Do you have a loyalty card and if so do you know what they do with your information?

[ivykaty44]

just wondering as a man behind me in the supermarket didn't have one and told me that the tax office can look at your spending habits - I knew the supermarkets used them as free surveys, but not the tax office surely?

Why would the tax office be interested in what I spent on groceries??

I have a grudging respect for people who don't have them! I, on the other hand, have sold my soul to Tesco and the rest for a few clubcard points!

They certainly hold a lot of information about you from loyalty cards. I'm always about people who complain about the Governments census questions being intrusive but are quite happy to have loyalty cards.

He's either pulling your leg or a complete tool.

Most companies don't use the data as much as they could as the cost of data analysis is high compared to the potential increase in sales from selling additional products.

The man sounds like a loon! He probably also thinks that the moon landing was filmed in a studio somewhere.

I really don't think that the tax office are all that bothered about what we buy at Tescos.

I have a clubcard but only so what I buy in store appears in my online favourites. Couldn't give a toss what they do with the info tbh.

see I offered him my points - as I don't have a loyalty card. How can online favourites appear due to loyalty card? do they know the ISP address for your loyalty card?

Nectar are very very smart with data. But all data commands a price and the better it is the more expensive it gets. It would cost an arm and a leg for the tax office to look at your spending habits.

as long as it's there arm and leg nothing to hide nothing to worry about, possibly then he was just paranoid and guilty as hell

No it's just through your clubcard number. Same one used in store as Tesco online. Saves huge amounts of time when doing an online shop.

People just like to scaremonger. There may be a vast amount of data out there but there is not a great amount of understanding as to what it can tell you.

If the IR are investigating you they can certainly
access these records. They even looked inside my dads freezer to value the contents when he was under investigation. They have worryingly far reaching powers and I say this as someone who doesn't avoid tax on principle.

I doubt the IR would routinely check all records though.

Went through his freezer? Really? How could it not be that someone else had bought him a big shop.

IR don't worry about the burden of proof all that much unfortunately.

They asked him to catalogue and value every item in the house. It was a real nightmare for him about 20 years ago.. he still bears the scars! His accountant made an error and they fined my dad massively for tax evasion even though it was pretty clear this was not the case.

I read somewhere that it might be used to calculate council tax at some time in the future? not sure how they'd go about it

Nope, I refuse to have a loyalty card.

God Arbukel that sounds awful.
Ninah, you can be put into a demographic/ lifestyle model/ category according to what you buy.

Tesco and their plan for world domination! Are they really the tories and they will use your clubcard data to know if you buy fags, booze & flat screen tv's?

I went to a Michael Moore "standup" evening where talked about this. He had massive fishing net and walked thru the audience collecting up our Boots, nectar, tesco cards etc and then chopped every one up on stage.

He's right. You can tell from the details on your card and how you spend points loads of things. How likely you aré to switch electricity supplier for example.

Me and DW do not have store cards for this very reason.

I know that there is a piece of software developed by a US company that can trawl store card data to work out the income and voting habits of each household.

I heard a rumour that the software was being used in the UK at the last election.

It was I believe.

How can data on how much I spend on Cornflakes & mince tell how likely I am to switch electricity suppliers though? Who's to say that I don't get organic veg & meat boxes delivered to my house and get weekly essentials from Tescos - that wouldn't help them work out my income & voting habits?

And so they know our income and voting habits, so what?

It's how you spend your rewards not buy your shopping. It's quite complex but as an example. If you save all your points up for ages and spend at Christmas then you probably don't make on the spot decisions. So you probably wouldn't sign up for something on an outbound sales call. If you spend your points when there are double exchange points on at Tesco then you are more likely to make a decision which involves a special offer. It's not an exact science but it does work!

mozette - your credit card that you were paying for your abel and cole with would show it up.

It's scary what the data can provide.

Have you seen Acorn profiles?(Here's one for a mate's house in Chelsea

another for a mate who lives in a "posh" bit of milton keynes