Loyalty Cards are a modern plague. I remember years ago working on American Express's loyalty program and thinking noone would be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ploy. After all why would they give something away unless they expected to get more back and if everyone had identical loyalty programs it would be the consumer who would foot the bill.
How wrong I was and loyalty programs infect all levels of commerce now. Supermarket loyalty cards are particularly pernicious as it not just possible to avoid them by not getting one. Everytime you shop you will be asked if you have one. In the UK (but not yet Australia) it is not just enough to fail to answer: "Do you have a Tescoes card?" in the affirmative (Surely if you ask me a question unrelated to the commercial transaction we are undertaking I have a right to ignore your personal questions and you can take that as a "no" if you wish). They will continue to ask you even if you try any of the following (which I have) (a) ignore them, (b) pretend your iPod is on high and you cant hear them, (c) really, really ignore them. I wondered about this and eventually asked one of the regular cashiers at my local Tesco whom I had been in a war of attrition with for several years. Sometimes he took my prolonged silence as a "no" and sometimes I gave in after repeated questioning and aswered explicitly. I am sure it was wearying for both of us. And the answer: I was shocked to discover that the cashiers are paid a (derisory) bonus of a couple of hundred pounds a year to try to get customers to sign up and Tesco sends in secret operatives to check that they dont just take silence as a no.
Why would they care so much? Because saying "no" everytime is a negative response and most people prefer to avoid being negative. The ironic thing is that supermarket loyalty cards arent actually designed to increase loyalty through rewards. As I correctly surmised all those years ago this is a zero sum game. What the supermarket really wants is a database of your shopping purchases so they can target you with offers aimed at increasing your share-of-wallet. What is wrong with this you ask? Well like any private data is it is yours to give freely and coercing you into signing up for a loyalty program by harassing you at the till everytime you buy something is extremely unethical.
I often fantasised about wearing a t-shirt I could point at when asked that just said "No I dont have a fucking Tescoe's card".
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