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?

When I worked in retail, we were monitered by Head Office on how many emails we could get on the mailing list. We would always tell the customer it was for our mailing list. We had to walk around with a clipboard approaching customers. We all hated doing it and we'd make them up to hit out target. The emails would be typed into a form on our office computer at the end of the day. Luckily it didn't have the function to spot invalid email addresses or we'd all have been in trouble!

When it's a refund we needed a home address to prove a) we had served a customer and not ourselves b) our refunds were checked every month and management would look for repeat addresses because it could mean the assistant is doing something dodgy c) we could also keep an eye out for dodgy customers - a store might email us saying they had a suspicious customer but they had no choice but to give a refund, their address was XXX, so we could then keep an eye out and log the customer with customer services if they did they same thing in our store too. It was usually suspicious "faulty" items that they bought with cash from our flagship store aka near enough impossible for us to trace

I don't mind giving my postcode. Unless they want your house number, it really is just seeing where the concentration of customers is, for planning new shops. They can't contact you with just a postcode.

Sorry, I should have been clear. I'm not talking about faulty items, I'd get a manager to deal with that. I'm not talking about email address either. I'm talking about a standard "I've changed my mind" sort of return.

Seriously, we do get told off if customers don't fill out their details. We get told off if customers don't fill out all of the form or if it's illegible too. We are told not to process a refund if the customer is refusing to fill it out. As far as I'm aware that's perfectly legal because you're not legally entitled to a refund because you changed your mind.

I hate this. I have a 6 month old so am in mothercare quite a lot and get asked every time. Thing is, I work in marketing and I know that a customer has to explicitly 'opt in' to marketing messages, so this underhanded tactic of asking for an email address to send your receipt sounds very dodgy to me. I always say no though so perhaps staff are told to make it clear that you are joining their mailing list when you say yes. I should bloody hope so else they're breaching DPA.

The most annoying one I had was at White Stuff, 'Are you part of the White Stuff family?'. I know they meant am in on their mailing list but what a stupidly phrased question! I said no and was asked if I 'wanted to join the family'. I said no again and wondered what other customers thought when asked this, it sounds like they're trying to lure you in to some odd cult.

Re giving fake details, I'm not about to start routinely lying about stupid stuff when I can just say no. Providing this info isn't a precondition for shopping.

Just say no. Why is that so hard to do?

Don't compromise yourself in any silly way especially for unimportant reasons like saying no to handing over personal info you don't want to share.

What a brilliant idea!! Speaking as someone who spent one hour yesterday trying to track down a scrap of a receipt that in reality is worth over 200 quid. I think it is excellent to have the option of having the receipt emailed to me and stored electronically. If it is a separate account you can ignore the ads or unsubscribe or use the search function.

Pay in cash and tell them you are living "off the grid".

I say 'there's no point' which stops them as they don't really want a theoretical discussion when other people are waiting behind me. I do have one of those scarey faces though.

If I am feeling particularly arsey I 'll say 'I think what you mean is 'that will be £3.99 please''. Or a quick lip snarl and a shake of the head.

I see dip. Yes, in the case of change of minds, the SoG Act wouldn't apply. The reason MrsG has given is one that I've heard about before; that details are needed to counter fraud. I understand this and can see its logic, but in the case of faulty items that meet SoG Act criteria, it's still not necessary for a customer to provide details. The law trumps everything else.

Dip I can see that you are between the proverbial rock and hard place. I think the only thing to do is for customers to provide false data. I wouldn't want a store worker to be penalised on my account but I am not happy about disclosing my private info. We should all have alternative identities for situations like this - the only problem is remembering them.

purpleapple - I agree - it is good to have a separate account just for "shopping" crap - it is the way it will all go eventually anyhow. Much easier for organising guarantees, receipts etc - with the added advantage of targeted vouchers.

What is the downside? Someone knows where you shop? Knows your shopping-crap email address? You get some emails - that are stored by your email provider, that you are free to ignore ...woo..

