California Law Banning Paper Receipts Clears First Hurdle In State Legislature (latimes.com) 216
In January, California Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced a law barring retailers from printing paper receipts unless a customer requests one. Otherwise they'd be required to provide proof-of-purchase receipts "only in electronic form." The bill has cleared its first hurdle in the sate Legislature on Monday as it passed the Nature Resources Committee in a 6-3 vote, despite concerns from some industry groups that say the switch should be driven by the market, not a government mandate. The Los Angeles Times reports: Assembly Bill 161 by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) said his bill is an easy way to reduce paper waste in the state while addressing consumers' frustrations with excessively long receipts. Customers have taken to social media for years to complain and poke fun at the size of their receipts, particularly at CVS drugstore, posting pictures of the coupon-packed printouts measuring taller than a refrigerator. The paper that receipts are printed on is generally too thin to be made from recycled material, according to a legislative analysis of the bill. Once they are thrown away, the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle, said the use of chemicals on paper receipts makes them undesirable to recyclers.
The American Forest and Paper Assn., a paper industry group that opposes the bill, estimates that the United States generates 180,000 tons of paper receipts each year. That, the group points out, is a small percentage of total paper waste. The bill would give businesses until 2022 to provide customers electronic receipts, or a paper printout available on request. Violators would receive two warnings before being levied a $25-per-day fine. The maximum annual fine would be $300. The bill exempts cash-only and smaller businesses with gross receipts under $1 million a year from the electronic receipt requirement.
The American Forest and Paper Assn., a paper industry group that opposes the bill, estimates that the United States generates 180,000 tons of paper receipts each year. That, the group points out, is a small percentage of total paper waste. The bill would give businesses until 2022 to provide customers electronic receipts, or a paper printout available on request. Violators would receive two warnings before being levied a $25-per-day fine. The maximum annual fine would be $300. The bill exempts cash-only and smaller businesses with gross receipts under $1 million a year from the electronic receipt requirement.
Paper or contact info? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I don't live in CA, but ... this mean you'd have to give every retailer you buy from your email address, so no thanks. I'll always be asking for a paper receipt.
[ Contact info is not the new "plastic". ]
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Not jus tthat, but anybody that doesn't have email, or probably a smartphone, would be unable to receive a receipt for what they purchase. The result is that for some poor people, they'd be unable to prove that they've bought something legally and also wouldn't be able to return or exchange it if they needed to.
This is a really fucking stupid idea. I get that there is an environmental cost to receipts, but it isn't really something that retailers do to murder the environment. I already see companies volunta
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Most retailers around where I live now ask me if I want a receipt. Some offer the option to email it to me. I decline and go for the paper every time. I have enough shit coming into my email box.
It's not the paper receipt itself that is the issue. It's the volume. I bought a pack of gum in walgreens. A whole tree was used to print the receipt. I swear the reams of paper that came out of that machine weighed more than the pack up gum. That was bullshit. The receipt shouldn't have been longer t
Re: Paper or contact info? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody is using 1500 year old redwood for pulpwood.
In fact, promoting the growth of pulpwood would be a good way of sequestering a bunch of carbon.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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It doesn't mean that at all. You can buy something and walk out without a receipt. I do it all the time with small purchases. The only difference is that the retailer won't print the receipt by default, so they won't have to throw anything away when you don't ask for it.
Returns without receipt (Score:2)
You can buy something and walk out without a receipt. I do it all the time with small purchases.
When one of your "small purchases" turns out defective, what steps do you typically need to take to prove to the retail clerk that you bought the product at that store within the return window (such as 14 or 30 days)?
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If it's cheap enough for me to not want a receipt, it's not worth my time to return it.
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You must have a ton of free time on your hands to be returning things, or on a super tight budget.
If it takes 30 min to drive to the post office, or the store, then it takes an hour round trip, plus time to wait in line, plus gas, plus depreciation on the car, insurance (miles add up driving around town) etc etc....
if you make $50,000 a year, your time is worth about $25/hour. If you're returning something under $25, just based on time alone, you're losing money returning it. Once you facto
Generating billable hours from home (Score:2)
Your logic seems to be based on me getting paid all the time, or that me doing anything but work is taking time away from work.
