Currys insisting on personal details to process sale

Burrberryhobbit

user1977 said:

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?

Well, quite, in the end they did actually do me a favour - i went 2 doors down to Halfords (you're right, could have gone to Ebay, but wanted it on the day) - cable was cheaper and when they asked me for the details and i said no, they just gave me a paper receipt, like everyone else does that has this in place!

Ectophile

user1977 said:

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?

Would you actually want to use a 99p cable from eBay?

macman

The purpose of this is to follow it up with an offer of an extended warranty on their grossly overpriced cable.
DSG supposedly make more in commission on flogging extended warranties on everything from TV's to toasters, than they do on selling the items themselves.

MobileSaver

macman said:

The purpose of this is to follow it up with an offer of an extended warranty on their grossly overpriced cable.
DSG supposedly make more in commission on flogging extended warranties ... than they do on selling the items themselves.

This was common knowledge when I worked for DSG 30 years ago; from memory, in the last 12 months I worked for them, they made something like £3m profit on products sold and £30m profit on the extended warranties!

Due to the way targets worked, orders from above meant that managers would literally prefer you to lose a sale than get a sale without an extended warranty. That was a step too far for me so even though I was the runner-up top salesman in the North-West I left the company as a direct consequence.

Ath_Wat

Ectophile said:

user1977 said:

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?

Would you actually want to use a 99p cable from eBay?

Yes, if it worked. Why wouldn't you?  If you are talking about power cables that have to operate under heavy electrical load then maybe not; but data transfer cables?

mattyprice4004

Ectophile said:

user1977 said:

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?

Would you actually want to use a 99p cable from eBay?

The 3.5mm audio cable I'm currently using was 99p from eBay - it's done a fine job for the last 3 years. 
Sure, it'd be a bad idea for anything heavy-duty - but a cheap audio cable into some bargain basement speakers isn't going to be of any detriment. 

photome

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.)

I have just spent £400 in currys on 2 items, I couldnt get them cheaper anywhere else, so best not to generalise

RobM99

Would you actually want to use a 99p cable from eBay?

The 3.5mm audio cable I'm currently using was 99p from eBay - it's done a fine job for the last 3 years. Sure, it'd be a bad idea for anything heavy-duty - but a cheap audio cable into some bargain basement speakers isn't going to be of any detriment. 

...assuming it works in the first place!

user1977

RobM99 said:

Would you actually want to use a 99p cable from eBay?

The 3.5mm audio cable I'm currently using was 99p from eBay - it's done a fine job for the last 3 years. Sure, it'd be a bad idea for anything heavy-duty - but a cheap audio cable into some bargain basement speakers isn't going to be of any detriment. 

...assuming it works in the first place!

If it doesn't, you have a better chance of getting a replacement or refund from an eBay seller than Curry's. Or you write off the 99p.

RWC161

I'm afraid those saying "they can refuse the sale for any reason" (or similar) are missing important data protection points. In order to process your personal data (email address etc), they must have a legal basis for processing (under Article 6 UK GDPR) and they must tell you, at or before the time of collecting your personal data, what this basis is and what the processing is for (under Article 13 of the GDPR). It appears that they are using your contact details for direct marketing, which, under Regulation 22 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, requires consent, unless the marketing is for Currys' own similar products and they give you a means to opt out at the time they collect your data during the sale. They cannot require you to consent to providing your personal data for direct marketing as a condition of the sale, as consent must be freely given and can only be required if it is necessary for the performance of a contract (for example, they need your home address to deliver an item you've asked to be delivered). You should raise these points with Currys and with the ICO if you are not given a satisfactory explanation.