Papa John's [telecom]

That would make a massive untennable database.

Much more likely is that somebody probably asked questions, they got told a likeable answer that was complete BS, and this gets repeated over and over again as lore.

(or maybe I'm getting too cynical.. :)

Even paranoids have enemies ;-)

Bill Horne Moderator

Doug McIntyre wrote: :Michael Muderick writes: :>One supermarket clerk told me that the number was needed in case there was :>a product recall on anything I bought....e.g. salmonella poisoning. That :>make sense, if it's true.

:That would make a massive untennable database.

It's 2012. Disk is cheap, keeping track of everything every customer ever buys from you isn't that hard. I'm sure that telling people about recalls isn't the only, or even primary, reason to do that, but it's certainly well in realm of possilibility that they actually do so. (And, anecdotally, I've heard from people that have been contacted about food recalls.)

My answer to the request for personal information that's not required to complete a sale is "no." It's been several years since I've had to walk out without buying something because they couldn't or wouldn't complete the sale without it.

Same with me, but in my case it was a "membership club store" (Costco) which sent credit notices to people who had purchased some of the early LED lamps.

Radio Shack used to be adament about your phone number, causing me to walk out without batteries (which were not going to be recalled :-) more than once. They have mellowed over the years, but I rarely go there anyway -- force of habit by now, I guess.

I remember the insanity at Radio Shack. When they'd ask for my phone number I'd say "C-A-S-H". It got to the point where they'd just use a default number to do the sale.

What happens if you tell them you don't have a phone? Of course, this does not work if you're on your cellphone at the time. Similarly, my wife used to work for General Telephone. She had a Christmas sweater with a picture of 3 birds in phone booths. It had a caption "Three calling birds." It was cute. One day she was wearing the sweater and someone said Merry Christmas or asked her what she was doing for Christmas. She answered, "I don't celebrate Christmas." The looked at the sweater and gave her a puzzled look.

Anyway, back on telecom, does "I don't have a phone" work? My grandfather finally did get a phone, but before that, he said "if someone wants to talk to me, they can come see me."

Harold

I always used to give them something like 555-1212. Apparently I wasn't the only one, because the less perceptive clerks would sometimes thank me by (the wrong) name. In any case, the clerks didn't care, it was that the register wouldn't accept the sale without something in the blank for phone number.

No great loss, Rat Shack is way overpriced, and it's been several decades (or more) since they carried any kind of a selection of parts, unless you were there to buy a cell phone. If you're after (overpriced) batteries, someplace like BatteriesPlus will at least have them in stock. These days, gotta go to Mouser or Digikey for parts.