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I'm feeling smothered by "offers" for reward points / loyalty memberships, e-mail spam for redeemable offers or begging me to fill out a survey for something, points systems, and similar games and gimmicks. It just becomes overwhelming. Everyone wants you to be a card-carrying rewards points member, and even if you are already in their rewards club they constantly try to pitch a store-specific credit card or some other similar complication. Every time I have any sort of interaction with a service company of any kind, there is an annoying follow up call to my mobile phone asking me to answer a survey on how they did.
I've recently become aware how much of my life all of this marketing fluff is wasting, so I am now on a quest to start finding companies that follow a more traditional model and do not waste time with offer solicitations, service follow-ups, "loyalty games" and other such nonsense. I know it's impossible to get away from the discount cards at grocery stores, and there are not many "mom and pop" options for groceries, but I'm looking for local businesses that just don't have all the nonsense. I've gotten to the point where I go to dollar stores for as many things as I can, simply because they've stripped out all the crap and pass along the savings that they would have spent on marketing baloney in the form of lower prices.
There are very few cases in life when I need "over the top" customer service, much less all of these point redemption / loyalty games and BS. Most of the time it just gets in the way. Two of the biggest offenders I avoid like the plague are Lowes Foods and Kohls. The hard sell some of those Kohls clerks puts on you to sign up for all their gimmicks is amazing. And don't get me started on BestBuy, with their expiring rewards points and dudes that roam the store trying to sell DirectTV.
So, looking for recommendations, in any category (restaurants, retail stores, HVAC service, etc.) that will help avoid the marketing BS. Can be a local alternative to a national (i.e. local pharmacy instead of Walgreens) or can be a national alternative to local. Whatever, just no email, reward point crap, or incessant survey solicitations.
I use a 'fake' google voice phone number, a spam only email, and a fictitious name when signing up (James Bond). The cool thing about those store cards is you can now store the bar codes on your phone, no need to carry them around. I also don't have Facebook or Linkedin.
Make sure you go to the marketing opt out site that stops solicitations via mail and another benefit of Google Voice is no more telemarketing calls.
If you're truly worried about this stuff, keep in mind your CC company is data mining your spending habits as are the retailers you frequent with that CC. There are solutions but they are fairly inconvenient.
Frankky, I don't know what you're so worked up about. If it's THAT bothersome, sign up using a phony name, phone number and email.
Well part of the problem is if you give a phony email, you don't get e-copies of your receipts. Using someone else's name or phone number is increasingly construed as identity theft, and some of these companies even have validation built-in that can detect if a phone number is a "disposable" phone number as opposed to one connect to a valid mobile contract. It's also a bit problematic to use one name, then pay with a credit card that has a different name on it.
Then, let's not forget that you never get the coupons that you actually do want, so you end up paying more to fund the salaries of the marketing people that come up with all the gimmicks. This is why I'm looking for businesses that have no gimmicks, don't pay for all the marketing fluff, and pass savings directly to consumer.
Amazon is great and I actually do use their redeemable point system because it's painless and a good deal when combined with their CC. I wish the individual vendors didn't constantly beg me for reviews of their products via e-mail, but it's actually a far less intrusive system than most others. But, not everything is available through Amazon at a reasonable cost (for example groceries with any weight to them tend to be overpriced IMO).
If you're truly worried about this stuff, keep in mind your CC company is data mining your spending habits as are the retailers you frequent with that CC. There are solutions but they are fairly inconvenient.
They can data mine me all they want as long as long as it's legal and they don't waste my time, spam me, hard sell me on every little thing, etc.
I just don't join. Saying "no thank you" really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Oh how I wish it was that easy. Some of these sales clerks are apparently on commission for selling their in-store credit card sign-ups. The Kohl's people are some of the worst.
(After you've already slid a non-Kohl's card through the reader)
KohlsTroll: Would you like to sign up for a Kohls card today?
Me: No thank you, I already ran my Visa.
KT: You get 30% off your entire order (oblivious to the fact I'm buying one pair of socks).
Me: No, really, I'm good thank you.
KT: Do you shop at Kohls often? You get _________ if you ______.
Me: Actually no, I don't.
KT: Why not? You don't like us much?
Me: Well they only let me out of prison one or two days a year so I prefer to spend the time catching up on Kardashian episodes.
Ok I embellished that last line a bit, but everything above that takes place EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I go in that place.
The KohlsTrolls are not the only offenders, there are plenty of businesses that aggressively sell their own store cards.
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