Reader Tim went to Radio Shack to buy something or other and the manager refused to process his cash transaction without first learning his home address. Tim left the store and dashed off a quick email to us. He let us know he was going to contact Radio Shack about the incident, but felt certain that he’d be ignored.
He wasn’t. Within about an hour Tim was writing us to say he had $20 in gift certificates from Radio Shack.
Here’s Tim’s first letter:
Just left Radio Shack store in Jackson Mississippi located on Hwy 18.
Sales Associate took my name and telephone number prior to ringing up about sixty dollars worth of small parts. Refused to finalize cash transaction without my home address! I left the store as he was returning the stock to the shelves.
I have attempted to make Radio Shack aware of this incident as well as my contacting your site. Perhaps their sales are so good in these trying times that they are not interested in doing business with folks who aren’t
interested in giving them such information?Seems highly unlikely, but the whole incident was witnessed by a fellow I assume to be the manager, but I’ve no way to confirm that. In any event, I will report to you any communications I receive from Radio Shack in regards to this incident. At this time I am limited to going through a form on their website. Why do I feel that will be ignored?
Thanks,
Tim
Wow. I emailed Radio Shack (thru an online form) and then I called their 800 number to report the treatment I had been given earlier in the day. I got thru directly to the Area Coordinator and he apologized profusely and offered me $20 in Radio Shack gift certificates. Turned out their local corporate office is right down the street from my house, so I went right over and picked up the gift certificates. That’s a pretty fast response to a complaint wouldn’t you say?
Turns out the guy who was abusing me is the freaking store manager! I don’t think he’s in for a pleasant evening.
Thanks,
Tim
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I often give out 02134 as my zip unless the clerk is an ass, then I go with the address’s below.
I’ve had this zip stuck in my head since I was a kid. I guess growing up watching Zoom! and all the other good stuff made by WGBH for PBS did help me in some way.
That is the zip for Allston/Boston, Mass. where WGBH is located.
If they demand an address (and I don’t feel like telling them to F off) I give them
69 Hump St.
Tittmoning, Austria
Or, if they are really being asses about the address stuff I’ll give them
69 Hump St.
Fucking, Austria
Both are actual towns in Austria.
I’ve told them to put down the store’s address, and they did. Now they get the junk mail they were trying to send to me!
Federal privacy laws prevent them from requiring your address or your phone number. Report these to your state attorney’s office and it will stop quickly.
Not sure if many Canadians read Consumerist, but I’ve often given out the address of 2121 Station F, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y-2N9. Geez, that makes me feel old now….
The last time they demanded this information from me (which was a long time ago,) I gave them “R. Shack,” and their own address. I worked at the same mall, so I knew the street address there. The kid took it down and never figured out he was taking the address of his own store.
Since then, a simple no seems to work.
I just bought something at Advance Auto Parts, though, and when I refused to give personal information the cashier informed me that I would not be able to return the item if I needed to. I said “Excuse me?” fairly loudly, and watched a manager walk over. She explained the situation, and he said that I could still do a return but I’d need the receipt. She seemed unaware of this.
I don’t know if anyone remembers the icat bar code scanner fiasco from Radio Shack about 8 years ago. Basically they gave out “free” bar code scanners that looked like little skinny white cats. Only catch is you had to give them your name address etc to get one. Well, in the hacker community we realized that scanners had UID’s. They had a chip that uniquely identified them and when hooked up to your computer via usb to “catalog your belongings” it was sending out what you owned out to radioshack’s partners. Bad shack Bad shack.
Here is an article about the scanner.
[slashdot.org]
I was completely waiting for the “Now we can send these gift certificates to you, I just need your address…”
I’m no longer allowed inside the Dothan mall after an unfortunate incident in 2003 when the Radio Shack cashier stated that not only could the transaction be completed (specifically, me buying a pair of six-dollar headphones) without giving him my address and phone number, but I was NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE STORE until the transaction was completed, whether I ended up buying the headphones or not.
Security was called, the police were called, and I got my headphones at the cost of no longer being welcome in that particular mall.
I’m always surprised at how many stores in the U.S. continue to do this given the growing privacy and security concerns of consumers nowadays. Obviously, the ability to generate revenue with these customer databases has something to do with it.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been fully mentioned as of yet, but, if being asked for your address, zip/postal code, and/or phone number upon checkout bothers you, and saying “no” won’t work for whatever reason, just tell the cashier that you live outside the country. Most of the U.S. retail systems have zero ability to deal with this and the cashier will inevitably enter a default or made-up address. You can take it a step further if you are bored and, as I do, actually give them your address, valid or otherwise, and wait for the fun to begin:
Cashier: “Can I get your mailing address, please?”
Me: “Sure, it’s Halford House…”
Cashier: “Sorry?”
Me: “Sir Edward The Great’s Royal Academy of Music”
Cashier: “Wait…”
Me: “Dickinson Hall”
Cashier: “Sir..”
