#101 The big lie

My Kroger grocery receipt for 11/21/03 says I saved $9.61, and that my total Kroger Plus Card savings to date is $659.22. It’s a lie, of course. First of all, when I occasionally drop in there to shop (where I used to shop often), I use a friend’s card. So she’s the one with the $659.22 “savings.” Second, the prices on everything in the store have been jacked up to cover the cost of the data mining for this phony savings plan.

In our community, Giant Eagle, Big Bear and Kroger all offer loyalty cards--Big Bear and Giant Eagle are struggling and will probably go out of business. Behemoth Wal-Marts will be moving in, although none close enough for me to shop there. I can save a lot more by going to a Meijer or a Wal-Mart that sells groceries. I can get much better service and more interesting choices by going to my non-chain, neighborhood grocery, Huffman’s Market, which also doesn’t ask me to show a plastic card linked to my personal information.

Anecdotal and survey evidence indicates you’ll pay 25-70% more by using loyalty card stores. I realize I’m spitting into the wind here--it is virtually impossible to convince an American consumer that businesses that give away their products don’t succeed. I used to be a loyal Kroger shopper. I occasionally return to “my” store (carries the kitty litter brand I need) and have watched everything in the store go up in price to cover the cost of the program.

These plastic card loyalty plans are just newer forms of sweepstakes, green stamps and coupons that were ubiquitous in the 60s through the 80s. Just as coupons were sized to the dollar bill, these are sized to look like credit cards, updating the consumer scam with the times. The first coupon was a wooden nickel around 1900. But that wooden nickel couldn’t track you--loyalty cards can.

I have no idea if CASPIAN is just another front for some anti-business protest group, but they are against loyalty cards and the invasion of privacy they represent. Nor do I think John Ashcroft has time to worry about what brand of toilet paper I like. I am so sick of being asked to carry around a bunch of cards for footwear, office supplies, airlines, pharmacies and any other commodity, I’m about ready to take to the streets with a placard.