4 ms·

IME at Safeway if you don't use a "club card" you end up paying nearly double for many items. Are there ways around this?

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Yes. Using real safe ways to shop elsewhere.
pigscantfly 4y ago
Local area code + 867-5309
- jrockway 4y ago
  In my formative years I rode the CTA a lot, and they always had an announcement, "call 836-7000 for transit information". The number was burned in my head and it's worked in every store I've tried. (You can add any Chicago-area area code; 847, 312, etc.) Yes, it worked at a Safeway in San Jose too. I love that someone also had this stuck in their head and used it to sign up for grocery discounts.
- giardini 4y ago
  One of the best rock tunes ever written, "8675309 Jenny Jenny" was a blazing meteoric hit by a band that produced few others: Rendition of the song (bet you can't play it just once): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaJCrHNRMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaJCrHNRMA Story of the song (along with a history of problems/facts about the phone number itself before and after the song hit): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny The band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tutone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tutone
staringback 4y ago
Shop at Walmart or just use a burner sim/phone. I don't care how much they are going to "profile" me if there is no connection to myself in any way
JohnFen 4y ago
I deal with it by shopping at a reasonable store. Or, if there isn't one that prices reasonably, then I'll choose the expensive store that doesn't pull this sort of nonsense and is just expensive for everyone.
- handedness 4y ago
  I have a store like this nearby and try to give them as much of my business as I can. It's refreshing: no membership rewards nonsense, no unclear or deceptive volume sale pricing, high-quality produce and deli, everything is exceptionally clean, well kept, and efficient. The employees by all accounts and indications mostly really enjoy working there (not all teenagers enjoy it), and in four decades of shopping there I've never had a bad customer experience that wasn't caused by another customer. It does cost a bit more, but some of that is inherent because they generally carry stuff that is genuinely better. Despite that, some products are still very competitively priced, and the administrative and cognitive overhead of shopping there is significantly lower. Thus far they've kept the large chain Orwellian dystopia entirely at bay. My shopping behavior doesn't make much of an individual difference to society but it's worth a premium to get a better product and to not feel like I'm contributing to The Great Race to the Bottom of Everything™ when I shop there.
cptskippy 4y ago
Club card application information isn't usually validated, you can sign up for one with bogus information.
- pixl97 4y ago
  I think that's less valuable than one would expect for the average person. For example if you rode the bus to the store and paid in cash then you'd have a low correlation coefficient. The issue is most people (at least in the US) drive a car with a publicly registered license plate and use the same credit cards each time. And with things like facial recognition becoming more common it may be near impossible to hide who you are in the future.
  - landemva 4y ago
    > drive a car with a publicly registered license plate Where is that info publicly available? Most people are too lazy to get a PO Box and trust paperwork to hold their assets. LLCs work for this, also.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > Where is that info publicly available? In my state, you just ask the DMV for it. For a yearly subscription fee, you can ask their servers.
Arrath 4y ago
Be me, 35 and using my parent's phone number for their club card.
moremetadata 4y ago
Not in my experience, in fact if you go to similar lengths to wipe cookies and hide your online identity using other additional methods, when I needed to locate a replacement AGM battery for the stop start tech in a car, the best prices I was quoted were £400-£500. Then used an account with a known online history, ie cookies not wiped etc, search engines and online retailers came back with prices for £100. So in my limited experience, going to the lengths I did to hide one's identity online will cost you 4x -5x the typical price. In some respects, these companies have also put a price on the value of online privacy, which is handy to have. As someone who has had a limited input into supermarket clubcards in the UK, there is a lot of personal data that can be gained from this information even if the supermarkets dont go to the lengths they could. I dont think people would be happy with what could be extrapolated, like working out how rich a family or shopper is, health conditions before they even get detected by medical experts, what religion they are, have they been made redundant. There is just so much meta data we give away, its quite shocking really. In the wrong hands, people could carry out their own stealth agenda's. Back in the 90's people were injecting chemicals or tampering with food which prompted food companies to start using foil seals and other methods to ensure food tampering is/was spotted easily. Things like tampering with baby food and liquids. It also gives the police and security services via court orders, a ready made dataset in order to build any case against you. Its bad enough people can be psychologically profiled using streaming services like Netflix or Amazon or Youview and satellite services connected to the net, but I dont think people value privacy personally and they dont understand how they can be manipulated once some information is known about them. At the same time, the state has never had access to so much data in order to better target populations to control or manipulate for their own purposes, like we see with election manipulations that saw Brexit and Trump get into power. I saw some of those social media adverts and it was extreme psychological manipulation and even the BBC were involved with some of that data collection on social media. In my experience, some criminals will operate over decades, cultivating scams especially when large sums of money like asset acquisition is involved.
Konnstann 4y ago
Idk about Safeway but Stop n Shop/Giant lets you click "forgot my card" and get the discounts anyway, minus the reward points to your card
pessimizer 4y ago
It should be illegal. If stores want to be open to the public, they shouldn't be able to force people to trade surveillance for cash discounts; grocery store shoppers are in no way qualified to evaluate either the short-term or long-term costs of selling their privacy, and not selling your privacy to every store you shop at becomes a permanent tax. If you want to offer discounts to members, stop selling to the general public and only sell to your membership.
jrs235 4y ago
If you get two or three keychain cards share them among friends?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Yeah I thought about this, and other ways of anonymizing. But now it seems that Safeway puts its best deals in their app, which requires login. Not sure that would be feasible to rotate with friends.
- landemva 4y ago
  This is good because it pollutes the pool of data.
  - jrs235 4y ago
    I actually stayed are a VRBO (like airBnB) where the owner left a rewards card for guests to use (so they'd get the deals at the grocery store and not have to sign up for their own for a regional grocery store).
wintermutestwin 4y ago
enter (local area code) 777-1234. I have used this across the country in random grocery stores and it has never failed me. I think I got this from some BBS text file...