Someone who works from home might have to take time off work to make a trip into town.
Two and a half hours to return something (Score:2)
If you have to take time off from a job that pays hourly, then you can make a case for losing money to use the time.
I work two jobs, one of them from home. Taking the bus to the shopping center to return something takes roughly two and a half hours away from time I could spend on billable projects: a 45 minute ride there transferring downtown, a 10 minute return, a 50 minute wait for the next bus (which runs hourly in my city), and a 45 minute ride home transferring downtown.
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Getting anywhere on a hub-and-spoke bus system in a small (200K) city takes that long.
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Then you ask for a receipt at purchase.
Us sane people will just say "bummer" and move on when that gum is only OK.
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Good luck when they accuse you of shoplifting. There really is no good alternative to a paper receipt yet. Email is likely the closest thing and it ain't great.
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Which "alternative solution besides email receipts" can "your imagination [] fathom" instead?
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Which "alternative solution besides email receipts" can "your imagination [] fathom" instead?
Someone mentioned using a smartphone and a QR code or NFC to transmit the receipt to the phone.
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That is worse rather than better in terms of "lets assume everyone is rich".
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That is worse rather than better in terms of "lets assume everyone is rich".
Ya, I mentioned that when I replied to that post.
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Or let's assume everyone likes to be hacked. It's not like QR codes are hyperlinks or that browsers are vulnerable...
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Which "alternative solution besides email receipts" can "your imagination [] fathom" instead?
You don't have to give your email to every retailer to get an emailed receipt.
If you pay with plastic, the email can be forwarded via your credit card provider, who already has your email anyway.
Home Depot does this now. I stick my card in the reader, and they recognize the CC# and auto-email the receipt. No paper, which is nice, because Home Depot is one place where you are likely to actually need the receipt a few weeks later.
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Somebody with your CC# put in an address at HD once. Subsequent purchases on the same card are mapped to that same address by default.
It's handy but they only ever get homedepot@myreceiptdomain.com .
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Well I don't need to imagine it. When I use my samsung pay on my phone, a electronic receipt is sent to my phone after every purchase. It should be just as simple for a app to do the same thing when you use your debit card.
What about those CVS coupons? (Score:2)
One needs the receipts longer than my height filled with coupons, right? What will we do if we lose those $2 discounts on the shampoo, and buy one get one offers on vitamins?
(jk)
Re: What about those CVS coupons? (Score:2)
I fully expect the rolling coal sort of people to start visiting CVS and buying a ton of the cheapest item they can find, all on separate transactions...with paper receipts, of course
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Could you run a car on a wood style gasifier using CVS receipts? Bet I could.
Getting that street legal in CA? I'd have to start with something smog exempt. All those have 'better uses'.
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Ya know, you can just refuse to use your CVS "loyalty" card, and then you get a normal-sized receipt. With no coupons. Imagine that.
Better solution (Score:2)
This law is just going to benefit retailers who will make it harder to return merchandise with fewer customers having receipts. It's also going to erode privacy further by herding people into giving stores their phone numbers or email addresses.
Instead, make a summary receipt the default. Date, store, cashier, total price, tax. Wouldn't need to be more than a couple inches.
Use the card you purchased the item with... (Score:2)
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No bloody way ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry Phil Ting, you're a well meaning idiot but fucking clueless.
I'm not providing most business I deal with my email, my phone number, or any other suitable information for getting a receipt "only in electronic form".
I don't trust businesses not to be asshol
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So, are you utterly illiterate, or did you just forget the bit where you can still get a paper receipt? All you have to do is answer "yes" when the clerk asks if you'd like one.
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Just ignore it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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$300 per year in fines, and then just ignore it
Perhaps it will be taken into account if one day they renew the cashout system.
