HerHusband wrote:
Mike,

Canada. A few days ago I purchased some lumber at my local Home
depot. On the Credit card machine a question came up before allowing
me to proceed. It asked "Would you like your receipt emailed to you?
Y/N" My God! Is the next thing the same way the phoney grocery bag
scam has gone? Are we going to have to pay for a printed store
receipt if we don't want to give out our spammail address?
After all it's all in the name of green planet hype, isn't it? That
paper receipt will kill millions of omeba in the twilight zone that
protects earth.

I'm all for reducing environmental impact, but always choose the paper
receipt. I don't want to type in my email address at the store, or
receive a bunch of junk mail later.

You do not have to. Have you not heard of "Do Not Solicigt"? Keeps you
from receiving all of those unwanted emails. Simply elect that option. You
might have to look a bit to find it but what's the big deal in that?



If they insist on going digital, I would rather carry a USB flash
drive with me and let them save a PDF version of the receipt to that.
They save paper, I get a digital copy, and no junk mail. If enough
places did it, it would be no different than carrying around a wallet
full of credit and debit cards.


And then they have to rely on you having a good/formated thumb drive. Why
all the big fuss about something so simple? Is an email to you really that
big a deal?


As for the paper receipts, I have three Home Depot receipts in front
of me right now. The store name/address and my list of purchases are
4" to 6" long on each receipt. The remaining 6" to 8" is about store
policies, information on home pickups, chances to win gift cards,
surveys, and an advertisement for redbeacon. They could cut their
paper usage by 1/2 to 2/3 by replacing all that extra junk with a
simple one or two line web link for more information.

Agreed - too many trees wasted on useless marketing. But what's worse and
what this really points to is that the receipts you have in front of you
will remain legible for a few months and then they'll be useless. The
electronic version does not suffer that fate. Of course, you could always
scan your originals in while they are still legible, but who does that...



--

-Mike-