If it's something big or expensive I actually give them my email address, because I assume it records the sale on their system and then if I lose my receipt (which I do, often) it'll make it easier to get it sorted out.

Am I just very naïve?

Fr, but you don't actually need a receipt to prove you've bought something. Yes, its the easiest way to demonstrate this, but other evidence will suffice (a bank statement entry, for example). A bit old now, but info here: www.theguardian.com/money/2008/dec/20/receipts-consumer-affairs

I agree e-receipts can be good for expensive items, as long as that is the only thing they send you when you hand over your details. I think I did this in Apple when I bought an iPod. However, when I'm spending £5 on socks at mothercare I do not need a receipt emailed to me - I know that, they know that. I object to the constant attempts to trick me into receiving their spam. I know this is not the sales assistants fault so am always polite when declining. These instructions will be coming from Head Office and IMO it's pretty dodgy marketing practices. Why not just say 'would you like to join our mailing list for offers, discounts and new products?', why go in for this faux 'we need your email address to send your receipt' nonsense?. It must work though as I've seen it more and more.

YANBU. I always say, "no, it's ok thanks". The first time it happened was a few years ago in Mamas and Papas. I asked them why they wanted my email address and postcode and they said they couldn't continue the transaction without so I declined and left the store. To be honest. it does really wind me up, especially when I see people giving their details because they think they have to.

diplo I can assure you, without fear of contradiction, that when I call your manager over you will give me my refund. As Vanitas has said retailers have to comply with the law. If it's an 'ex gratia' refund that you don't have to give, maybe, but if not then you so will be giving it. Do you have lots of snarly interactions with customers?

Just say no. Why is that so hard to do?

I was just thinking of the poor shop staff BeCool who will get in trouble if they don't have enough so I'd rather give a fake one as a virtual 'up yours' to the company

Yes, emailed receipts are a great idea but some organisations will always abuse it. I simply do not trust any of them now. Plus, the more data about you sloshing around, the greater the potential for fraudulent use (identity theft etc). I make a judgement call every time I engage in a transaction of any kind about how much data I think that person should have, how they might use it etc. Most of it is completely harmless of course, but I've been bitten a couple of times (plus someone tried to buy goods online with my details once so I'm over cautious now)

I just unsubscribe to email lists regularly, it only takes a monent and really does keep them in check. I probably wouldn't notice if an unsubscribe failed, so long as the majority of them stop then thats good enough for me.

I just say 'no' as well. If enough customers do this then the company may get the idea that it's not popular with their customers. If everyone goes on pretending they don't mind then they will carry on asking.
As for receipts , I keep them in a lock up cashbox for big purchases and presents ,so I know exactly where they are. I only return things if they're faulty, so no problem there.

"What's an email address?"

FarFrom I absolutely don't have lots of "snarly interactions" with customers at all. I can only think of once in the 8 years I've worked there that I've had to call a manager over because someone didn't want to fill out the refund form. And I can assure you the manager didn't give the refund. More often customers will ask "why do I need to fill this out?" a simple "because I need to prove I've served a customer, don't worry it won't be used for anything else" has always been sufficient.

The person who mentioned the dry cleaners... They are taking custody of your cloths and need to know how to get in touch if you don't turn up to retrieve them. The alternative would have to be to chuck them out/sell them on if you don't turn up within a few weeks.

Yes - I remember one time we had a customer who was very resistant to giving details for a refund and the product was faulty. Of course when it's faulty, there are legalities, but the system would not process a refund without taking details. We had to phone the manager who phoned the owner who eventually said to use the manager's account details and he would make a personal note of it.

I stopped shopping at White Stuff because of this. I politely declined to give my details several times but it felt relentless - I couldn't just pop in and make a quick purchase as every transaction became a battle. The second time the assistant became frosty with me after I'd declined to give anything more than my postcode I thought screw this for a bag of marbles. I unsubscribed from the mailing list and no longer purchase either in store or online.