Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 5, May 2003

Copyright 2003 Jane Lotter. Do not use without written permission.

JANE EXPLAINS

J'Accuse

By JANE LOTTER

Oh, it's French, for goodness sake. It means, "I accuse." Read on and you'll find out why.

First, a walk down memory lane. Last July, I wrote in this column about QFC Advantage Cards (or, as many people call them, Disadvantage Cards.) QFC sells much of its inventory at two prices: a high price and a low price. The high price is available to anyone. The low price is available only to people who have a QFC Advantage Card. But to obtain an Advantage Card, you have to give QFC your name, address, phone number, date of birth, and other personal information. It's a similar story with the Safeway Club Card.

Call me willful, call me old-fashioned, call me on your cell phone, but I believe in a person's right to privacy. I feel it's wrong for a Big Brother supermarket to demand personal information. I feel it's wrong for a Big Brother supermarket to demand the right to track your store purchases.

For this reason, my family no longer shops at QFC or Safeway. Often, we shop at our neighborhood grocery, San Marco. But when we really need to stock up, we've been going to Whole Foods, Larry's Market, and other non-card stores, including Albertsons.

Then, not long ago, Albertsons, too, started a card program. Interestingly, however, at the bottom of their application form you can check a line that says, "I don't wish to fill out this form. Please issue me an Albertsons Preferred Savings Card." In other words, Albertsons seems to offer the option of privacy.

So I got a card. I didn't like it, but fooled myself into thinking of it as a sort of coupon. After all, I didn't fill out the form, so I still had my privacy, right? Well, maybe not.

Recently, I receiving an e-mail from Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (you can visit their Web site at www.nocards.org). This e-mail asserted that Safeway, for one, swipes information off credit cards and then links it to consumer shopping cards. The e-mail said, "We have long suspected that supermarkets use credit cards, ATM cards, and information from personal checks to obtain customers' REAL NAMES and assign them to grocery card records created with 'fake name' (or no name at all). We have received several e-mails confirming this practice."

That got me thinking. Occasionally, I'd used a credit card with my Albertsons card. Was the information being linked?

I decided to get a new Albertsons Preferred Savings card. After filling up my cart at the Green Lake store, I informed the youthful checker I needed a card.

He whipped out a form. "You can fill out your name and address," he told me, "or you can check the box that says you wish to remain anonymous."

"I will check the box," I said, enunciating so clearly I sounded like Eliza Doolittle after she drops the Cockney accent. "I wish to remain a-non-y-mous."

He gave me the card, and I paid. But as I was leaving, I turned to him (kind of like an investigative reporter, instead of a humor columnist) and said, "I paid in cash. But if I'd used a credit card would that information automatically link to my Albertsons Preferred Savings card?"

Well! The look on his face spoke volumes. His eyes darted around like guilty pinballs. "You know, I think it does do that," he said finally. "Yeah, I think maybe it does get kind of linked up somehow. Yeah, I think that's what happens."

I nodded and walked away.

Now if a checker at Albertsons "thinks" that's what happens, I take it to mean that IS what happens. But I figured I'd better call Boise, Idaho nerve center of the Albertsons empire to find out for certain.

I spoke with company spokesman Shane McEntarffer. I asked McEntarffer this question: "If I have an anonymous Albertsons Preferred Savings card and use it with a credit card, does my name and other credit card information get linked to the card?"

McEntarffer didn't know the answer right off the bat (which in itself is interesting). He had to get back to me the next day. When he did, he said, "We do not do that. We don't link the card to customers' credit card information or anything like that. We respect the customer's right to privacy."

So that's the official word from Albertsons. But why am I left feeling uneasy? In part, it was the guilty look on that checker's face. In part, it's because I resent having to show a card at all. Because whether Albertsons is swiping personal information or not and they say they're not I still don't like the idea of having to show a card just to buy groceries.

And that, by the way, is why I'm speaking French. You bet j'accuse. J'accuse Big Brother supermarkets everywhere who are alienating customers by forcing them to use cards when they would prefer not to.

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E-mail Jane at janeexplains@attbi.com.