Retailers Deploy Databases Against Customers

A couple of people submitted this piece about retailers using databases to crack down on sub-optimal customers, such as those who return too many purchases to the store. Also has a few tidbits about other database blacklists that are available to companies. Customers avoid intrusive practices; although this story was written by the Washington Post and I have the URL to the original story available, I declined to link to washingtonpost.com because of their intrusive registration.

Comments

Related link

[A Boy and His Blob]

Best Buy has been accused of doing this.

Re:Related link

[Bendy Chief]

'Fraudsters and scammers trying to rip off [a] company'?

That's heee-larious. You see, up until late October, I worked for a major phone tech support outsourcer. My contract was for a big home PC maker.

Anyway, the poor guy who phoned me had bought the "Open Box Special" from Best Buy, wherein the (incomplete) tower was still in the battered box, but everything else, including 17" TFT monitor, was missing. Best Buy gave this "deal" to him for a few hundred bucks, and then said "Phone Company X, their warranty covers hardware replacement! They'll give you $700 or so worth of stuff!"

Long story short, Best Buy fucking sucks.

player piano

[Siniset]

those of you who like science fiction, kurt vonnegut or are worried about these types of situations should read PLAYER PIANO by kurt vonnegut. It was written in 1952 (!) i think, and is about computers making decisions about which jobs are important, and which jobs are unnecessary. Yeah, it's a worst case scenario, but computers and databases are just going to become more and more prevelant in our lives.

Good!

[RylandDotNet]

I think a lot of retail sales workers will cheer for this. I used to work in retail (admittedly a long time ago) at Radio Shack, and I can't count the number of times people borrowed TVs and speakers. Superbowl time was the worst, people would buy a TV to watch the game and then return it a couple of days later. They didn't even have the decency to lie about it, either, they admitted that they only wanted it long enough to watch the game, but Radio Shack policy was to take it back, no questions asked.

Re:Good!

[mrsev]

Coming form europe I find this all a little puzzling. I mean IF a store says you can return items no questions asked then fine and they must accept. If they say they garantee satisfaction and givce money back then fine. If they dont then they dont. It is not usual for stores in europe to offer this. In most places over here if I buy a 82cm TV and then try and return it 2 weeks later they will ask me if it is defective. If it is not then they will tell me that it is not their problem any more.

Basicaly the stores cant have it both ways. If your policy is "no questions asked" then "no questions asked" it must be.

On the other side of the coin the EU has rules that there must be a 2 year warranty. This saved me many times , for example, when my wife had a Palm Tungsten E bust after 3 months. Any US customers were shafted with a 90 day warranty. For me it was replaced and the warranty is still good for another 18 months.

Re:Good!

[Richard_at_work]

Ive never come across this 'EU rule' that says there must be a 2 year warranty. Infact, Id be very surprised, since most things Ive purchased in the EU has only come with a 1 year manufacturers warrenty.

That said, in the UK you are extremely well protected. Forget warranties, quote the Sale Of Goods Act 1979. Just a few protections given under that act:

• Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description.
• It is the seller, not the manufacturer, who is responsible if goods do not conform to contract. This covers the "go speak to the manufacturer" copout that many retailers give you
• For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement). Protection for 6 years under this act. Better than a warranty IMHO.

linky This act covers inherent faults, EG your new DVD player not lasting a reasonable period of time (5 years?), or your PC developing a hardware fault 18 months down the line. It does not cover changing your mind or wearing out of goods.

Re:NYT

[belmolis]

Actually, the NYT provides a way of linking directly to stories so that readers of blogs and the like can bypass the registration system. You go to this page and enter the URL of the story you want to link to. When you click "Go", it returns a link to the NYT archives that bypasses registration.

Story to read

[ManyLostPackets]

Heres the story:
get a userid and password:

Lastone i tried that worked was:
Userid: sad@day.com
Password: sadday

Something America WONT bring to the UK

[norfolkboy]

Thankfully the UK's "Data Protection Act" will prevent this coming here :-)

info on data protection act: http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/

Re:Easy solution

[phatsharpie]

From the article

Retailers like the Limited are fighting back. Sometime in the spring, consumers and Express workers say, the store began replacing the placards denoting its return policy with new signs saying the company uses an "industrywide" system to authorize returns and that "under certain circumstances we reserve the right to deny returns."

The store did not back off of its own stated return policy.

Better solution, take your business elsewhere.

-B

Original Article Link, No Reg Required

[the pickle]

This should work without any registration:

Some Shoppers Find Fewer Happy Returns

p

Re:Copy protected CDs

[the pickle]

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Pay with a credit card and if the store refuses the return, you're still stuck with defective merchandise, regardless of what the store thinks about the legitimacy of your return. Just call the credit card company and tell them that you attempted to return the CD and that the store refused to accept it. That's grounds for getting your credit card credited, anyway. Enough chargebacks against that merchant and they'll quit this silly practise. (Of course, we don't know whether Best Buy/Circuit City/Fry's/FYE/whoever is doing this right now, either.)

Not that I really think enough people are doing the CD thing for it to matter anyway...

p

Insurance companies use blacklists too

[Wansu]

People have had their homeowner's coverage dropped for making small claims and for even asking whether something was covered. This has been going on for several years. In essence, this represents a stealth conversion of policies to catastrophic coverage only. You might as well raise your deductable to $5000.

That's not discrimination

[tylernt]

Nope! That's *not* discrimination. You can discriminate all you want -- for example, only boys are allowed in Boy Scouts, which is completely legal even though it discriminates against the girls. In fact, the Boy Scouts went through a whole gay discrimination thing with the Supreme Court ultimately ruling that the Scouts can discriminate against gay men being leaders.

There is a very short list of prohibited discriminations, and then only in certain situations (getting a loan for a house, getting Social Security, etc). But outside of those very narrow restrictions, you can discriminate whomever you darn well please.