I agree. it is easy to apply a good level of service and know your customers in a small one off privately owned store but as you said in large chain stores with millions of customers per year it can't be done.

What I cant get over is the fact that I keep saying I have first hand experience of this situation and still you wont even consider the possibilty.

Things are not given a way for free, its common knowledge, information is worth everytyhing. It is worth an unbelievable amount to the people who are collecting it and you wont even consider the fact that it is one of the main reasons for loyalty cards (even if by some fluke it isnt the main reason).

Here is something else that I had forgotten abvout until yesterday. British customers will be aware of Sainsbury's, one of the biggest supermarkets in this country. A while back we stopped using them because they screwed us up real bad when trying to use their online shopping/delivery service. We lost almost £50 (approx $80). After about a month of not using the store and of course that meant not using the loyalty card we received vouchers through the post to the amount of almost £100. The vouchers were for exactly the kind of foods we would buy.

My question is how would they know what kind of stuff to send us if they didnt have a profile of us and our shopping history in their stores? It would be impossible.

I promise you this is not a conspiracy and yep, maybe you do save some money and get a few free things but that is a small price for them to pay in exchange for the info that they have about you. Also not withstanding the fact (as I mentioned before) that the stuff you think you are getting for free isnt free, they just label it as such so that customers think it is.

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FPRULES