Club Cards — What’s the freaking point? [GUEST]

I've never done this before, but my boy Algorythm (I'm sure I mentioned my ol college fam whos a talented artist, musician, producer, web designer, graphic designer, genius inventor etc etc etc type of dude) posted a blog recently that basically read my mind and had me laughing from beginning to end with his angry for no reason rant. So as I've seen many other writers do, I will begin a practice of occasionally inviting guest bloggers to share their $0.02 in a segment I'd like to call "u read my mind."

Check him out.

http://allancole.com
http://blog.allancole.com
http://wordpress.allancole.com
http://algorythmusic.com
http://fthrwght.com

Club Cards — What’s the freaking point?

So the other day, I went to the Grocery store and ended up spending about $10 more than I was supposed to because of these gawd awful Club Cards. — I don’t understand why these things exist.

(#rantalert)

It’s like joining an imaginary ‘club’ that anybody can get into. Why do ‘they’ even call it a ‘club?’ It doesn’t require anything from you, and you don’t really get anything exclusive for being in the ‘club.’ Yes, they have their ‘Club Card’/reduces prices, but if anyone can get the Club Card, and there aren’t any real requirements for getting a card, then the reduced prices should just be the regular prices for everybody, right!? I say there’s no ‘real’ requirements because every time a store asks me to to fill out an ‘application’ for their ‘Club,’ I put in a fake address and a fake phone number — I’m sure other people do the same thing to avoid unwanted sales pitches. It’s really a club full of fraudulent cheap-skates who have no problem telling lies(white) to save a buck or two — what a horrible club. I get that they want your mailing address so they can mail you promotions, ads and other non-environmental-friendly stuff. I have a good feeling that they mail you the same ads that they already have available in the entrances of every store. On top of that, the sales in the ads are useless if you don’t have a Club Card anyway — what a complete waste.

Actually, let’s look at how much gets wasted just to give us a ‘deal’ that we should already be getting.

1. Plastic Non-Biodegradable Plastic Card (and don’t forget about the knock-out plastic that’s left behind when you get one of these.
2. Paper Application form (sometimes printed in color too).
3. Paper Snail-Mail Advertisements.
4. Time is wasted when people are filling out the form in line while other folks are waiting behind them.

Solutions:

1. 1st, fire the guy/gal who came up with idea in the first place. 2nd, get rid of the ‘Club Card’ system all together & recycle the plastic.
2. Consolidate. As a last resort, companies who use these things should combine powers and issue 1 card that works in all stores.

Of course there are bigger fish to fry on this issue:

1. Who has access to the database of addresses and phone numbers?
2. Are they monitoring what folks are buying at Pharmacies, Grocery Stores etc?

But the cards themselves really bother me. They’re completely inconvenient! I only have one wallet, but I’m supposed to walk around with all of those cards crammed in there just to make a quick grocery store run? Makes me think of that Seinfeld episode with George Costanza’s exploding wallet. Even the mini key-chain cards are inconvenient. Who has room on there keys for 10 little annoying pieces of plastic? — Not I.

Again, why do these things exist? Am I missing something?

Comments?