2001connections-article0026 Avoid giving your name and address when shopping.

www.2001connections.com www.2001c.org www.2001c.net

Previous			Next
0025			0027

2001connections-article0026
Avoid giving your name and address when shopping.

Don't routinely provide your name, address, phone number when buying consumer goods. Remember, the store is more concerned with its own interests and profits than with your privacy. Your email address should also be considered confidential, so think twice before volunteering even this one small piece of info. Or if the merchant asks as little as the postal code for your house or city block or apartment building, maybe better say no to this minimal request as well. In fact, why would you consider parting with even the most trivial details, such as your height and weight? These last two bits of data might be legitimately required if a salesperson is helping you pick the right size of an item of clothing, or perhaps some custom-fitted furniture. Aside from such authentic and limited need for info, if a merchant asks to know your height and weight, you may prefer to regard such solicitation as suspect. Maybe they are scheming to bother you with a sales pitch for weight loss products at a later date, for example. Remember, your personal details are private and you should guard them as a precious secret.
    Do you receive pesky offers for all kinds of products and services? Perhaps in the mail, via telephone, fax? And more recently, via email? Perhaps largely from companies you never heard of and never dealt with? Wonder how they got your personal details? A strong possibility is, you needlessly volunteered this contact info when shopping. And the retailer from whom you bought some products or services, shared your data with other merchants.

From your perspective as a consumer, there are very few justifiable reasons why a store would ask for your name and address when you bought some goods and took them with you, no delivery required. Some notable exceptions include buying a motor vehicle. And, of course, if you are arranging for some merchandise to be delivered to you, the vendor will need your name and address. Otherwise, you may want to think twice before supplying any personal contact info.
    Other arguments exist for keeping your private details to yourself. If just 1[one] employee of just 1[one] store is a crook or knows other crooks, you could easily become a target for burglars. So don't take unnecessary risks. Don't trust merchants with your personal data, unless you absolutely must.
    My “favourite” place for refusing to provide personal contact info is hi-fi and stereo stores. When refusing, I simply asked “for what purpose do you want this information?” I have literally never received an acceptable response to this question, as far as I can remember at the time of last editing of this article, March 2007. To validate the warranty and/or other assurance on a product? It is doubtful that the store would have the right to refuse to honour the warranty or turn down a demand for a refund on defective goods just because you declined their request for personal info when buying the item. However, these specific conditions may vary, so please check the appropriate consumer protection legislation in your area.
    On a receipt where there is space for customer info, let the cash register simply print “REFUSED” or “DECLINED”. This amazingly simple option for refusal is becoming more routinely available, but you wouldn't know it from the way the salespersons solicit your personal data so aggressively.
    As a customer of retail stores, you should be entitled to a happy and reasonably safe shopping experience. The bottom line is, you are shopping to serve your own interests as a consumer. Not the seller’s interests. If one or more merchants forgets or ignores this fundamental order, you may need to remind them about it. Sometimes politely. But on occasion, maybe not so politely. The appropriate response from you, the consumer, depends largely on the store’s attitude.

End of
2001connections-article0026
Avoid giving your name and address when shopping.

Home Page

List

Attention, publishers of all media, including print, online, TV and radio. If you would like to reproduce or quote this article or any other article or material from 2001connections, please click here

for more details 2001connections-Resellers-And-Republishers