Best Buy reward zone
I just called Best Buy and canceled my “Reward Zone” membership. I understand the deal; I sell them my personal information and shopping habits. But they screwed up.
The program is set up so that earned points become gift certificates at certain thresholds. The certificates are only redeemable in store, of course (best buy’s website sucks grade-A rotten eggs, but that’s another rant :-). The problem for me is that they _automatically_ issue gift certificates as soon as you have accumulated enough points, *and* the certificates expire. Worse, the certificate expires before the points would have!
So basically, they gave me a bunch of points, and then stole them away. Best Buy agreed to purchase my privacy, and then used fine print and idiotic terms to renege on the deal. Customer service was no help, of course. So, good-bye account! It’s not like it matters anyway; I would have to spend $400/yr at best buy to get a $5 reward (that’s 1.25%), and I certainly don’t intend to spend that kind of money on consumer electronics anytime soon!
(The guys at Chapters/Indigo keep sending me useless “store-only” certificates too, but unlike Best Buy, the iRewards card _also_ gives me a 5% discount on all of my purchases, including sale items!)
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Yup – I’ve been contemplating the same thing, for much the same reasons.
Just haven’t had the time.
You can rant, no problem with that, but I find this one a little odd. I get a lot of those $5 gift certificates from Best Buy and I just spend them. The one I printed out last week doesn’t expire until Feb. Xmas is coming, the wife has a DVD wish list, the kids CDs, and I put “Planet of the Apes” Blu-ray box-set on my Xmas list, or boxing day list, however you want to look at it. $400 is not a lot to spend in December at Best Buy. That’s an Ape’s set, Man from Uncle, 2 Cokes and a “Mirror’s Edge”. Typical Saturday afternoon at Best Buy, actually.
Hm, or a Wii, 2 Guitar Hero’s and a bag of chips.
They haven’t sent me anything other than these certificates, nothing I can spot that is directed-advertising. Then again, the kids are under instructions to recycle all undressed fliers before I even see them…
Amazon is a different story. They’re under instructions to send that data to the government, I believe, and I am receiving heavily directed advertising (when on their site). Apparently I like “Hannah Montana” & “Galaxies at High Redshift” ads on the same page. Aside from CBSA opening a lot of my international mail the government doesn’t seem to have done much with the info.
Kind of a “We’re watching you! And if our employees knew how to read, you’d be in big trouble!” sort of thing.