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago

Yes. Using real safe ways to shop elsewhere.

pigscantfly 4y ago

Local area code + 867-5309

jrockway 4y ago
In my formative years I rode the CTA a lot, and they always had an announcement, "call 836-7000 for transit information". The number was burned in my head and it's worked in every store I've tried. (You can add any Chicago-area area code; 847, 312, etc.) Yes, it worked at a Safeway in San Jose too. I love that someone also had this stuck in their head and used it to sign up for grocery discounts.
giardini 4y ago
One of the best rock tunes ever written, "8675309 Jenny Jenny" was a blazing meteoric hit by a band that produced few others: Rendition of the song (bet you can't play it just once): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaJCrHNRMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaJCrHNRMA Story of the song (along with a history of problems/facts about the phone number itself before and after the song hit): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny The band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tutone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tutone

staringback 4y ago

Shop at Walmart or just use a burner sim/phone. I don't care how much they are going to "profile" me if there is no connection to myself in any way

JohnFen 4y ago

I deal with it by shopping at a reasonable store. Or, if there isn't one that prices reasonably, then I'll choose the expensive store that doesn't pull this sort of nonsense and is just expensive for everyone.

handedness 4y ago
I have a store like this nearby and try to give them as much of my business as I can. It's refreshing: no membership rewards nonsense, no unclear or deceptive volume sale pricing, high-quality produce and deli, everything is exceptionally clean, well kept, and efficient. The employees by all accounts and indications mostly really enjoy working there (not all teenagers enjoy it), and in four decades of shopping there I've never had a bad customer experience that wasn't caused by another customer. It does cost a bit more, but some of that is inherent because they generally carry stuff that is genuinely better. Despite that, some products are still very competitively priced, and the administrative and cognitive overhead of shopping there is significantly lower. Thus far they've kept the large chain Orwellian dystopia entirely at bay. My shopping behavior doesn't make much of an individual difference to society but it's worth a premium to get a better product and to not feel like I'm contributing to The Great Race to the Bottom of Everything™ when I shop there.

