Plastic Wallet Cards

The robot voices got me started.

How about plastic wallet cards? Anyone sick of those? I wrote an article about them once. You know the one I mean......

The ones that get you money off at the super market, the pharmacy, bookstores, etc. Some come as ensembles with matching keychains. I now have one for two bookstores, my pharmacy, 2 or 3 supermarkets, the card shop, the hosiery club in a department store, and one for restaurants.

Retailers claim to save us money if we use them. Why don't they just save all the money spent advertising, marketing, making these cards, and postage and pass the savings on to us by charging us less in the first place?

Louisa

Girl you would dare put some marketing guru out of making his 200+K a year plus bonuses, and use of the company lodge on off days, by suggesting that they cut out these handy dandy cards that are SUPPOSE to save us money, that make great tooth picks, and will open any locked office door for those who've lost their keys; again? You would want them to...gasp, spurt, choke, actually just cut it all out and just save US money?

What are you, some kind of commie pinko?

JJ

It's a type of spyware. All your purchases are tracked every time you use those little cards and there's a gigundo file somewhere that lists everything you've ever bought. What exactly this info is used for, I don't know, but I don't like being "tracked" and I take my business elsewhere.

What irks me most about these cards is the fact that many stores won't give you the discount if you don't have the card. How in the world do they get away with that?

I like Mars supermarket because they don't have a card and they give everyone the same price.

Most supermarkets around here, all I do is say I don't have the card with or that my husband has it and they run one through for me anyway. In the card or bookstore, they just look it up in the computer. So why am I supposed to jam these into my wallet with all my other plastic?

Louisa

Found an interesting article this a.m. and thought I would share the link. Here's the jest of it though for those who don't have the time to go and read the entire thing:

....Farmington-based company, 1st eTech, has the technology to replace all of those cards with America's first "biometric" secured data card — a single card to act as a driver's license, library card, credit card, debit card, government identity card and just about any other kind of card, all made absolutely secure by the user's own fingerprint.
But the Utah Technology Commission expressed worries Thursday that unleashing that technology could open the door wider for Big Brother to peer into people's lives.....

The URL is http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,595077518,00.html

Just cut and paste. I can see the pros and cons of having this. It will probably fly since it makes everything so convenient, so I gotta ask ya...convenient for??? I agree that it smacks of BIG BROTHER and I don't like it for that reason alone.

JJ

My Uncle who works for the Government (ours) says we would be shocked and horrified by what the Government (ours, I think) know about us. He is in a possition to know what they know and/or can find out. No big shock here I guess!!!and YES, BIG BROTHER "IS" WATCHING...

I got my info from a friend who creates computer programs that track the data. He says it's scary what info is out there about us.

He refuses to use those cards.