To be pissed off that I cannot buy anything in any shop without this happening?

[MarniRose]

So, I went shopping yesterday and bought items in five places ... Jack Wills, Jigsaw, Mint Velvet, Neal's Yard and Joules. As I came to pay, without exception, the first question I was asked was ' what's your email address please?' Or ' can I take your postcode please?' or ' and your full name please? '

I'm fed up with it. I just want to pay for my goods and get the receipt. I don't want it ' emailed to me.' I don't want to be added to your mailing list in an almost surreptitious way. Bar supermarkets, it really is in every shop these days.

Yesterday I said, for the first time, ' no, I'd rather not give you my email address, I'd just really like to pay please' and the woman was a bit taken aback and almost didn't know what to do.

So what do you do? Do you divulge this info and not care and then get bombarded with emails every day? Or do you refuse to give the info?

I say no, or sometimes I make them up if I am being a little childish my go to is XX6 9BJ.

Euphemia
Its when you answer no to do you find everything you need/are you having a good day- no one ever knows how to answer.

I feel sorry for the shop workers. They have to ask and are under pressure to get a certain number of new email addresses a day

Tendon ha, in my shop we get told off if we don't get customers details when doing a return. Trust me, I wouldnt "give up". I'll just cancel your return and you won't get your money back.

Reason is we need to get these details to "prove we served a customer" and didn't just process a refund to take money out of the tills. To be fair though, I do think name, address etc is a bit overkill. A signature to prove it would suffice. Company policy though and no harping on about data protection will make me give you your refund.

God I sound like a right dick but I don't fancy getting told off.

I worked in a shop that bought in a loyalty card - it was a requirement to ask every single customer for their email address, part of the job, non compliance was not an option if you wanted to continue earning minimum wage for people to call you a "nosey little shit" for wanting their details.

I have an email address for spam (a short form of my name) so I can check it every so often for vouchers/loyalty bonuses etc when I am going there shopping. The emails are stored by the email provider, and separate from my important stuff, no skin off my nose to get money off for nowt.

I understand needing details for a refund, but not for a rountine purchase.

I have an email address that I use for online shopping, and a "private" one that only gets given to friends and poeple who won't sell it on.
My shopping one is full of junk. If I am getting a guaranttee via it, i use search function to find it then forward it to my real account

I bought a computer in PC world a few months ago and the guy asked for my name, address, phone number etc. He argued that he needed it so that if the laptop broke, I could return it. AFAIK, the receipt itself is all that's needed if I needed to return it. I gave him a false name etc (in fact, I used a made-up Parisian address). Every other time, I have refused to provide any info. It's not necessary and the stores are usually breaching the DPA 1998. If they want to collect marketing data, they should ask your permission not pretend it's for some other purpose. I do feel a bit sorry for the staff though, because they have been told just to collect the data by their managers. I've taught my eldest DD to engage in 'data obfuscation' usually by providing 'junk data'. Gary Marx, a professor of surveillance studies, provides a list of 11 data obfuscation 'moves' here, if anyone is interested web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/tack.html

Fuck me Tendon I totally read your post wrong and got a bit defensive. I'm so sorry.

I just say no thank you. It's never been a problem. Have no problem giving my name and address for a refund and have never been bombarded with emails as a result.

The banks irritate me more. Is there anything else we can do for you? Would you like a review of your account? Have you got a mortgage? "I'm awfully sorry but I don't discuss my affairs in front of the queue behind me" or "no I haven't got a mortgage" followed by lengthy questioning about why not - before they hand you the papers/money/card/book back - that's what really irks me. I have before said I came in to deposit some cheques and that's all I want to do thank you but they just don't get it.

I always say no. Never encountered a problem.

I work in a shop and we get monitored on whether we ask these questions or not. I know they are annoying but we don't really have a choice. But there is never, in my experience, ever any actual need to have any details from you at all to put your shopping through the till (except for when you are returning something) so just say no nicely but (if necessary) firmly. We feel like twats asking the same questions over and over too, and we know nobody likes it. But our fulfilling minimum wage jobs are on the line if we don't! The massive reward for signing people up is rarely more exciting than some shit chocolate. I made the mistake of signing up for one shop and got at least one email a day until I unsubscribed, so I'm fully aware of how irritating they are. And if they are truly persistent, give them a fake email address, and feign ignorance when it doesn't work.

Yanbu, I am crap at checking my emails already and most of them are from shops due to this system. It's bloody annoying.

I only get asked in Mothercare so far, where they're perfectly honest about asking if I want to go on their baby mailing list.

I recoil in horror and say "noooooo!". I suppose if pressed I'd give [email protected] (example.com is recommended for example email addresses, so there isn't some poor sod wondering why they keep getting nappy ads).

Personally I'm fed up with getting 101 receipts and pieces of paper so I'd actually prefer to be emailed my bill BUT I do agree that companies should ONLY email you your bill and not use it for marketing.

My PIL don't have email, they don't even have the Internet , worrying that they couldn't have a refund in your shop dipplodycus , I think that may be in breach of the sale of goods act .

I don't mind being asked ' would you like to go on our mailing list? ' because that's open and frank and it's fine, it's giving me the option. It's the insidious way that it happens that irks me.

I get more irate with people pushing credit cards as rewards cards, I've seen people in HOF who barely speak English having the cards foisted on them without knowing what they're signing up to.

A friend of mine who works there said that it's company policy bla bla but if someone tries to push me into getting a credit card when I've (politely, and I always am overly polite) said no then I will snap at you and in one case I reported someone to their manager as she held up the sale trying to force me to sign up to a card I didn't want. Persuading people to use something that could get them into debt is akin to pond life IMO.

I hate it when you're at the till and they say "can I interest you in.....".

I feel like saying "No thank you. If I wanted a cheap celebrity perfume that smells of toilet cleaner or cat piss/ a box of cheap chocolates that are almost out of date I would have picked one up and put it in my basket already thank you very much"

I've been living abroad for 11 years. Are those shops new? I've never heard of any of them.
Would piss me off too, twatty mailing lists.

I got so fed up of being asked in one particular shop I emailed Customer Services to complain. I got a half-arsed apology and a load of bullshit in response and I still get asked.

I give my email address as

[email protected]

I always say "I'm not giving out my personal details, sorry" and usually they're fine. One place said they just wanted the postcode (no other details) to see where their shoppers had come from.

The only one which was really awkward was a dry-cleaners, which insisted on full details - I walked out in the end...