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As another cash grab by the government, it sounds like it's going to work exactly as intended.
Re:Just ignore it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just tax the receipt paper?
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It's supposed to virtue-signal, not actually work. Duh. Welcome to California.
If they REALLY want to do something useful (Score:5, Informative)
If they REALLY want to do something useful, how about banning disappearing-ink receipts?
I've had SO many receipts from California merchants where the blue ink faded completely by tax-filing time, leaving me with a mysterious piece of blank paper in my "deduct this" collection. B-b
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After the government gets rid of the unsolicited paper advertising in my mail box, we can talk about paper receipts.
Every week I receive about a pound of unsolicited advertising in my mail box.
It's over 1000X the weight of a weeks worth of receipts.
There are REAL problems in San Francisco, but nothing the dishonorable Mr. Ting wants to act upon. Obviously, Phil Ting is an idiot who does not understand democratic voters living beyond Apple's rat infested garden.
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That paper advertising subsidizes most of the post office's operations.... us post office gets no funding from federal tax dollars and email took a huge bite out of their day to day funds... there is a ton of infrastructure required to run a daily mail operation in a country of our size, that money has to come from somewhere.
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And because of the email, there is no longer any point to a daily mail operation, and it is long past time that we got rid of home delivery for all but the disabled. Most of that infrastructure needs to be rolled back.
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That advertising has opt-out options if you'd like to stop receiving it.
Also, that advertising can be printed on recycled paper. Receipts can't.
Also, that advertising can (usually) be recycled. Most receipts can't.
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It's 2019. Recycling paper is at just virtue signalling in its best light. In realistic light, it is counter productive. It cost more to collect and recycle, than to make new paper from farmed trees.
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It's 2019. Most people understand that hauling a bunch of paper to a landfill is not a terribly good idea. Most.
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You lose deductions, pay more in taxes, and expect the government to 'do something'?
This is due to the new BPA-free paper, which protects infants whose parents have them snack on receipt paper.
So, yeah, they already 'did something'. What's not to like!
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This is due to the new BPA-free paper, which protects infants whose parents have them snack on receipt paper.
It actually protects people who eat fast food, because the surest way to transfer BPA from one of those receipts is by contaminating it with hot grease. Then it transfers to your fingers, and since fast food is messy, from there to your mouth.
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The logical fallacy is that the effects from the amount of BPA ingested that way, pales in comparison to the effects of eating the fast food. You're worrying about starving to death in a vacuum.
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I live in an area covered by "forest" that are nothing but pine trees slated to make paper. I'm not sure if it is still the case, but the largest landowner in North Carolina used to be a paper producer. Nobody wants your old growth forest, with its knarled trees of varying sizes and species, for paper making. The want truckloads of small, soft pine trees all of practically the exact same size.
The paper will also wind up in a bio-reactor land fill, where it will be converted to methane, and then clean ele
Totally misses the mark (Score:4, Insightful)
My understanding is that this proposal makes the paper receipt *optional* if you give them an e-mail. First, I don't want to be on their list. Secondly, I sometimes want a paper receipt for a variety of reasons, such as eating at the grocery store and not wanting to get accused of shoplifting.
What they need to do is regulate the width and length of the receipt, and the number of items per unit length. They also need to phase out thermal paper, perhaps tax the thermal paper to fund a program for replacing it with plain paper. Why? Because thermal paper is plastics, and plastic pollution is a huge problem. Require the receipt to tell us if it's plain or thermal so we can dispose of it properly. Finally, no coupons or promotions printing out of the register unless we hit OK on the terminal.
Of course that's a lot, and lobbyists are going to push HARD against that but IMHO it's really the direction we need to go. I'm not sure how we get there.
Maybe then we can get rid of the stinkin' "club cards" and games they want you to play at the store, but first things first.
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My understanding is that this proposal makes the paper receipt *optional* if you give them an e-mail.
This.
However because it's California, the headline uses BANNED in big letters.
