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 always just say no.

Had a bit of an awkward situation in Peacocks once when my iPhone made the distinctive new e-Mail tone just after I'd said I didn't have one, but I just brazened it out. Ice cool, me.

I always say no and without fail the sakes assistant out the shop postcode in instead. I have never once been refused the sake because I don't give them my personal details. They want your cash more than your postcode.

If someone asks for my postcode when I don't want/need to give it, I say SW1A 1AA. Tends to stop them in their tracks

diplo no worries! I was referring to getting asked when you're buying the thing in the first place - no objection to giving details if I actually want a refund later on.

outtolunch it tends to be postal address for a refund so they'd be ok.

It's not nice to be on the sharp end of some company's marketing wheeze. That's why I refuse politely, but if people get really persistent I have done the data protection question.

Diploddycus. I am not trying to be confrontational but I am genuinely curious, how does a customers lack of e-mail address mean they are no longer entitled to a refund ?

If goods are faulty surely it is Sale of goods Act issue. I just don't see the relevance of an e-mail as anything to do with it

This has only ever happened to me once (Smashbox counter in Boots). Apart from when doing refunds, when it's normal practice. For anything valuable an email receipt would be useful though, DH recently bought a coffee machine that came with a voucher for £75 worth of pods, when he went to use it he found you had to attach a copy of your receipt, which he'd lost . Just hope it never breaks down.

My DH runs his own email service for his family (computer geek) I don't use it, far too much faff but it means he can set up as many email addresses as he likes, so he will use [email protected] . This way he can tell if his email address has been sold on by the company. He has noticed as soon as a company has gone into receivership their database of email addresses are sold on.

And by 'on the sharp end' I mean the person on the till who has to ask..

Lemony you're obviously well informed. No one's ever been able to tell me the data protection policy.

I work in one of the shops that asks for an e mail address. Yes it is shit every time you buy something you get asked but if we don't get a certain percentage of customers entered for e receipts then we get a disciplinary. We hate it as well.

Also without a receipt we can only exchange the product. Even then if it's a branded product we can't do anything at all for you.
Don't forget you can just unsubscribe at the bottom of the e mails and that stops the marketing ones but you still get the purchase receipt.

I shop online for most things now, or do click and collect. You can send everything to a spam address then.

diplo you can't refuse to process the refund if they won't give you details, that's just complete bullshit. 'Company policy' can't over ride statute.

Oh do you really get disciplined if customers dont give info thats terrible i feel bad now I wo

All the hassle to customers and bad treatment of their own staff puts me off using stores.

I posted a thread about this a couple of years ago and it's got worse IMO.

DH has solved it though - he has set up a junk email address. It's [email protected]

Anyone who gets fed up with this should provide an email @mailinator.com. It'll be a real email - Mailinator is a service that accepts emails to anything you like @mailinator.com and just has an open inbox. It's great for when you have to give an email but don't want spam.

maccie that's not what I meant. I'd read Tendon's post wrong. I was talking about when shop staff ask for details when processing a refund for a customer.

Vanitas of course I can. You're not entitled to a refund. Unless of course the item is faulty.

I've only recently learned that it is really easy to unsubscribe.

Just go to the bottom of the page. Click unsubscribe then confirm. Can't believe I didn't realise how easy it is.

I say "not interested thanks" or sometimes just "no thanks". If they push it I ignore them - I've already given my position and I have zero interest in a discussion about it.

Add slightly raised eyebrow look if the try to push it.

The best solution for everyone is to give a fake email address/postcode. That way the sales staff still have proof that they asked, the customer doesn't have to divulge personal information and the shop can't sell their details.

But dip I think the issue is that you can't refuse to process a refund solely because someone declines to provide an email address. If an item is faulty etc and meets other criteria of the SoG act, then you would have to offer a refund/other. Email addresses don't come into it. That is company policy. The SoG act is statute so trumps everything else.

I agree Fairenuff when customers get arsey about details for a refund (which doesn't actually happen all that often) I think to myself "FFS just make it up, I don't care!"

I'm moving in a couple of weeks. This has proved such a sucess I plan to keep saying it!

grape, it should be easy to unsubscribe but I find that companies often ignore this and continue to send emails etc. When buying things online I always opt out, but this is often ignored as well, and on a couple of occasions my details have been passed on as well, in clear contravention of the DPA.

I don't think anyone has asked for my e mail address but I'm sometimes asked for my postcode. I normally give the first four letters/numbers and say that is all I'm giving you. Only the younger sales assistants ever looked surprised or taken aback.

cant well as I've said I've only recently realised, so I'll have to wait to see how successful it is

I'll be annoyed if they don't remove me though.