[TriLUG] CompUSA closing stores

[Kevin Flanagan]

Tiger direct told me that they wanted my phone number in case of a 
return, when I said no, they said that if I were to return the crappy 
$20 wireless card I could only get store credit.  Fine by me.

Another down side to giving up the phone number is that if you give it 
to them, you have just waived the Do Not Call list, for them and their 
business partners.

I work right around the corner from Tiger, I go there just to cherry 
pick the sale items.  I'm the worst kind of customer they see.  I also 
have a hobby, wait till you hear one of the sales weasels lie to a 
customer, if they are actually on the floor you won't have long to 
wait.  The interject a little dose of fact.  It's not like sales weasels 
work there long enough for you to be a recognizable face ;')



Kevin




Kevin Otte wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 12:56:18PM -0500, Greg Brown wrote:
>   
>> My favorite was one of my very few (and last) visits to Tiger Direct:
>>
>> Them: Will this be cash, debit, or charge?
>>     
>
> Me: Credit
>
>   
>> Them: What is your phone number?
>>     
>
> Me: I don't have a phone.
>
> Them: But we need a phone number for our database.  We won't call you.
>
> Me: The only purpose of having a telephone number is to call it.  No.
>
> At this point I was in a bit of a hurry having stood in line for the last
> half hour and remembered that I had bought stuff from them mail order before
> moving down here.  I gave them that phone number and they were able to
> recall the record.  They asked for my ID and used that to "update" the
> record.  That's right, they now have my NC address and my OH phone number in
> their precious database.  Their story of fraud prevention is farcical at
> best.
>
> If they'd have just told me that it was the easiest primary key for their
> database since _most_ people have one, I'd have been just fine with that and
> gladly made one up on the spot.  It's their continued insistance that annoys
> me.
>
> Tiger Direct is not the only company guilty of this.  Many retailers are now
> doing this, much to my frustration.  There was a long time I would not even
> step foot in a Radio Shack because they required a phone number even for a
> *cash* transaction.
>
> My recommendation: Get a free account at sipphone.com.  Their phone numbers
> are in the nonexistant area code of 747, but I'm sure most retailers can't
> be bothered to check such things.  In addition to thwarting evil data
> collection, you can now start playing with some neat VoIP/Asterisk action. :)
>
>