Currys insisting on personal details to process sale 21 November 2022 at 4:59PM in Consumer rights 31 replies 2.3K views

Burrberryhobbit

Hi there - very odd situation this weekend at Currys when trying to buy a £11 audio cable.  Person at the till told me they couldn't process the sale unless I provided my home address, email and phone number - she was a newbie, so I quite happily waited until she got someone else and then told them I wasn't prepared to share that kind of information with them - he again stated he couldn't process the sale so I walked away.  I then tried to speak to customer services on Facebook messenger who again stated they couldn't talk to me without me providing my home address and phone number (which is just bizarre when they had a mechanism of contacting me, initiated by myself!).  Now - I bought a microwave from them last month and they simply accepted I didn't want to share and gave me a paper receipt.
So - firstly do they have the right to refuse sale if I don't provide them with personal information?

user1977

Yes, I expect they can. Though they may be doing you a favour - why on earth are you buying their overpriced cables? Is this the sort of £11 cable which you can get on eBay for 99p?

TELLIT01

They ask me for my e-mail address every time, and every time I refuse.  There are no valid reasons for them needing your personal information when purchasing in store.

They can refuse to serve you for any reason or none.

DullGreyGuy

Burrberryhobbit said:

So - firstly do they have the right to refuse sale if I don't provide them with personal information?

They cannot discriminate on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics but outside of those they are free to contract with who they want to and refuse anyone they dont want to do business with. 

Being the type who doesnt want to give their details isnt a protected characteristic 

powerful_Rogue

Burrberryhobbit said:

Hi there - very odd situation this weekend at Currys when trying to buy a £11 audio cable.  Person at the till told me they couldn't process the sale unless I provided my home address, email and phone number - she was a newbie, so I quite happily waited until she got someone else and then told them I wasn't prepared to share that kind of information with them - he again stated he couldn't process the sale so I walked away.  I then tried to speak to customer services on Facebook messenger who again stated they couldn't talk to me without me providing my home address and phone number (which is just bizarre when they had a mechanism of contacting me, initiated by myself!).  Now - I bought a microwave from them last month and they simply accepted I didn't want to share and gave me a paper receipt.
So - firstly do they have the right to refuse sale if I don't provide them with personal information?

Of course they can. Their shop, their rules. As long as they don't discriminate etc

Aylesbury_Duck

If it concerns you but you don't want to lose the chance to purchase, just provide fake details.  The downside might be the requirement to show your e-receipt if you want to exercise a change-of-mind return.

saajan_12

They can refuse the sale for any (non descriminatory) reason. 

However from a GDPR perspective, not sure how they justify needing to retain this info for every physical sale..

powerful_Rogue

saajan_12 said:

They can refuse the sale for any (non descriminatory) reason. 

However from a GDPR perspective, not sure how they justify needing to retain this info for every physical sale..

Quite easily I would imagine. By giving your details your giving your consent for them having those details. Also a lot of shops do this now so if you lose your receipt and have an issue, they can pull your purchase history up.

MalMonroe

I would never buy from Currys anyway. Their so-called bargains never are bargains. 

I usually do a bit of research online and sometimes do look at Currys but would never buy there. First of all there's the annoying picture of someone purporting to be a salesperson at the bottom right hand corner of my screen. (Even when I click on the X the picture doesn't fully disappear.) 

As user1977 says, you're probably better off having a look on eBay. Or even amazon. 

If I don't want to give a retailer my personal details I won't - and that's a sale and a customer they've lost. They may not care but I don't care more!  (Yes, it's childish but how very dare they? Even if it's 'newbie staff', they should be trained in proper customer service.)

robatwork

You've already had an answer, but something to consider is to buy a domain that has a "catchall" email forwarder. Most do.

You then buy burrberryhobbit.co.uk for example, and give them [email protected] as your email, with a fake name and phone number if you wish. At least then you get any e-receipt, and get to know if they leak/lose/sell your email onwards. 

powerful_Rogue

MalMonroe said:

I would never buy from Currys anyway. Their so-called bargains never are bargains. 

I usually do a bit of research online and sometimes do look at Currys but would never buy there. First of all there's the annoying picture of someone purporting to be a salesperson at the bottom right hand corner of my screen. (Even when I click on the X the picture doesn't fully disappear.) 

As user1977 says, you're probably better off having a look on eBay. Or even amazon. 

If I don't want to give a retailer my personal details I won't - and that's a sale and a customer they've lost. They may not care but I don't care more!  (Yes, it's childish but how very dare they? Even if it's 'newbie staff', they should be trained in proper customer service.)

That's a lot of help for the OP. Who is saying the 'newbie' staff hasn't been trained properly?

I must be in the minority, as i've purchased bargains from Currys before and never had any issues - including returning a faulty laptop.