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Old 21st March 2017
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Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scottro View Post
Yes, recently I made a purchase at a physical store, with cash, and they were filling out a form and asked my phone number. I told them, very nicely, that I now charge for that info as it seems to be a salable commodity. Not that it will do anything that is more than a token protest, as there are so many places that already have it.
When I worked for a computer shop we recorded customer names, addresses, and phone numbers as well.
Not because we wanted to make money off of them, but because many people lose their invoices and this made things easier to check the warranty status when they came back with defects. Or they would have questions about "how can I foo with my bar device?", where they typically wouldn't really know what make and model "bar device" is.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to trust and lawful protection, both of which seem in short supply.

Still, lots of people will give out their phone number and other data it seems. When I went to get a haircut a while ago I couldn't pay without giving my name, email, and phone number (which, as you probably already know, is Donald Duck <donald@duckburg.com>, 07123456789). The lady was rather surprised I didn't just give it out.
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