I wish the UK would make it mandatory for receipts to be optional. Like many people here in the UK, when I pop to the shops for a bag of crisps I don't need a receipt so I'm happy to select "No" (or tell the cashier I don't want one). It'll save them being thrown on the passenger seat of my car until a point where it looks like I'm carpooling with an albino.
I've been to the US, popping into a CVS for a coke results in a r
No fucking way (Score:2)
CVS is the current bad guy, but as soon as $BigBoxRetailer gets their hands on my email address do you really think they won't spam the hell out of it?
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You know, you can refuse to give them an email address, and then you don't get the monster receipt and coupons.
Or just limit the length of CVS receipts (Score:2)
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No. He (and everyone else) needs to walk out without taking the receipt.
-OR-
Tear off the useful part, and leave them with the rest.
Endocrine Disrupters (Score:5, Informative)
Neither side advocates for the consumer (Score:5, Insightful)
Ban paper receipts? No thanks. It's official documentation of the transaction.
Allow the status quo? No thanks. Stores are needlessly printing too much paper with information I do not need.
How about we compromise? Let's -reduce- the amount of waste, mandating that consumer receipts contain a maximum amount of information, say a list of purchased items, prices, and quantities, name & contact info of business, and date of transaction? Then only print all the extra QR codes, coupons, promos, etc. if a customer asks for it.
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How does a tiny till receipt compare to all the paper in newspapers which millions of people buy every day?
Newspapers are waning on their own, but retailers keep finding new shit to print out on receipts — which are printed on paper with a high plastic content, for durability. Newspaper has no plastic content, and precious little non-wood fiber.
Wow (Score:2)
It is unbelievable that CA has nothing better to do than meddle with things like this. This type of action is almost completely meaningless other than appearance. I get more paper in junk mail that I don't want (despite being on anti-marketing lists) in any single day than the amount of paper on receipts for over a month, which I DO want.
It can also be EXTREMELY expensive for small businesses to comply with such ridiculous laws. Why? Because if all they can produce is a paper receipt, now they somehow h
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>"No, if you are pulling in less than a million a year, you are a small business, and this law doesn't apply to you anyway so costs exactly $0, which is also not expensive let alone too expensive."
Well, that is a good point (and something I missed in the summary- my bad).
$1m total receipts is relatively nothing (Score:2)
One thought I had is that $1M in gross receipts, in California, is relatively nothing. A plumber running his own business would probably be able to clear that, running on hand written receipts done on carbon paper out of a clipbook.
Remember, "gross income" isn't profit. It's literally how much money they pull in before paying ANYTHING. It's before they pay for supplies, wages, rent, utilities, etc...
Somebody running a coffee shack that sells a little under 500 $6 coffees a day would bust the limit.
More proof... (Score:2)
That California DEMOCRATS, because they've run the place for years, have less common sense than you'd find in a cheeseburger.
Not to say the Republicans would be any better, but...
Maybe it's an opportunity- create a zillion fake receipts for expenses etc. The state would have no chance or way to challenge their legitimacy. PROFIT!
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That California DEMOCRATS, because they've run the place for years, have less common sense than you'd find in a cheeseburger.
Not to say the Republicans would be any better, but...
I always believe that you get the best results with a proper mix of both, such that they have to cooperate and the worst excesses of either can be controlled by the other.
If it wasn't nearly 100% democrat control, this receipt thing would probably be subsumed over fighting over the budget of larger ticket items.
Wonderful Sense of Priorities (Score:2)
California has REAL problems and they prioritize paper receipts?
That vast State Water Project was designed for a population not much greater than 25 million. Today, on any one day, California verges on nearly 40 million people within its borders and is projected to reach 50 million if not higher.
According to a January 2017 study, “California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015.” The study was based on “a review of federal, state and local financial disclosur
Buy your domain name, pay for an email service (Score:2)
Create a new email alias each month/year/... ex: receipt2019@mydomain.com, receipt201903@mydomain.com... At the end of each month/year, archive your emails and delete your alias. This way, you will not have to share your "real" email to every store and spam will bounce when you delete the alias.
