Earlier this evening I went to Currys/PC World to buy a new appliance at a not inconsiderable cost. As I was paying in full & they had stock I could take it away with me.

I was asked for name & address and upon asking why they wanted that was told so I could have their 1 year guarantee. Seeing as the product has a 2 year manufacturers guarantee this seemed more than a little odd but the salesperson was not budging. Result being they lost a sale and I have ordered elsewhere.

would

No doubt they are under orders to harvest as many names & addresses as they can, I suggested if I had a problem then the receipt would prove when it was bought but again told I had to provide a name & address. About time they learned how to treat folks fairly.

Well done!

I bought a laptop from them a couple of years ago and they tried the same trick when I refused extra insurance.

The rude cashier threw the receipt at me and walked off.

I went to her colleague and asked more info about the insurance.

She was back like a thunder and I just left mid sentence.

I'm not upset by rudeness, but unnecessary rudeness need a strong response.

It used to be that you got jumped on by staff as soon as you entered the store - which is another of my pet hates - not even been given time to see if they had what you wanted. A lot of the staff are just kids who don't have a clue about the actual products they sell - try asking one about the ins & outs of induction hobs.

On the one hand it is to basically sign you up for marketing materials, but you can specify no marketing as there's a button/checkbox they can press for it.

But on the other hand there is an advantage to giving them your name and address, it allows them to easily look up your purchase history using just your name and postcode so if you lose the receipt for something they can do a search on those details and pull up the transaction.

Call me cynical because of how I felt about them collecting my details/data I think I am somewhat vindicated having now seen this email sent earlier today:

Dixons Carphone PLC, 1 Portal Way, London, W3 6RS

Registered No. 07105905

Dear Customer

On June 13, we began to contact a number of our customers as a precaution after we found that some of our security systems had been accessed in the past using sophisticated malware.

We promptly launched an investigation. Since then we have been putting further security measures in place to safeguard customer information, increased our investment in cyber security and added additional controls. In all of this we have been working intensively with leading cyber security experts.

Our investigation, which is now nearing completion, has identified that approximately 10 million records containing personal data may have been accessed in 2017. This unauthorised access to data may include personal information such as name, address, phone number, date of birth and email address.

While there is now evidence that some of this data may have left our systems, these records do not contain payment card or bank account details and we have no confirmed instances of customers falling victim to fraud as a result. We are continuing to keep the relevant authorities updated.

As a precaution, we are letting our customers know to apologise and advise them of protective steps to take to minimise the risk of fraud. These include:

• If you receive an unsolicited email, letter, text or phone call asking for personal information, never reveal any full passwords, login details or account numbers until you are certain of the identity of the person making the request. Please do not click on any links you do not recognise.
  
• If you think you have been a victim of fraud you should report it to Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and internet crime reporting centre, on 0300 123 2040*.
  
• We also recommend that people are vigilant against any suspicious activity on their bank accounts and contact their financial provider if they have concerns.
  
• You can find more information here
  

We take the security of your data extremely seriously and have previously announced that we have taken action to close off this access and have no evidence it is continuing. Nevertheless, we felt it was important to let customers know as soon as possible.

We continue to make improvements and investments to our security systems and we’ve been working round the clock to put this right. We’re extremely sorry about what has happened – we’ve fallen short here. We want to reassure you that we are fully committed to protecting your data so that you can be confident that it is safe with us.

Yours sincerely,

Antreas Athanassopoulos

Dixons Carphone Chief Customer Officer *Opening hours are 8am-8pm Monday to Friday, closed Saturday and Sunday.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/10-million-currys-pc-world-15012585

https://www.eagleradio.co.uk/news/local-news/2655930/surrey-customers-among-currys-pc-world-data-breach/