Told at New Look they "don't do paper receipts"

[UserNameOfShame]

Anyone else had this?
I was in New Look in the trafford centre today and was asked for my email address for the receipt (standard practice now I know)
I said no thank you I would prefer a paper receipt (standard acceptable reply) and the cashier said no they dont do paper receipts. I said I wasn't going to give her my email address and after a bit of this back and forth and a short stand off she eventually produced a receipt from under the counter.

Is this what New Look staff are asking of their staff now? To lie in order to harvest personal information?
It was really uncomfortable for both me and the poor NMW cashier and has made me less inclined to want to shop there again.

Same thing happened to me, same shop, and when I said I didn't want an email one they said do you not want a receipt at all because we only do email. I said yes I do want a receipt, print me one please. Got a printed receipt and the filthiest of looks for my trouble.

Plus, if they are VAT-registered, they legally do have to issue a receipt.

It’s not? But I’m explaining why staff push for them, it’s not because they’re being difficult. And it really makes a difference to give an email (even a fake one) and take a paper copy as well to the member of staff.

I think you're projecting a bit here. I "go along" with all the things you've listed, not because of apathy or blind acceptance, but because I'm actively in favour of them.

It's also so that they can flog you things.
In the excellent Stolen Focus by Johann Hari there is a chapter on how this insidious marketing works. He likens it to a doll that google etc have for everyone on the planet. Your advertising profile = voodoo doll. AT first it doesn’t look much like you, but as you feed it more data, the more it DOES. And the more it looks like you, the more powerful and effective it is at controlling / influencing your actions.

things like the clubcard, email receipts etc are all part of how the advertisers are learning more and more about you so they can more effectively pull your strings. Do you really think companies would invest all this infrastructure if there wasn't some sort of reward for them ? New Look want your email so they can send you marketing stuff and also to sell it on to other companies trying to make your personal doll more realistic. New Look couldn't give a shit about the environment so anyone that thinks they are sending emails to save paper is a gullible fool. The cost is the email infrastructure would be far larger than a till roll.

Its an excellent read, highly recommended

I went along with this in New Look, gave my email address. Needed to return an item... then found no email receipt had been sent. By the time I sorted a replacement email the date had gone and I could no longer return the items. So I won't do that again.

This tells anyone with a functioning brain cell that New Look have an ulterior motive to harvest your email other than some pretence that it's for the customer's benefit. It's outrageous that staff face disciplinary action because informed consumers refuse to be pawns in the marketing game.

Been asked if I want a back up receipt for a pack of paracetamol. No.

They are probably uploading the email addresses to Google as customer match lists

Exactly. This way works so much better for everybody... except for when it doesn't...

But how is this the customer's responsibility? Why are we responsible for some random person's employment outcomes?

I didn't imply it was the consumers responsibility. Merely offering an insight as to why we ask. We are treated like it's our fault if you refuse to give an email - is that acceptable?

What I would say though is that if you roll your eyes at being asked or get shirty about it you are doing it to the wrong person. As others have said complain to HQ not the poor sod just trying to get by.

I wish people would stop trying to claim that these marketing ploys don't affect them or anyone else for that matter. You seriously believe this? You're quite happy for companies to be making millions from using people's data and insisting that they hand personal details over? Nothing about this bothers you?

We used to use CurrysPCWorld for our electrical purchases because it was convenient. Then, I noticed that every time I bought something I'd have to give my mobile number out as well as other information - for warranties apparently. I'd then be spammed with dodgy calls from China etc. I never give my mobile number out, so I knew exactly where the leak was. I reported the company to the Information Commissioner and never shopped there again.

Databases are worth millions to companies and they don't care who they sell the info to. Why do you think people get spam emails and scammy phonecalls? You honestly believe anyone gives a shit about gdpr? It's a joke.

Any business which charges you VAT should give you a receipt if you ask for one.

I think people are just pointing out that if you want this to change, Head Office is the place to complain to, not the minimum wage retail worker who has no say over business practices.

More work for the customer then? We're doing these places a favour by buying things from them. Most people aren't rude to shop staff yet we have to accept rudeness from them because we don't want to hand our details over?

I just have a dummy email set up solely for receipts. Not hard

I fail to see how a paper receipt is preferable tbh. They're easily lost or damaged. I can however look through emails and find the receipt for something I bought a year ago if I need it.

Seems a lot of arguing the toss for arguments sake to me.

No. I’m just saying that if you’re going to complain, it makes sense to complain to the people who can actually do something about it. Retail workers can’t do anything about it, so complaining to them is wasted breath.

Printed paper receipt at the time that you completed the transaction and exchanged money for a thing. Features: has a timestamp on it; will probably indicate the till that you used, whether it was staffed or an automatic till, by way of a code that makes sense to the shop (such as Till 1 / 2...); shows if cash or another method was used, a discount entered, or how much change given; no way of giving it to the wrong customer. All of this makes it easy in case of needing to use the receipt in connection with your purchase again. Till software will have its mirror copy stored in the till session for that day, among all the other transactions that need to add up to 100 percent of takings at the end of the day.

Email receipt = lots of scope to be mis-addressed, filtered or not received. They can be sent as quickly as "two hours after you made a purchase!" according to that New Look link about e-receipts upthread. Requires customer to stand by the till and speak their information, then opt out of whatever else it may be used for, if this becomes apparent after the receipt is emailed. Relationship to the online customer database (national, large. not just about transactions) but not a lot to do with the systems of the retail arm of the business in a lot of cases.

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It's just a ploy to get your email address,so they can then plague you with email adverts.

They don't send adverts after sending receipts

I bought from New Look yesterday and said I wanted a paper receipt. She gave me one but said (quite huffily I thought!) you can't do a return if you've lost the receipt. Yes, no problem, just give me the sodding paper receipt and let me go on my way 🙄

A lot of New Look's customers will be under 16 - are shops allowed to take their emails? Insisting a 12 year old gives you their email seems pretty dodgy ground to me.