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You can't tell who is selling your email address or is being hacked that way. Use a unique email for every site and store that you do business with. (store1@mydomain.com, store2@mydomain.com, etc) Have a rule that says that anything that isn't your primary email address (the one you give out to friends and family) gets moved to a secondary inbox. Then you go through your secondary inbox for your receipts, messages of orders being sent, etc and archive them as required. Just make sure to keep an eye on your
Costco (Score:2)
Does Costco still have people at the exit to check your things to make sure that you have only the stuff that you paid for? If so then everyone is going to have to ask for a receipt with this silly law. There are better things that could be done for the environment than trying to ban receipts.
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There's a store here called Canadian Tire. If you go in with a backpack and don't leave it at the customer service then the cashier will most likely ask to see in it. The couple of times that I've been asked to show them the inside (I rarely go there because of this policy) I start to unzip one of the partitions open and the cashier says thanks. But I've continued on telling them that they've accused me of being a thief so I'm going to prove to them that I'm not. I ask them if they really think that they ha
Solution (Score:2)
Start printing out highly-polluting plastic receipts! That'll teach those idiots in legislature what for!
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Start printing out highly-polluting plastic receipts! That'll teach those idiots in legislature what for!
You can't start doing what you're already doing. Thermal receipt paper is plastic-coated.
Returns, rebates, warranties (Score:2)
Many return / rebate / warranty processes require presenting the original receipt. It is these requirements that make systems like Neat Receipts suspect -- a retailer won't accept a scanned copy of the receipt. I hope this triggers a change in that thinking.
good, but (Score:2)
great idea, most of the time i don't want a receipt, i'm sure a lot of people don't really need one. but if you do, you can ask and still get it.
but after seeing those twitter posts and having a good laugh, there should also be some limit put on the size of receipts as well. even just one printed CVS receipt is 99% waste.
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
There was an article on NPR several years back talking with the head of the U.S. Printing Office, now called the U.S. Publishing Office.
The guy talked about all the efficiencies that had taken place over the previous twenty years or so, how they had reduced head count while still doing their service. One of the points he mentioned was the change from paper forms (IRS and the budget in particular) and how much money the taxpayers were being saved because of the reduced spending on paper.
Guess who whined abou
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The problem is, the vast majority of people don't look at their receipts. They put in their card, pay the amount, and walk out the door. I at least stop while still in the store and check the charges. I also keep a running tally in my head (sometimes use a calculator) so when the total comes up, if it's wide of the mark I know something isn't right.
As for people overspending, they do it now and still don't care even if they have the receipt.
For cash transactions, again, they're like my credit card charge
Need An Electronic Solution (Score:2)
I really wish there was an electronic solution to receipts. I get them with every purchase I make and they just tend to pile up until I throw them all out. Some retailers will e-mail me receipts, which is better, but obviously I don't want to give every merchant my e-mail address. I get enough junk mail without being signed up for every corporate newsletter they have just because I once bought one item in their store. I wish there was a way for the retailer to send me a PDF of the receipt in such a way that
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I wish there was a way for the retailer to send me a PDF of the receipt in such a way that the retailer wouldn't know my e-mail address
There is. It's called a throwaway address. Your provider (or your personal email system) could generate a new one for literally every purchase. That way you'd know precisely who the spammers were, and they'd have no idea what your actual address was. Several (or even several hundred) could be generated every time you had network access, so you wouldn't run out.
Reasonable environmental action, or ... (Score:2)
Just fuck off (Score:2)
mis-typed email address (Score:2)
So I can see this being an issue when you tell the cashier your email address and they enter it in wrong. Then when you need to return the defective product, you suddenly realize you never got the receipt. Now, you could hold up the line until you see it show in your inbox, but I've had mail be delayed 30+ minutes when there are issues in the pipes I can't be aware of. This is just going to lead to abuse from criminals and legitimate grievances from non-tech customers.
