Why Is Target Carding a 50-Year-Old Man?

 

 

A few days ago I was at Target to buy, among other things, a bottle of Skinnygirl Margarita for my wife, and the cashier, a woman in her mid to late twenties, carded me.

Flattered? No. At my best, I look like I'm in my early 40s. Annoyed? Yes. I had to pull out my drivers license upon which it was scanned through a machine. 

What kind of paranoia has the Target management instilled in their employees that they're carding a 50-year-old. It's beyond flattery. It's absurd. 

Comments

[Angelo]

My guess is the young lady at the register was intrigued by the real man-sized Invicta on your wrist----and used the carding/I.D. act as a way to get some personal information. Once she finds out you're married, she and her girlfriends will be disappointed.

[Jason]

I wish I had a like button I could click for Angelo's comment! :-)

[Tom Welch]

Jeff, I posted a link to your blog post on my FB page and was told that Target cards everyone who buys liquor, just easier that way so clerk does not have to make a judgement as to the customer's age.

[KE7CYT]

It's not about preventing underage booze purchases. It's so Target can collect purchase statistics; they'll use any method they can impose on customers.

Fun Fact: They'll temporarily confiscate your purchases from other retailers if you want to use their changing rooms to try on any apparel items. So a minimum wage "Jolene" person gets to babysit your prescriptions while you try on sweatpants.

In case you can't tell, I'm getting a little tired of retailers that impose a "code of conduct" on me for stepping into their store. I won't buy wine at Target. There's less and less I will buy.

[Ken K. in NJ]

More and more places are adopting a "Card Everybody" policy. As Tom stated above, it takes the judgement call off the table.

I've come to accept that, but now the beaurocrats have come up with a further wrinkle. Just last week my wife and I were shopping in Wegmans (an upscale supermarket chain in NY/NJ) and I was carded for a beer purchase. Fine, but they also wanted to card my wife since she was shopping with me. Except that she didn't have her wallet with her. I wound up having to get a manager's approval just to buy a dam 6 pack of beer. (we are both well over 50).

I asked the manager what would happen if I was a parent shopping with a 6 year old, would I be denied buying beer since the 6 year old was not of age? He really didn't have an answer for that, just some corporate double talk. It's just asinine, and this policy is from the Supermarket chain recently rated #1 for customer service in Consumer Reports.

[herculodge]

Ken, that is a crazy story. Talk about absurd.

I wonder if indeed data mining is going on at Target.

[Mark Roberts]

Or you could just accept it as a compliment, as long as the phrase "well preserved" isn't uttered.

[Angelo]

Some of this stems from litigation too. Let's not forget that. It's not all about the big bad corporations wanting to get your personal information. There's a component of this that is the big bad corporations being scared to death of being sued because of a drunk driving accident or something else that someone else is responsible for----but they're the ones with the money, so they get socked with a lawsuit.

[David]

Jeff...Check out this link about data collecting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

According to the Target statistician, "We want to know everything we can."

[KE7CYT]

I'll rephrase - if the license check was only about preventing sales to minors, a visual check would suffice. If you reread Jeff's original post, you'll see that they scanned his license which means they'll hold that PII forever. Why the heck does a retailer need my driver's license number, let alone my photo and home address?

[Angelo]

KE7CYT: It would serve to prove without a doubt who purchased the liquor. It wouldn't be the word of a clerk or fuzzy video images (if they could even produce those). It would be proof positive of the person who purchased the liquor. If it ended up causing a fatal accident with a drunk minor behind the wheel, Target (or the other big retailer with deep pockets) could prove that they did everything possible to make sure an adult was making the purchase to be consumed by adults. I don't like it either----blame the trial lawyers as much as you blame the retailers though.

[Bob C]

Many of the larger retailers do the same thing when you try to purchase the (good) cold medicine from the pharmacy. You know, the stuff that you could theoretically (along with many other ingredients) make into methamphetamene. Which is, of course, the medicine that actually works....

Not only do you now need to sign the register (so that Janet Napoletano knows about that bottle of REAL NyQuil that you bought), but they want a scan of your license as well. Something tells me that this federal law makes a fine excuse for the retailer to obtain your information for their own purposes.

[twitter.com/karldotcom]

Reading around on the internet about Target and there are posts saying that all age-restricted items require and ID to be scanned. The register confirms that you are old enough to purchase it then allows the transaction to proceed.

Apparently only a manager can override it.

Also, 38 states require ID from everyone in the party, to prevent the one kid old enough purchasing for the rest of the group.

Some states also do not except out-of-state IDs or foreign passports as valid for alcohol or tobacco.

[KE7CYT]

Good point Angelo: I hadn't considered the Trial Lawyer's perspective. I was stuck on the state compliance regulations observed by grocery stores and dedicated liquor stores which are minimal compared to a giant like Target/Dayton Hudson. It's as if the Trial Lawyers are three steps ahead in the chess game. An encouraging thought for the ultra-conservatives: there'll be a ready-made database of imbibers ready and waiting for the alco-police. Heavenly Father!