Those Membership Cards For Grocery Stores

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I hate those cards. When I go to Alberson's or Safeway I have to pay more unless I brought their card or give the clerk my phone number. It always makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't like adding more hoops to shopping. It's a stupid gimmicky waste of time for everybody. Do people really feel good that they are a member and are saving money for being in some exclusive club?

I'm used to Costco's membership card. I don't know why it doesn't bother me in the same way. However, Costco overwhelms me enough so that I leave occasionally in the middle of shopping.

Do as I do.

Give an assumed name, address and phone number.

What are they going to do? Cancel your benefit card?

W.C. Fields said, "You can't cheat an honest man."

If they think there's an opportunity for a scam, most people will jump through as many hoops as they think they need to.

If you don't at least allow people the illusion that they might be able to get something from you, they won't notice you at all.

But you need to balance that with a tough-guy pose. (I'll allow this much abuse and no more.)

Even if you want to be helpful, you have to allow them the illusion that they tricked it out of you.

It just makes me tired.

I teased them once, saying the they're trying to put together profiles on people to spy on them, like if a woman buys a lot of chocolate once a month, they're going know when she's PMSing.

Sort of true, actually. Which is why they have those cards in the first place. They really don't care about any one person in particular, but they do like to do target marketing. They have zero personal interest in anybody but use the data they collect to target coupons at you and to figure out that people who buy X are more likely to also buy Y so that they can finesse the advertising and shelf grouping accordingly.

I don't think other customers particularly feel good about this or special for being in some sort of exclusive club. It's just accepted as fait accompli to get the lower price. It's an exchange. You give them data and in return they give you a lower price. You have essentially sold them your data. I don't know how many people have parsed it out all the way like that, but I do think that the general feeling is "gotta do this to get the lower price", not "I'm in a special club so I get the lower price."

They don't actually give price breaks for having the card. They screw people for not having their POS cards. I don't shop at manipulative POS stores that have cards.

I avoid those stores, too. I thought it was a marketing gimmick that they'd give up on eventually but more stores picked up on it. I feel sorry for the stores where they require the clerks to read the receipt and say, "Thanks, Ms. Jones."

Agreed with the last posts. It isn't that they offer discounts for the members. It is more like the non-member prices are inflated.

I was pressured soooo much to get a card from my local grocery store... I had to be forceful so much so that every cashier eventually remembered me and stopped telling me to get the damn card. How many times do I need to say NO???

I work in IT and information security is my specialty. I know how data is collected, where it goes, how it's shared, and how likely it is to get stolen or just plain lost. As much as I don't like some grocery marketing drone salivating over what I've had for dinner every evening for the past two years, I'm still more worried about the data security at the grocery store office or whichever data mining outfit they've hired to collect and store the information.

I loathe those cards. They just make the machine spit out coupons for things they think I'll buy based on my past shopping history, I think. There's a new place in town, "Fresh and Easy" that's run by the UK chain TESCO. They have excellent prices, the food is good, and NO CARDS!! ! No checkers, actually. You check yourself out with the automated scanner. It's wonderful.

Sainsbury's always ask every customer if they've got a Nectar card. I always want to shout at them but I keep calm and just say no, in a cold sort of way. They used to also ask if I wanted a card, but they seem to have stopped doing that. I hate the idea of being profiled.....apparently they make a lot more out of the cards than the customer gets in savings. But the idea of lying about my details appeals to me That would stop them sending me junk mail and it would go to a designated evil person of my choice instead. But they'd still be able to profile me while I was in the shop and add personalised advertising crap onto the receipts or something. And I hate lying, even when they deserve it.

They also ask me if I collect "school vouchers" - again I just say no, but I want to shout at them. If they want to donate some of their immense profits to schools, fine. But they can do that without involving me. I don't know how it works, I guess they'd donate a tiny bit of money for every pound I spend on their groceries, to give me a politically-correct incentive for buying more stuff.....again, I bet the store owners benefit a lot more than the schools do, or they wouldn't do it. I don't want to play their stupid games. If I want to help a school, I'll go and help a school myself without the mediation services of some profit-motivated middle man. Schools shouldn't need voluntary donations from fatcats anyway. It should all be done by compulsion using the tax system so they can't withdraw it whenever they like. Let's face it, it's our money in the first place.

