Monday, November 19, 2012

Robocall Recall


I recently bought some kettlecorn on sale, but found it too salty to eat.  Some days later, I received a phone call that similar brands had been recalled. 

public domain

This was a robocall saying I may have purchased the following brands of popcorn recently, and to return it to the store because of possible listeria contamination.  I realized this call was not going out to everyone:  I use the loyalty card for that particular grocery chain, so they knew I had purchased one of those brands of popcorn.  And since I gave them my phone number when I signed up, they automatically pulled me from their database and sent me that message, along with anyone else who bought those brands. 

Some people don’t like using those cards, because they don’t like the idea of people knowing exactly what they buy.  They make sense—grocery profits are razor thin, so instead of giving everyone a coupon for salad dressing, they’ll give them to loyal customers who bought salad dressing in the past six months.  But the added bonus is safety.  It felt like I was part of the Star Trek universe, for them to target me that particularly for their recall robocall. 

Oh, and the popcorn?  I had taken to work, so the people there ate it.  

3 comments:

  1. I got one of those because of spinach one time-- same thing, used my card so they were able to track my purchases. A bit Big Brotherish, but in this case, a relief (fortunately we hadn't opened the spinach yet, which is more a testimony to our eating habits than anything! ;))

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  2. Ha, I had a similar thing happen to me with Costco peanut butter full of salmonella! I got the notice after it was half-eaten. Yay!

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  3. At first your comments made me feel less secure, but I have to keep in mind that targeted communications is better than randomly hearing something on the news.

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