Was IBU for walking out of shop at checkout?

[PersianKittens]

I'm not naming the shop, but this morning, I went into a big high street retailer to collect a click and collect order and whilst I was there, I had a look around and picked up a few more things.

Went to till, total came to over £150, all fine, sales assistant asked if they could have my email address for the receipt. I said, no thanks, a paper receipt is fine thanks, she said, sorry we don't do paper receipts, we need to have your email address to provide that. I looked at her and said I had never come across any other retailer doing that, but she stood her ground and said in an assertive tone, I need your email address. Again I refused and said, if that's the case, I'll just leave it and walked away. Last time I gave a retailer my email in store, I was bombarded with daily emails, despite unsubscribing via the link at every email received.

WIBU to have walked away as I didn't want to hand over my personal data? Driving home, I did think about creating a separate email account for this reason, but then again, why should I? surely my preferences should be respected.

I'm pretty certain she was wrong. I don't think a shop can demand any of your data (including an email address) and I think they are obliged to give you a receipt if you want one. Perhaps you could have asked to speak to the manager? If the assistant was wrong, as I suspect she was, she needs to know.

They don't really 'insist' at Dunelm. They just ask for it and I always say no and ask for a paper receipt instead.

Sounds like a new over enthusiastic staff member. I've worked in sales where the managers insist you objection handle at least once before you stop asking, in order to not piss off the customer too much. If they're letting you walk out, rather than buy your items, clearly there's something wrong with that sales model!

It's such a shit system though, because even if a shop refused to provide a paper receipt, you could still prove proof of purchase through bank statement etc. My business doesn't send out marketing emails, but we do ask for an e-mail address at the time of ordering, so we can let customers know when their order is ready to collect. We get lots of calls from people wanting updates on their orders because they gave a fake e-mail address to avoid getting marketing spam.

Well, I just asked Chat gpt and apparently shops are not obliged to provide paper receipts in the UK. However, it says most will give you one or some other proof of purchase if you ask. I guess I'd accept buying groceries or similar without a receipt but I would not buy a bigger item without. I'd walk out and go elsewhere rather than give them my email.

What happens if you don’t have an email address

UntIl a couple of years ago I would have agreed with you.
Until I lost a paper receipt and the shop explained that I could have got a refund if I’d agreed to the email receipt.
But has to be said, I’ve never ever been inundated with emails from anywhere - just the receipts I needed..

I never do it either.

I reckon if you asked to see a copy of their Fair Processing Notice / Privacy Notice at the point they asked for your email address, then asked if they intend to use your email address to send you marketing emails in addition to sending you your receipt and if they are, how they intend to ask for and then record your explicit consent to receiving said marketing emails, and then ask if any of their data processing takes place outside of the UK and if so, who their data controller is (so that you can just have a quick Google to assure yourself right there at the till that there are the right safeguards in place to ensure that the provisions of the Data Protection Act will be applied to your data) and that if they don't know about any of this then could they bring a manager over that can help you...they might decide to hit that "print" button with some haste!

I once agreed to an email receipt from Dunelm, never received it and when I rang them they said they couldn't resend it as they didn't keep them on store records, so I ended up with no receipt, never again !🙄

You obviously provided the company with your email address for the Click and Collect order, so you don't object to this company having your data, you just wanted to make yourself feel important.
My sympathy is entirely with the retail employee who had to deal with you.

Some retailers will be using a POS system which only allows for email receipts.

If you were collecting a click and collect item, didn’t they already have your email address? 🤣

@pinenuts75 very niche knowledge here but Dunelm as a business do accept bank statements as proof of purchase if the product is faulty, as stated in the returns policy which is available online.

Don't ask me why I know that.

This is because staff will be under pressure to get emails from customers. Never underestimate that pressure! Failure can can start to make a job feel very insecure after a few rough 'performance interviews' - failure to meet KPIs is a big thing. I doubt very much that the assistant gave a rat's arse about your email address.

I do this. I say I've only got a work email and I'm not allowed to give it. The whole asking for your personal data when you just want to bloody buy something pisses me right off

I bought a birthday card costing £3.50 from Dunelm today and paid by CC. I was automatically given a receipt.

A couple of months ago I returned a pair of trousers to Sainsburys and didn't have the receipt (lost it). But as I had also used my Nectar Card for the purchase they could locate the receipt via that, and gave me my refund.

I always refuse after agreeing once and the email receipt never arrived. I don't trust it now so would do the same as you.

He’s also that person with over 2500+ unread email notifications on his phone which bugs the life out of me lol.

Once it’s been approved, there’ll be a photo of mine. I can’t quite explain it

Well done for standing your ground. Did you turn point out the irony of the paper now being able to come out?!

I do suspect this is all coming from above, data hungry, digitalising everything, and I get it, and with most cases I just go along with it, at times it’s useful, you can mostly unsubscribe, but there are a few instances where it does irk me on principle. If you don’t want to share your data and world is slowly grinding to a halt. Where is the consent?!

Sadly, my inbox which used to be well managed has now crept up to 2K+. I just can’t keep on top of it…

Another email address for crap a good idea, I may do that. Maybe something along the lines of ‘[email protected]’ 😂

Holding my hands up now to say I haven't read all the replies, so someone may already have said this, but (click and collect aside) our Dunelm has self-service tills now, and you just print your own receipts. I only have interaction with staff at the checkout if I've bought something that would trigger the security gate, but they just deal with that and I go on my way. (But even before they put the new tills in, they never argued with me if I said no to giving my email address. Maybe it varies depending on the store?)

If you'd read the thread you'd know that the click and collect order was for her husband not her.

A customer isn't there to support companies' stupid policies. It might not be great for the retail assistant but that isn't the customer's problem - they are allowed to say no to upsales and what they perceive to be requests for unnecessary personal data.

And all these stores DO give paper receipts in the end, so they aren't set up to be paperless.

The only reason they want email addresses is for marketing, lets not pretend otherwise.

If you'd read the thread you'd know that the click and collect order was for her husband not her

So, given they already had the DH’s email for the click and collect, the reason she couldn’t give that exact same email to them for the receipt was ……. that there was no drama in that course of action. He obviously didn’t care that they had it, as it was used for the click and collect!

Right I asked about this at work as it was bugging me, yes we accept bank statements, but it is a faff to do apparently and takes time, holds the queue up, they would rather you don’t lose your paper receipt or you give an email so you shouldn’t be able to lose it.

If I get a receipt via email, it takes me ages to find it. (And sometimes I can't!)

Why not create a folder in your inbox called "receipts" and put them in there? That should make it easier.