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Protecting Your Privacy vs. Shopper Loyalty Benefits At The Supermarket:
Ben's Got A Few Ways To Short-Circuit The System
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Shopper Loyalty Cards
vs.
Your Privacy:
Is It Worth It? Are There Ways Around Giving Up Your Info?
Airdate: Friday, February 15, 2002
QUESTION: Shopper Loyalty Cards...Good, bad, do they save money?
ANSWER: Do they save money? Yes...but for a price. You trade your personal information about your buying habits for reasonable--sometimes significant, savings.
Check out a column I wrote about this very subject: Los Angeles resident Bob Rivera learned, his personal buying habits were used against him in a legitimate slip-and-fall lawsuit he brought against Southern California food retailer Von’s. Von’s attorneys tried to make him out to be a drunk because of the quantities of alcohol he purchased, with the shopping histories recorded through his loyal use of Von’s Frequent Shopper Program card.
Are the savings worth the privacy trade-off? Sure...I bought a 12-pack of Diet Cokes at another Southern California supermarket/retailer [Ralph’s] and because I refuse to use one of these loyalty cards but still want to get the savings, circumvented their system. I told the clerk that I didn’t have my card with me, but since I already know how their system works, I gave them “my home phone number” which their system also keys off of.
So I gave them the phone number of one of my friends...he and his wife have one of the Ralph’s Club Loyalty Card and collect the assorted benefits from frequent usage; a listing of the assorted benefits for using their card is listed on their website. Wanna look at the information they’ll ask you for when signing up for one of these cards?
Frequent buyer/loyalty program payoffs vary from chain-to-chain around the nation. Safeway’s Texas-subsidiary, Tom Thumb gives their frequent shoppers [known as Reward Card holders] American Airlines AAdvantage Miles as a way of hooking consumers...one mile for every dollar you spend...and it can add up quickly when you start making your pharmaceutical purchases there. But look at the trade-off: You’re giving up extremely private information for #@$%(&*!@#@ frequent flier miles!
Payoff: Want the discounts but don’t want to give up your privacy?
- Sign up for a card and give them phony information. You can’t get in trouble for this; you’re not applying for credit, so you’re not breaking any laws. But you’ll get what you want...discounts and other perks down the road.
- Don’t use a check or a credit card when you purchase...Use Cash!!! Even if you don’t have a Loyalty Card, you’d be amazed at the “data mining” that goes on out there by the retail industry, in the name of getting any edge, real or perceived, on the competition in the marketplace. There’s plenty of information on your checks, both printed or encoded at the bottom of the check that can still track your purchases...and that’s a no-brainer when it comes to that magnetic strip on the back of a credit card.
- Use a friend or family member’s card with their permission; you get the discounts, and they get the long-term benefits: As described earlier...you’ll get the discount at check out, and whomever’s card you’re using/keying off of gets the perks associated with additional dollar volume/use on their card.
Remember: Most of these retailer are extremely accommodating to consumers that don’t have their card or keychain barcode/tag and many of these systems will key off of a home phone number of a Loyalty Card member as an alternate way to "give you the discounts and benefits you deserve." We’ll just use their technology against them! All’s fair in love, war and at the grocery store!
Wanna know more about how to protect yourself from spending too much dough at the supermarket?
Check out Ben's report from the NBC morning show "The Other Half' hosted by Dick Clark & Danny Bonaduce.
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