Me: “Number 666″
Cashier: “But…”
Me: “South Hill Park”
(Cashier frantically attempts to enter address)
Me: “Hampstead Heath”
(Cashier gets really confused)
Me: “Hampstead”
(Cashier gets even more confused)
Me: “North London”
Cashier: “Uh…”
Me: “Great Britain”
(Cashier has no idea what to do)
Me: “United Kingdom”
(Cashier begins sweating)
Me: “NW3 2SB”
(Cashier’s head explodes)
===
I’ve yet to ever have a problem doing this. For reference, both MicroCenter and Radio Shack get really peeved when you drag this process out for about 10 minutes only to learn that you don’t live in the country and that their data entry system is ill-equipped to handle postal codes that begin with a letter and are longer than 5 digits long. I guess they don’t expect tourists or non-residents to ever shop in their stores. Twats.
When you give the stores address it doesn’t do anything. The only mail you receive is a flyer once every two weeks. Only one flyer gets sent to each address. So, only one flyer will be sent to the store if you give the stores address as your own.
If the manager pisses you off for no reason at all you can sign them up for a bunch of junk mail from other business( i.e. Home Depot, Sears, Lowes, etc.)
I’ve never done that by the way.
My favorite is to give them the “Happiest Address on Earth”:
1313 S HARBOR BLVD
ANAHEIM CA 92802-2309
@MissPeacock:
This is to cut down on return-fraud, which is a HUGE business. Many large shoplifting rings have begun altering their model to return fraud since most stores don’t have systems or policies in place to catch it.
@RvLeshrac: “This is to cut down on return-fraud, which is a HUGE business.”
It seems pretty obvious by now that anyone can return anything without a receipt and when they ask for your address, just give the stores’ … there’s gotta be something in there.
@spamtasticus:
LOAD OF CROCK. You should take off your aluminum foil hat now.
They were could be used to catalog bar coded items, but what they were designed for was to scan a bar code and be taken to a web page for the company/product asumming the product was in the database.
@kretara: No you don’t, stop acting like a douche.
Everyone who thinks RadioShack has a policy that requires them to get name and address, you’re wrong.
The company would like that they get everyone’s info, but probably 95% of stores DO NOT ask for it, and there is no negativity from coorporate for it.
As for fake info, most could care less if it’s fake or real, but the associate will catch shit if it’s obviously fake. So don’t be a douche to them, they’re trying to survive the day without getting bitched at, just like everyone else.
A tip for you RadioShack customers, if you complain, the regional and district managers will hook you up. It’s more important to them that you are happy, even when you’re overwhemlingly wrong, rather than backing up the store when they’re right.
@typetive: If it’s a Radio Shack labeled product you can get a store credit for the lowest sale price of the last 6 months, without a receipt.
If it’s a third party item and you have no proof that it was purchased at the store, they don’t have to take the return. You have no proof that you even bought it from a Radio Shack.
This is one of the few things that coorporate will not help you out with.
As a radioshack employee, I can assure you this is not a store policy whatsoever. This is essentially the story of one douchebag manager (there are lots of them) probably taking out a bad sales day on an innocent customer. There is a popup in our System that asks for the customers’ name, and more recently, they’ve reinstated asking for the phone number. However most associates will simply clear this message out. There’s even a button labeled ‘CLEAR’ on our keyboards for just this function. The only time we take any names/numbers is when it is necessary. In fact, the only way to ring up merchandise is to get rid of that message. You can still take a customers name afterwards, but you have to hit the ‘CUSTOMER’ key. Clearly, this manager was just being a dick to Tim. If I were you Tim, I’d raise hell. Call everyone you can who will listen. Chances are that this is only a small portion of misconduct this person has committed towards customers and has thus far gone unpunished. The only reason this person is working at this company is because they can. Radioshack lost tons of people after changing it’s payscale, so these days anybody can get a job there, resulting in some of the worst customer service people imaginable.
I’ve had some bad service experiences myself, so I make an effort to give people what they need, not what I want to sell them. I actually avoid selling:
Service plans (I have the lowest rate in my district)
Radioshack cards
Any product I know for a fact is of poor quality (just today I told a guy that none of the bluetooths we carried would fit his needs for extreme noise cancelling)
This company is completely backwards. While I do enjoy helping people find what they need, I think it is sad that radioshack can’t see that it’s most recent actions have basically told employees that it doesn’t care about them, it only cares about profit. If you think OUR cell pitches are annoying, try hearing it from your manager for a living.
Gah. I’m done with my rs rant for today. I think I’ll go to bed early, I’m opening tomorrow.
Basically what spaceace76 just said…
Also an RS employee
For the most part there’s no reason for us to ask your personal information, and we usually won’t bother.
There are a few products where we have to ask because the computer literally will not let us complete the transaction without name, address, and phone number. Basically it’s only cell phones (pre-paid & post-paid), SIRIUS satellite radio, and Dish Network. And then it’s only so RS gets credit for those sales from the service providers.
We also of course ask it for extended warranties and returns, but I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
I also usually ask for it if it’s a big ticket, just to avoid potential drama in the future by being able to look the receipt up. You can certainly refuse that though.
On my own little tangent… this is understandably a wrong situation. But folks… please don’t get all uppity when we ask you if you want the extended warranty or batteries. It’s our job, it’s how we get paid. If you don’t want it just say no, don’t get all defensive.
I stopped shopping at Radio Shack years ago solely because of this policy.
When they lose enough business for that nonsense, they’ll either change their policy or die. Just how business should work.