The only one I love is my GAME card which gets you significant discounts, the others annoy te hell out of me ESPECIALLY blockbuster they ask for your bank number etc etc

I have no issues of using cards. I have a Safeway Card, a QFC card, and a Gamestop card. I love saving money. I never had to deal with places that asked for more information. Only time I had to give my phone number is when I don't have a card and it's in their computer that I have one. That's Safeway. Barnes & Noble does that too but I don't have a card. I do have a Borders card. I also have a Regal card. I enjoy earning points for free stuff.

I use my Best Buy Reward Zone card extensively.

Also, I can discounts with my student ID from my university.

First, let me say that I really like the option of punching in my phone number when I don't have my card. It irks me to no end that Alberson's doesn't do that. That and their little keychain tag cards used to break off all the time. I think I went through three of those in the time that I went through one Safeway card.

I also wanted to point out that I try to go through the self-checkout lines whenever feasible, unless I have a lot of produce (too many # lookups and weighings for it to be efficient). This is probably because I always favor automation over a level 1 conversation. I also don't enjoy the interrogations from the cashier:

"Would you like to purchase our Extreme Value today?"

"Would you like to donate $1 to autism research?"

"Would you like help outside?"

Someone else on this thread mentioned that they feel sorry for the cashiers that have to say, "Thank you, Mr. Smith." I always jump a bit when I hear my name, and then think to myself, "What?? How did they...? Oh, okay... right."

I never heard that one. That's creepy.

I worked at a place once where the cashiers were required to ask if you want a credit card or whatever. The computer prompts them according to some formula, and the cashier can't continue with the transaction without responding to the prompt. I was like -- In this place? People who shop in a place like this have no business owning a credit card. That's like giving an alcoholic a credit card at the liquor store. Immoral, indecent...

With coupons and sales in general, I just want to yell -- You're not SAVING money when you go to the store. You're SPENDing money. If you see a sweater for $20 and you have a $5 coupon, you are not SAVING $5 -- you're SPENDING $15. If you want to SAVE money, you stay home. If you really needed the item, they wouldn't be giving you a coupon.

Gift cards are the worst. In the olden days, they gave change when you spend a significant portion. Does anyone remember the "Jeffrey Money" at ToysRUs? Not any more. Now they keep the change. The only way to get your money back is to spend more money. Also, all those cards that get lost -- yep, the store gets to keep that, too. There was a discussion a few years ago about passing a law that the store would have to turn the unclaimed gift card money over to the government or some charity, but I don't think it got anywhere.

It's all about making the customer believe that he's scamming the store somehow. "Would you like to be on our e-mail list so we can tell you about our sales?" Sure. The more you think about it and sift through all that stuff, the more likely you are to see something you want. If you weren't on the list, you might never think of the store again.

The most pathetic scam I've seen: In the morning huddle, the supervisor explained the latest scam, that with ANY purchase, no matter how small, the customer would get a coupon (maybe $5?) that could only be redeemed on a certain day, I think a week later. It took the customers about fifteen seconds to figure out that they if they are buying three items, they can go through the line three times and get three coupons. The loyal employees fell for it, and were concerned that the customers were scamming the store. I didn't have the heart to tell them.

Saving money means saving that much when you buy like if a coat cost$ 20 and you had a five dollar coupon, you saved five dollars because you only spent $15 for it. Get it?


As a kid I thought it costs that much on the coupon for something like for example, I can remember when The Tigger Movie first came to video and DVD, the key chains came to McDonalds and it had a coupon on the Happy Meal box and it said "Save $1 foe The Tigger Movie when you buy it on VHS or DVD" and it had the expiration date on it. I thought it only cost me one dollar to get the movie. It did say save one dollar so I thought I had to save a dollar to get that movie. Get it? I thought it was simple to save a dollar because it's only a dollar for the money because it said to save $1. Now just imagine what the cashier would be thinking in her mind if I got upset with her because she wanted more money from me after I gave her a dollar for the movie and I thought she was trying to rip me off and not following the coupon. But my dad told me I would only be spending a dollar less for the movie if I got it and I got confused because it said to save a dollar. I told him no it says to save a dollar so I have a dollar I saved for it and he said when coupons say that, they mean you be spending that less for the item when you give them the coupon. I was 14 or 15 when Dad told me this. It took me a while to understand it and then it came to me one day and I got it. It means "(insert number here) dollars off" not literally save that much money for the item.