Okay the title is a bit exaggerated, but honestly not far off. This post is very mundane and a bit long, but thought it fits the community.

I’m visiting my home country and went shopping for pants, there were “30% off everything!” signs with a tiny text underneath that said “member discount” (don’t have membership). Not a problem, did not notice and I don’t care for such marketing tricks to get you into the store but okay.

Picked up couple of pants, went to the cashier and they asked me “do you have our membership?” - I answered no and expected the follow up question whether I’d like to join, but, to my positive surprise the cashier just happily responded “okay, not a problem!” and continued to bag my stuff.

I stood ready to pay and then the cashier said “now I just need your phone number and you can pay”. Hold up. What. I did not expect that, I honestly had a burst of anger inside me (never gonna take it on a cashier, they are just doing their job). I asked nicely why do I need to give my phone number and I was told that to register me as a member so I can get the discount.

I declined and said I don’t want to join and would like to just pay.

The entire interaction after questioning why they need my phone number was awkward, as if I had been the first person to decline, the weirdo, aluminum foil hat wearing hermit.

This was just one of many interactions in the recent years that make me feel as if I was a weirdo for not sharing all my info around. The worst is when everyone keeps telling me “its just an app, just download it and use that why do you make things complicated” or “just sign up you don’t need to pay anything”.

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  • fuViWwE3VQ2475@lemmy.mlEnglish
    841·
    12 days ago

    (Your Area Code) 867-5309. None of the younger store clerks know the song reference when I give them this number. But I get chuckles from older folks in line behind me

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      321·
      12 days ago

      There’s usually already an account with that number, so just try it out. You probably don’t even need to actually open an account. BTW, if you do open an account, don’t expect that a fake phone number is going to keep you anonymous. Everything is linked these days. All of the big data brokers are buying and selling information to each other. The second you swipe a card, it’s going to match that card to real information from some random online purchase 95 years ago, and they’ll have all of your real information, including political preferences, address, phone number, all of your email addresses, ethnicity, height, weight, sexual preferences, everything. They have it all, and it’s all linked to every credit card you have ever used.

      • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        Grocery stores. Picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy (there have been a couple of months where I couldn’t have afforded the cost if there weren’t discount points on 510-867-5309). Stuff at the hardware store. Target, occasionally.

        • Zedd @lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          12 days ago

          I’d use that number all the time and not take the rewards. Glad my stupid tech job was actually used for something good.

          • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
            3·
            11 days ago

            I usually don’t take the rewards - I like to pay it forward for the few times I really needed them.

    • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
      6·
      12 days ago

      I just search online for the stores number and use that. They can bear the burden of their own bullshit spam