Club Card Complaints
Although supermarkets offering "club cards" or "rewards cards" claim
that they're providing savings to customers who participate in their
programs, some groups, such as
No Cards Shoppers
and
CASPIAN
claim that the supermarkets are really penalizing customers who
refuse to use their identity cards by charging inflated prices
to these uncooperative shoppers.
Pricing surveys done in the
San Jose
and
Albuquerque
areas by these two groups are open to interpretation,
so check them out for yourself.
No-Cards Web sites:
News about shopper id cards:
-
Safeway to Give Discounts to Those with Coupons, Too
(Seattle Times, 11/3/1999)
-
Grocers Can't Share Customer Info
(Sacramento Bee, 10/5/1999)
-
Boycott Kroger
(Fingerprint, 7/18/1999)
-
Club Cards: Customer Loyalty, Higher Sales, and Privacy
(Seattle Times, 6/13/1999)
-
Club Card Pricing
(Channel 2000, 5/26/1999)
-
Supermarket Loyalty Cards: The High Price of Sales
(Partnership for Civil Justice, 4/7/1999)
-
Shopping Away Privacy, Follow-Up
(Channel 2000, 3/16/1999)
-
Bargains at a Price: Shoppers' Privacy
(Washington Post, 12/31/1998)
-
Behind the Instant Coupons, a Data-Crunching Powerhouse
(Washington Post, 12/31/1998)
-
Safeway Finds a Way Around Privacy Worry About Its Card
(Seattle Times, 9/30/1998)
-
When Cards Come Collecting
(Seattle Weekly, 9/24/1998)
-
Club Cards: Most Readers Don't Like This Type of Track Record
(Seattle Times, 9/20/1998)
-
Readers Value Privacy More Than Savings From Club Cards
(Seattle Times, 9/9/1998)
-
Grocery Stores Fight Over Those New Club Cards
(Seattle Times, 9/2/1998)
-
Smart Cards Allow Supermarkets Loyalty Scheme to Target Individual Shoppers
(Schlumberger, 6/16/1998)
-
Joining the Club
(Cathy Marshall's Silicon Valley Journal, 6/13/1998)
-
Grocery Store Shoppers Card Save Money But Cost Privacy
(Houston Chronicle, 5/1/1998)
-
Retail Group Promises More Attention to Customer Privacy
(Associated Press, 4/14/1998)
-
Smith's Food & Drug Centers
(Big Brother, 4/14/1998)
-
Frequent-Shopper Card Can Have a High Price
(Houston Chronicle, 4/10/1998)
-
The One to One Future, Part II
(Stating the Obvious, 2/2/1998)
-
Frequent Shopper Programs Reward People with Highest Bills
(News-Times, 1/12/1998)
-
Data Warehouse -- The Data Rush
(Newspaper Association of America, 1/1998)
-
When It Comes to Shopping, It's All in the Cards
(Business Journal of San Jose, 11/24/1997)
-
Grocery Store Revenge!
(9/16/1997)
-
Food Lion Taps MVP Data to Target Shoppers
(Business Journal of Charlotte, 6/2/1997)
-
Do Loyalty Cards Work?
(Audits & Surveys Worldwide, 1/31/1997)
-
Grocer Is Ringing Up Your Habits
(Chicago Sun-Times, 1/12/1997)
Supermarkets with Club Cards