Email Receipts

Have you ever made a small purchase in a store and wound up with a receipt that was several feet long?

 

Well that exact thing has happened to me recently at a local retailer.  It is rather embarrassing to be handed such a long receipt when somebody only buys a couple of items.

 

So what do you get in all that footage of paper?

 

• Name of store
• Address of store
• Phone number of store
• Name of manager of store
• Company or store’s email address
• Transaction information (date, time, transaction #, register #, cashier employee # or name, etc.)
• A listing of products that you purchased including any discounts
• Type of payment including any authorization number if it was any form other than cash
• The company’s return policy
• A customer satisfaction survey request including information needed to access either a website or a phone number plus any codes needed to complete the survey
• A friendly closing like “Have a nice day”

 

Certainly some receipts may even have other things than this including rebate information or coupons for future purchases or other items.

 

With all this information and the spacing between items, it is easy to get a receipt that could easily be measured in feet not inches.

 

Now companies like Macy’s has decided to adopt another way to save paper: the email receipt.

 

While this sounds great on the surface, in reality it is full of red flags and gotchas that they don’t tell you about.

 

First the good news or not so good news, if you opt for an email receipt only you walk out of the store with no receipt.  This works great if you just so happened to walk into another store and the security alarm goes off and you have no receipt.  Expect to spend some time with store or mall security without that receipt.

 

So you save paper then what?

 

If you are like me, then any number of scenarios could happen.

 

Here are just some of them:

The cashier types your email address wrong so you never receive the receipt.  One wrong character could send your email to the wrong recipient.  This could lead to the potential of identity theft especially since the recipient of the email could acquire credit card information from the receipt.  Are you listening Google?

 

The email is sent but ends up in your spam inbox and not your regular inbox.  With some email systems, chances are that the email may get deleted before you ever get it.  In other words, the email system blocks the email from entering your system because it was predetermined by the email system to be spam.

 

Your email address is sold to third parties without your consent.  By accepting an email receipt, you are probably subjecting yourself to a privacy policy that allows the store to do whatever they want with your email address.  Just try asking the cashier what their privacy policy is and expect to get blank stare.

 

Of course, the worst of all is that you could delete the email by mistake and find out later that you really need that receipt.  Good luck if you paid cash.

 

Overall, I would never give my email address to receive an email receipt.  If I don’t have physical receipt in my hand at time of purchase, I would never be happy.

 

I don’t know of how many stores have started this procedure, but I feel it is dangerous one at best.  So far I have seen this at Macy’s only and even lately they have been bypassing this prompt at the register to “paper receipt only”.  Maybe they have already had complaints like the ones listed above.

 

As far as I know to date, Staples has not started any sort of email receipt program or testing any sort of program.  Given their past with how they handled my email address with rewards cards, I hope they never even think of this procedure.  EVER!

 

Consider yourself warned…

 

 

 

Half Year Assessment

Here we are:  near the half-way point of the year.

 

Ironically, I have heard some very extreme comments aimed at me in the last few weeks.  Some have bothered me and some I find downright annoying.

 

First, there seems to be a couple of trends I have heard:

 

• Staples is eliminating many full-time positions in exchange for more part-time positions.  Many companies are doing this same sort of thing, but it doesn’t appear to happen as rapidly.

 

• Staples stores that get new management seem to target one certain full-time employee and aggravate them until they either quit or force them to get fired.  The latter was my case exactly.  The bad thing is that much of this is unwarranted, unjustified or in my case both.  This is a growing trend I have heard a number of times in recent weeks.

 

Second, there seems to be concern by some commenters that I am unaware of the facts regarding the company:

 

• As I have pointed out in the past, everything that I write is either based on personal experiences or information that is provided when I write a posting.  If I feel that a correction is needed I will do it in a future posting, not re-edit an existing post.  The reason for that is that I want to make people aware of the incorrect information that is/was available at the time of that particular posting.  Certainly, Staples has the right to change any information they want to at any time for whatever reason.  However, the one thing they can’t change is the truths that I tell them about my personal experiences.

 

• Which leads me to this:  One recent commenter didn’t seem to like this blog because it was “bashing” with false information by an uneducated, rude person.  This right here is just the type of person that Staples embraces as their ideal employee.  Certainly this person not only understands the purpose of this blog, but doesn’t like the hatred that I am spreading with it.

 

I have no intention of stopping or changing this blog in anyway whatsoever.  In fact, since I extended this blog to WordPress, the number of followers has increased significantly.  I believe that there are many people who hate the company as much as I do.

 

In the coming months, I plan on advancing my own story (hopefully), but I also like to stay current with the lies and scams that Staples does along with other retailers out there.  As always I accept all comments and will post them accordingly.  Let me make clear, however, that rudeness will not be tolerated under most circumstances.

 

I am proud of how far this blog has come since it began 3 years ago.  Because of you, the followers, it continues to grow.

 

As always, thank you for your ongoing support and tell everyone you know to follow this blog.  Together we can put Staples out of business once and for all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Important Change–Move/Expansion to new site

Within the next week, this blog will be expanding/moving to a new home.  The new home will be with WordPress.  The biggest reason why is that this site just has not had any comments since it started over a year ago.  I feel that moving the blog to WordPress will allow for a much larger audience and will spread the messages that I want to tell.

I have yet to decide if this site will continue on or just be discontinued completely.  My thought was to mirror the two sites while feasible then at some point ending this blog site.  This is not in the immediate future however.

My disappoint with Blogger is compounded by the fact that the current version of Windows Live Writer has been not as cooperative as I would like it to be.  It is still a better editor than many of them out there and most importantly it is FREE.  Until I find a free alternative to WLW, I will continue to use it to post to this site.

Again, my plans are not to shut down this site for now but mirror it until further notice.  I will be giving the URL as soon as I get it active.

Let me remind everybody that comments are always welcome and hopefully the change will reach a much larger audience.  I feel it is the best for everyone.

Q & A

I love the site where it is.  Why the change?

People.  I want more people to read the blog and I feel it is the right move.

What happens to the old posts?

I will be moving the old posts to the new site possibly, but this site will remain an archive for all the old posts.

What will the new layout look like?

If you have read my other WordPress blog, then the layout will look familiar.  They both will use the same layout to standardize my approach to blogs.  I was never really happy with the Blogger layout, but it was the best from what there was to choose from.

Can I comment on this change before it goes into effect?

Yes.  The comment period starts now and will continue through the end of September.  However, the new site will be active before the end of the month.  Comments will be in consideration of whether to continue the site here or mirror the two sites.

Why such short notice of this change?  Shouldn’t it have been a longer period of time?

I have been giving this a lot thought for a long time and with the overwhelming success of my other blog, it was a no-brainer decision.  I wanted to implement the change as soon as possible.

Can I still follow like I did on Blogger?

Most definitely as I expect even more followers within a few months.

Can I become an author of your blog as I have a lot to say as well?

Just send me an email at the address on the right side or send me a message on Facebook and we can discuss it.  I am always open for the input of others on retail topics.

Will there be more frequent updates?

My plan for this blog and my other blog is to write at least one post per week sometimes more depending on what comes to mind.  Hopefully, I will get that one per week at least accomplished, but things do happen which may delay some postings.

Can I use any information I get from your blogs for my own use?

I do not limit the use of information of my blogs.  All I ask is that if you use the information give me the respect to credit me to the information used.  However, information that I use from others will be used anonymously as to protect the identities of their providers.

Can I cry now?

Go ahead and do it.  Its going to be a rough road ahead for years to come.