WAY OFF: Insidious business practices

[Eric Siegerman]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 05:30:20PM -0500, K Henderson wrote:
> P.S.  Have these things [market-research cards] gone nationwide?  Worldwide?  They should be banned
> quicker than human cloning!  :)

Well, they're here (Canada).  Chapters (the country's *only* big
book-store chain -- small economies suck!) does this.  They
always ask if I want a discount card.  Fortunately they're polite
when I say no; I'd hate to have to flame some poor sales-peon.

I'm willing to put up with HMV's.  It's a loyalty scheme where
you buy 10 CDs and get one free.  The cards aren't barcoded; they
only get my name when I trade in a full card and fill out a form.
So they only learn 1/11th of my purchases -- actually less, since
CDs under $16.99 aren't eligible.  And I make a point of scrawling
the form even more illegibly than my usual handwriting :-)

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not
necessarily a good idea.
        - RFC 1925 (quoting an unnamed source)