{"id":1514,"date":"2007-05-20T08:42:32","date_gmt":"2007-05-20T13:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-invasion-of-privacy\/"},"modified":"2007-05-20T08:44:26","modified_gmt":"2007-05-20T13:44:26","slug":"best-invasion-of-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/best-invasion-of-privacy","title":{"rendered":"Best Invasion of Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, my Sirius radio went kaput, the result of a frayed wire from the antenna. I was faced with two choices: buy a new antenna ($40) or get a new radio ($139-$149). (The third choice, listening to terrestrial radio, was no option at all.) Given that the existing radio was pretty old and clunky, and had no car-kit (it was sitting a mass of wires above the dashboard), I figured I’d get a new radio.<\/p>\n

My first stop was the Radio Shack near my office. It had such misleading price labels that even the clerk who helped me couldn’t understand why the unit was ringing up at $149 instead of the $119 on the display. A manager explained that the tiny letters “MIR” on the wall display meant there was a $30 Mail-In-Rebate, which would get the price down to $119 eventually. I laughed at the manager and left the store.<\/p>\n

That evening, I stopped at Best Buy and found the radio, which was listed at $139, with no rebate. The cashier asked me for my phone number. I said, “No, thanks.”<\/p>\n

She repeated her question. I told her that I wasn’t going to give Best Buy my phone number. She said that she couldn’t process the transaction without it. “That’s too bad,” I said, and walked for the exit.<\/p>\n

The security guard told me to have a good evening. I said, “It would’ve been better if I’d been allowed to buy something just now.” She looked puzzled, and I said, “Can you get me a manager, please?”<\/p>\n

She called one over, and I explained what had transpired: “I tried to buy a Sirius unit, and your cashier refused to process it without my phone number.”<\/p>\n

“That’s not our policy, sir. That’s policy from Sirius.”<\/p>\n

“You are full of shit and your store just lost a $140 purchase,” I told her, before walking out.<\/p>\n

That night, I looked up the unit on Circuit City’s website: $149 with a $30 rebate. I called a local store, and asked a rep if they had it in stock. He said they did. Then I asked, “If I come in there to buy it, and I don’t<\/em> give you a phone number or zip code or anything, is that going to block my purchase?”<\/p>\n

“Excuse me?”<\/p>\n

“If I don’t want to give out my phone number, are you still able to process the transaction?”<\/p>\n

“Sure! We ask for your phone number to help you<\/em> out,” he said. “If you have a problem with the product and lose the receipt, we can look it up with your phone number.”<\/p>\n

“But it’s not mandatory?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

I described the episode at Best Buy, and he said, “Seriously? They wouldn’t let you buy it?”<\/p>\n

“Nope. So if you’re being straight with me, your store just got my business.”<\/p>\n

“Great!”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

All of which leads to a couple of thoughts:<\/p>\n

Radio Shack has not shaken my belief that it’s actually a massive cocaine-money-laundering front.<\/p>\n

Best Buy’s marketing & data-mining policies are bad news.<\/p>\n

Circuit City may be going out of business within a year, but I’ll give them a shot. Also, my laziness has paid off, since they just dropped the price for the unit to $129 today (in addition that $30 rebate).<\/p>\n

I really should’ve just bought that Sirius unit<\/a> on Amazon when mine first broke. It would’ve been a lot less stressful, with a transparent and low price ($118).<\/p>\n

Sure, Amazon already has all my buying info, but I figure my purchases there are so chaotic that they’ll never assemble a useful marketing profile for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, my Sirius radio went kaput, the result of a frayed wire from the antenna. I was faced with two choices: buy a new antenna ($40) or get a new radio ($139-$149). (The third choice, listening to terrestrial radio, was no option at all.) Given that the existing radio was pretty old and clunky, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Best Invasion of Privacy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-oq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2204,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-8408","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":0},"title":"What It Is: 8\/4\/08","author":"Gil","date":"August 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Finished A Reader's Manifesto, by B.R. Myers, and The Beast in the Jungle, by Henry James. Started Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, by Blake Bell. What I'm listening to: Just shuffling on my iPod, while I figure out how to reinstall my Sirius radio\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0971865906","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":786,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/stern-effect","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":1},"title":"Stern Effect","author":"Gil","date":"January 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've listened to Howard Stern's radio show since 1983 (I was 12). A lot of my friends refuse to believe this. Others think it makes perfect sense. When Howard first announced his move to satellite radio, many asked me if I'd buy a receiver and pay $12.95 a month to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1678,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/radio-silence","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":2},"title":"Radio Silence","author":"Gil","date":"September 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I know it sounds like I'm always under a huge pile of work, dear readers, but this time I mean it. Last week's conference overrode my other responsibilities, and now I have to finish a 156-page issue by Friday morning, so I can catch my flight to Milan in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6085,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/virtual-memories-radio-the-missing-tapes","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":3},"title":"Virtual Memories Radio: the missing tapes!","author":"Gil","date":"August 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just discovered that I have a podcast from last May that never posted! I could've sworn I posted this one shortly after Ernesto Sabato's death on April 30, but there's no sign of it anywhere on the blog! The files were posted on the morning of May 4, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1757,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/one-more-nba-note","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":4},"title":"One more NBA note","author":"Gil","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, I did a radio interview about the NBA for the Adam Taxin Radio Show down in Philadelphia. If you're interested, you can download an MP3 of it (about 3mb), or go read the transcript.","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":312,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-was-seriously-thinking-about-hiding-the-receiver","url_meta":{"origin":1514,"position":5},"title":"I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver . . .","author":"Gil","date":"August 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Article in Forbes about the artificial hurdles that satellite radio faces. Seems that the National Association of Broadcasters actually argues, in front of Congress, that competition would be bad for radio. The NAB also has a history of messing with innovation and stifling consumer choice: In 1945 many AM incumbents,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}