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I had to give Dick Smith (A NZ retailer) my phone number before I bought an external the other day. "Do I _have_ to give you my number before I buy this?" "ye
by pippy 14y ago
I had to give Dick Smith (A NZ retailer) my phone number before I bought an external the other day.
"Do I _have_ to give you my number before I buy this?"
"yes, but it's for return purposes only"
Of course I received 'promotional' txts the next week. I was hesitant to give it to them for just this reason, and because I acknowledged I had a phone number I felt obligated to give it to him. Dick Smith is a member of a larger chain it's no stretch of the imagination to hook up CCTV cameras to an OpenCV instance and send txts to customers when they walk in.
No matter the law, morals people hold, or customer wants large companies are always motivated by profit margins. The Consumer Guarantees Act, the Privacy Act, the Bill of Rights Act all become murky when you're dealing with new technology, and law will find it hard to keep up.
- cup 14y agoI wonder what the ACCC would say about Dick Smiths practices.
- chris_wot 14y agoNothing, he lives in NZ.
- saryant 14y agoCan't you just give them a fake number? That's what I do whenever a retailer asks.
- MikeKusold 14y agoGoogle Voice numbers are great for this (and craigslist) if you don't already use Google Voice as your main number.
- nwh 14y agoIt's unfortunate that a lot of people live outside of the US.
- chris_wot 14y agoI'm surprised tat NZ doesn't have stringent laws prohibiting this. In Australia, if you give info for a pacific reason, that's the only thing it can be used for. Heavy fines can result if it's used in any other way.
- Nick_C 14y agoIf your consumer law is anything like Australia's, this requirement is false. All you need is proof of purchase: the receipt. Dick Smith used to pull this all the time in Aust before they got pulled up over it. I always told them "sorry, not available" and they just moved on.