Old (Score:2)
/. Is showing its age. Receipts suck and are super inefficient for small business owners who buy things retail. Stop thinking about all the negatives. Iâ(TM)m sure someone can think of a non tracking way to get an electronic receipt on your phone in a standardized way.
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This can be done via QR codes or NFC to a phone without the need for them to have any of your information.
It's a good thing. I've been scanning receipts for years and sometimes retailers don't like copies, but you also can't realistically keep paper receipts for 10+ years either. Aside from anything the thermal printed ones degrade and become illegible.
Someone was moaning about it in the thread on LED lightbulbs with 10 year warranties yesterday. Digital copies are much easier to keep and organize.
Re:No man, like (Score:5, Insightful)
This can be done via QR codes or NFC to a phone without the need for them to have any of your information.
So... I'd have to have a smartphone (or have it with me) with a QR app and/or NFC enabled -- or give out my email address -- to buy something.
Good thing this law doesn't *ban* paper receipts (yet).
I imagine you're assuming using the phone for the purchase too, and I'm not discounting your solution, just pointing out that it's a little elitist.
On the other end of this spectrum, buying with cash and getting a paper receipt is anonymous and works for rich and poor people.
Re:No man, like (Score:4, Insightful)
just pointing out that it's a little elitist.
There is nothing "elitist" about cell phones.
95% of American adults have a cell phone.
87% of adults in Bangladesh have a cell phone, twice as many as have a toilet in their home.
For the few people that don't have a phone or email, they can still ask for a paper receipt.
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Until retailers, because no-paper is pushed so hard, stop keeping the facility to print receipts. I would like it better if this was a double-edged-sword kind of law. One that says:
1. Retailers can only print a receipt if the buyer requests.
2. Retailers MUST maintain the capability and print a receipt if a buyer requests.
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So, 174% of Bangladeshi adults have toilets?
That seems a bit high, but I'll take your word for it.
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Oh gosh. I'd had enough to drink to post shit, but not enough to get my usual clarity.
Thanks for the correction, brother.
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There is nothing "elitist" about cell phones.
95% of American adults have a cell phone.
But only somewhere from 30-50% of younger Americans do (not counting single-digit children.) A system which required cellphones would be prejudiced against the young. They make purchases, too.
For the few people that don't have a phone or email, they can still ask for a paper receipt.
For now...
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Here's a though genius, make the receipt smaller. Shock I know. Because:
"The American Forest and Paper Assn., a paper industry group that opposes the bill, estimates that the United States generates 180,000 tons of paper receipts each year. That, the group points out, is a small percentage of total paper waste."
So not really a problem is it Potsy....
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This can be done via QR codes
QR codes get you what all of a half k of data max? The receipt in form of QR code could not provide purchasing history by itself. It would have to be a pointer to a system that will track you when you access it.
NFC to a phone
Yea I want all of my purchases everywhere to be linked to me, aggregated and sold to the highest bidder to be used by retailers against me. Great idea.
It's a good thing. I've been scanning receipts for years and sometimes retailers don't like copies, but you also can't realistically keep paper receipts for 10+ years either. Aside from anything the thermal printed ones degrade and become illegible.
Who scans receipts? You have issues.
Someone was moaning about it in the thread on LED lightbulbs with 10 year warranties yesterday. Digital copies are much easier to keep and organize.
Wake me up when there is a global universal standard for digital receipts in the first place and then talk to
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Re:No man, like (Score:5, Funny)
"Where's your tattoo? Why come you don't have a tattoo?"
Banning solves all problems (Score:4)
What makes our California overlords think that all the world's problems can be solved by banning something...
Re:Banning solves all problems (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes our California overlords think that all the world's problems can be solved by banning something...
When the only tool you know how to use is a ban-hammer, all your problems look like nails...
Re: Banning solves all problems (Score:2)
Well the problem is, if the people you pay to ban things, continue to ban things every day, eventually they'll be so thorough, that there will be nothing left.
Re:Banning solves all problems (Score:5, Insightful)
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Humour? One hopes...