Should you give your number out at the register for rewards programs? A woman says no after an unsettling experience she once had.
“This morning I was reminded why I do not give my phone number at the register for rewards programs,” Rachel (@raeren3617) says in a TikTok. The video has 73,000 views since Friday.
Her story may save you from the potential annoyance and even danger of being put in the same situation.
Rachel says she stopped by Panera in the morning for breakfast. The worker, she continues, asked her for her phone number to verify whether she was part of its rewards program.
This triggered an uncomfortable memory for Rachel.
Several years ago, when these rewards programs first became popularized—from grocery stores to clothing shops to makeup locales—Rachel says she was at a store that requested her number. She says she unflinchingly gave it out because she was “young and dumb.”
(To be fair, a lot of people don’t think twice about giving out their number at a store.)
As it turns out, the cashier wasn’t the only one who wrote down the number.
The guy behind her eavesdropped and memorized Rachel’s number, she claims. She says he proceeded to text and call her without her consent.
“It was creepy. And it took me a while to figure out how this occurred,” Rachel says. She adds that the man later admitted to seeing her at the store and getting her number without her permission.
She says she ended up getting his number blocked. But this was still during the time when you couldn’t just do it yourself on your phone. Rachel recalls possibly having to pay to block the number.
“I never give out my phone number at a register because I never know who’s going to overhear it. And it’s really not worth it to save 50 cents on a cup of coffee,” Rachel says.
@raeren3617 Dobt give out your phone number at tge register #phone #creepy #stalker #rewardsprogram #foryou #foryoupage #fup #viral ♬ original sound – RaeDee444
Viewers offer alternatives
People in the comments section offered some alternatives in case you’re in a situation where you need to give a number but don’t want to share your real one.
“I give out my ex husbands number,” the top comment reads.
“I use my disconnected land line number,” another person shared.
“This is why I opened a gmail account and a Google Voice number. It’s free and you can get a local or a distance phone number,” another added.
Many places now have you type your number into the keypad. But there are still situations in which you might have to say it out loud.
Also, plenty of retailers have been called out for the sneaky ways in which they try to get people to sign up for their credit cards.
An Ulta employee said she was required her to have a customer decline the credit card three times before she could stop asking them to sign up. Otherwise, her manager would threaten to cut her hours, she alleged.
An Old Navy worker said her manager encouraged her to sign up people for the card who didn’t speak English natively because they “didn’t know any better.”
A former T.J. Maxx worker said that her manager would force the high schoolers who worked the register to “sell credit cards to struggling single mothers or threaten that they’d get fired.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Rachel for comment via TikTok direct message.
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