From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: YA Safeway Slam
Summary: Safeway isn't even safe...
Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 08:30:46 GMT

peterson@CS.ColoState.EDU (james peterson) writes:
>dag@col.hp.com (David Geiser) writes:
>>Another good reason is:  a Safeway store refused to allow me $20
>>cashback, even though I has a Safeway check cashing card (from
>>another store in another town), unless I provided my SSAN.
...
>Safeway in Fort Collins refused to issue me a check cashing card without
>my SS#...

The simple fact is that Safeway doesn't care.  It's not that they have some
cloak-and-dagger interest in who you are; it's that they view you as a cog
in their business machine...and the cog doesn't fit unless the SS# is
stamped on it.  They want to gather information on you, and they need a
nice ID number for their database.  Bugger your privacy.

Look at their "preferred customer" card--you get a card you supply every
time you shop.  It gives you a check ID.  It gives you coupons at the end
of the month, for products you buy.  Waitaminnit--how dey do dat?  Easy,
they record everything you purchase.  Oh, and by the way, when you get that
card, you sign away the right to let them do anything they want with the
data they collect.  (Just to get your imagination going, remember that they
have full-service pharmacies in many stores.)  Yes, they can sell the data
(with SS# attached) to the folks who have your address/phone/family makeup,
your income, your job...the result is a dossier on you that the CIA could
only dream about, with no restrictions on its use other than how much you
trust them (and with the foregoing, how much *do* you trust them?!?!?)

OK, back away from that; not everyone is willing to sign away their privacy
for a few coupons per month.  Look at the stores themselves.  Our local
store is one of the giganto "Marketplace" setups, supposed to be an
exemplary store, a showplace for them.  The staff are nice enough; many of
them have been here since the store was a little bitty one.  But overall,
you walk through it and it says "we don't care about people; we're just a
business".  They may try to carry pliers, but they'll run out of milk.  The
seafood section has a good selection...so why does it smell of slime mold?!
The head lettuce looks like it was delivered to the store by bazooka.  In
the fall, they have an incredible selection of chiles...most of which are
mis-labeled and none of which are within a week of being fresh.  The onions
and potatoes are in a special section with high-intensity lights on them 24
hours a day.  (Good plan for root vegetables, eh?)  The twits can't figure
out why the potatoes get soft and turn green...do you suppose they know (or
care) that they're poisoning their customers?  [When potatoes are exposed
to too much light, they start to turn green.  As they do, they produce
solanine, a mild poison.  Any good cook knows this.]  Or, it's not surprising
to see various perishable foods marked "reduced for quick sale" in any
store; it's common when they reach their "pull date".  But is it really
right to do this to lunchmeat that is three *weeks* past pull date?

Major nuisance, bad boogie...the store is walking distance, half a mile,
and I'm almost unwilling to shop there for anything.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
	...Simpler is better.
Newsgroups: co.general