cptskippy 4y ago

Club card application information isn't usually validated, you can sign up for one with bogus information.

pixl97 4y ago
I think that's less valuable than one would expect for the average person. For example if you rode the bus to the store and paid in cash then you'd have a low correlation coefficient. The issue is most people (at least in the US) drive a car with a publicly registered license plate and use the same credit cards each time. And with things like facial recognition becoming more common it may be near impossible to hide who you are in the future.
- landemva 4y ago
  > drive a car with a publicly registered license plate Where is that info publicly available? Most people are too lazy to get a PO Box and trust paperwork to hold their assets. LLCs work for this, also.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > Where is that info publicly available? In my state, you just ask the DMV for it. For a yearly subscription fee, you can ask their servers.

Arrath 4y ago

Be me, 35 and using my parent's phone number for their club card.

moremetadata 4y ago

Not in my experience, in fact if you go to similar lengths to wipe cookies and hide your online identity using other additional methods, when I needed to locate a replacement AGM battery for the stop start tech in a car, the best prices I was quoted were £400-£500. Then used an account with a known online history, ie cookies not wiped etc, search engines and online retailers came back with prices for £100. So in my limited experience, going to the lengths I did to hide one's identity online will cost you 4x -5x the typical price. In some respects, these companies have also put a price on the value of online privacy, which is handy to have. As someone who has had a limited input into supermarket clubcards in the UK, there is a lot of personal data that can be gained from this information even if the supermarkets dont go to the lengths they could. I dont think people would be happy with what could be extrapolated, like working out how rich a family or shopper is, health conditions before they even get detected by medical experts, what religion they are, have they been made redundant. There is just so much meta data we give away, its quite shocking really. In the wrong hands, people could carry out their own stealth agenda's. Back in the 90's people were injecting chemicals or tampering with food which prompted food companies to start using foil seals and other methods to ensure food tampering is/was spotted easily. Things like tampering with baby food and liquids. It also gives the police and security services via court orders, a ready made dataset in order to build any case against you. Its bad enough people can be psychologically profiled using streaming services like Netflix or Amazon or Youview and satellite services connected to the net, but I dont think people value privacy personally and they dont understand how they can be manipulated once some information is known about them. At the same time, the state has never had access to so much data in order to better target populations to control or manipulate for their own purposes, like we see with election manipulations that saw Brexit and Trump get into power. I saw some of those social media adverts and it was extreme psychological manipulation and even the BBC were involved with some of that data collection on social media. In my experience, some criminals will operate over decades, cultivating scams especially when large sums of money like asset acquisition is involved.

Konnstann 4y ago

Idk about Safeway but Stop n Shop/Giant lets you click "forgot my card" and get the discounts anyway, minus the reward points to your card

pessimizer 4y ago

It should be illegal. If stores want to be open to the public, they shouldn't be able to force people to trade surveillance for cash discounts; grocery store shoppers are in no way qualified to evaluate either the short-term or long-term costs of selling their privacy, and not selling your privacy to every store you shop at becomes a permanent tax. If you want to offer discounts to members, stop selling to the general public and only sell to your membership.

jrs235 4y ago

If you get two or three keychain cards share them among friends?

gnicholas 4y ago
Yeah I thought about this, and other ways of anonymizing. But now it seems that Safeway puts its best deals in their app, which requires login. Not sure that would be feasible to rotate with friends.
landemva 4y ago
This is good because it pollutes the pool of data.
- jrs235 4y ago
  I actually stayed are a VRBO (like airBnB) where the owner left a rewards card for guests to use (so they'd get the deals at the grocery store and not have to sign up for their own for a regional grocery store).

wintermutestwin 4y ago

enter (local area code) 777-1234. I have used this across the country in random grocery stores and it has never failed me. I think I got this from some BBS text file...