My local grocery store from the Safeway family of stores has Bluetooth beacons that crashed my old phone. Now I turn my phone off as I have to assume these are to track where I am in the store and for how long so they can further target their ads.
Actually downloading their app is 100% a no from me. I’m moving to local stores wherever possible because I can afford it, and to be honest, the grocers raised their prices so much, only certain items are more expensive bought local.
The answer is never “make service better to attract customers”, it’s always “extract as much value as possible from the ones that remain”. Shitty short term number go up mentality.
Or, just maybe, they could adequately staff their stores instead of constantly running skeleton crews. If they were actually sincere with their cries of high theft, more employees on the floor could deter would-be thieves, while also giving them time to help customers when needed and pack out product so the place doesn’t always look like an obstacle course left in the wake of a hurricane, with piles of stuff on the floor blocking half the aisles.
Any place that requires an app for me to shop at is a hard no for me, much less all the other nonsense they want to include.
Yeah but the engines of capitalism & infinite growth in a finite world gotta go brrr.
The “shit being locked and nobody comes to help when you press the button” bullshit is why I bought some spare keys for the universal barrel locks most stores use. 9 times out of 10, these cabinets are locked with a lock that’s key is just a circular bit with a single tooth.
And you carry one of these around with you? How often are you visiting stores with these locks?
Yes, and weekly; every time I do my shopping.
A. Bug an employee even where this system is implemented.
B. If I had no other choice than to use the app: Open the cabinet, take a dozen products, close the cabinet, “decide” against buying some and leave them on an adjacent shelf.
(Edit) C: just “forget” to close the shelf. I’m not trained to handle their BS system.
My first choice of action would be to walk out the door. My second choice of action would be to walk out the door.
Just take the shelf apart. I’m sure it’s just some shitty plastic flap with a crappy lock. Cheapest crap they can get.
If the Walmart/target cases are anything to go by, it’s a basic universal tubular lock. You can by a decoder/pick for like $10
Yeah but they’re a little tricky to use, you can’t just bump them.
Also I would not recommend doing it at all in the first place.
You’re right but it’s funny to think that you could be hassled for breaking into a box with the intention of purchasing its contents.
Hey, no shop…ing?
I swear I’ve seen people use bump keys on high quality tubular locks before.
Depending on where you live it is illegal to possess lock picking tools unless you are a licensed locksmith. Something about “intent to commit a crime.”
Yeah, but that’s a key, not a lockpick
D) Turn around and shop elsewhere
D. Staff just leave them unlocked because it’s in a “dead” network spot and nothing reliably connects or store requires users to be on their Wi-Fi
How 'bout no?
This new system with the app is a hydra
I already don’t shop there, so no.
If everyone has a key, what’s the point of locking the products? Maybe next they’ll have public mag keys available at the entrance?
The point is they know from your app login who opened which case when, so if shit goes missing, they’ll know who stole it. That’s the point.
There’s no timestamp for when things go missing, though.
I guess if they discover shrink, they’ll have a log of when it was accessed, and could cross reference camera footage, then track down the account and blacklist it or prosecute… no loss prevention is going to do all this lol.
there are regular inventories, and most likely smart cases with time recording on tap (most even low digit inventory is rfid chipped these days, so even if it doesn’t set off an alarm when taken out of the store, that shit is being recorded when it triggers)
I can’t wait until store shelves are set up like those janky pressure sensitive hotel minibars
Genuine question, do I need to show an ID to make a CVS account? Use a real name? How could they reliably link the digital account to a person?
yeah i dunno the ins and outs of that, but the app most likely reports on your devices iemi, so regardless of what throwaway email address you use to sign up, if you bought that device, the cell company has your deets, also if they’re making you connect to the cvs wifi, then their router will have that devices MAC address, and most like grab it’s iemi information as well
They probably just ask for your name and link it to the info they already have about you
If you fill a prescription or use a credit card, that’s a very solid link to your identity. The app also probably is collecting all the data it can on you to resell, most of which can be used to fingerprint you through a data broker
They might also require an ID, but all of it is probably more an intimation tactic and stunt for investors than anything else
No way I’d install their app though
My pixel has what’s called a “private” profile. It allows you to tie a different Google account to the apps downloaded to that profile.
So I would install the CVS app on that profile, find public credentials for the app (or create one with and then publish them). Use the app to unlock the shelf. Leave it open or unshelf everything.
Or just don’t shop there.
I am sure CVS will not assume the worst when I buy three 12 packs of Magnum XL, two bottles of NyQuil, six cans of Monster Energy and a roll of duct tape.
That is…an interesting shopping list.
Do I dare ask: planning a big party?
Nice try CVS
LOL
I can never not laugh at that kind of reply.
Fuck the very idea of buying anything at CVS other than a prescription. Their prices are predatory high.
And I wouldn’t install their fucking app on Bea Arthur’s phone.
Succinct, I would like you to consider becoming CVS’s next CTO.
Some stores have started requiring the app to get your prescription. Happened to me. They actually made me install the app before they would fill my Rx. I stopped using that store and went to another neighborhood.
Hard no to that. As if they are denying people medicine because they want to harvest your information.
Should be illegal. But corpos own this country so here we are.
Depending on how primary care works where you are
tell your doctor too
Sometimes they don’t hear about the problems with pharmacies or other places they refer people to. Letting them know means that they can send people elsewhere
This is dystopian level privacy nightmare.
I just got a prescription yesterday and that didn’t happen so hopefully they don’t roll it out everywhere. I would find a different pharmacy.
I pick up a client’s meds as part of my job. It’s through Safeway, and I can’t get text notifications anymore when they are ready for pickup, I have to use the app, and I have to have push notifications turned on, so more than half of the notifications are some BS ad for safeway, trying to tempt me into buying bread or some shit. The guy takes over twenty medications, so it’s kind of a nightmare.
That’s almost worth having a dedicated burner phone for.
Sounds like it’s time for a new pharmacy.
Your options are:
Walgreens
Some pharmacy on the other side of town that’s failing because they’re getting overcharged for drugs (if you’re lucky)
Costco, and lots of online ones
We use our grocery store. Seems to work well. My store doesn’t even have an app, just a website, and the loyalty card isn’t needed for discounts, only for points I’ll never use so I don’t bother with it.
Yes, this is the problem. Not much choice, and most of the corporate ones are moving to various shitty practices. Oddly enough, many of the big corporate chains are now closing locations en masse, such as Rite Aid
nope, never happening.
“Do my job for me?”
“No.”
Mentally ill CEO dreams up the perfect dystopia where the customer does everything.
If they could, I bet they’d try to implement a discount system for time spent stocking shelves
Do you actually want to stand there while someone is called over to unlock these? I get nothing out of that service experience. Would far rather press a button in an app. It’s just dumb that things are behind glass in the first place.
They drool for the possibility of this.
Not only techno fascism, just ordinary fascism. You know where the companies controls the government and vice versa.
I don’t mind doing it, if I have access to the pharmacy/prescription department.
Access would require being logged into the CVS app and connected to the store’s Wi-Fi
Wow. I had to check if the page is the onion
For this to work, you need to download and install the app, and sign up for CVS’ loyalty program. In the store, you need to be logged into the app and connected to the store’s Wi-Fi, and have Bluetooth turned on.
And drink verification can
On their wifi? No thanks.
