Why are CVS receipts so long? (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Why are CVS receipts so long? (2018)

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73 pointsesalazar60 comments

Anything with toxic thermal paper immediately goes to the trash if I can help it. Other than arguably being bad for the environment (so much paper wasted) they can also be harmful to you simply from touch. E.g. "A significant increase in urinary total BPA concentration was observed for cashiers handling daily thermal paper receipts. " [1][2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927604/

[2] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/03/the-health-...

Does BPA exposure increase proportionally with receipt length? It would be interesting to, say, ink up your fingertips and then compare the area of ink transferred to different length receipts after handling them in a typical "toss into bag/pocket, skim when you get home, toss into trash" procedure.

I can’t stand when I go to Mcdonals and ask to hold the pickle. They print a grill order receipt and tape it to the burger. It is a little receipt that states no pickle. All I can think when I see them is their ink is rubbing off on my fries.

What I noticed last time at McD's, is that the ink literally rubs off from the colorful paper mat (on the tray) on which I have been putting ketchup and fries my whole life. Try rubbing it with your finger next time, yikes.

Did you expect that paper to be food grade? It isn't

It almost certainly is. Likewise for the dye.

fwiw, according to Dr. Gundry the buns and meat you are eating from McDonalds are carcinogenic and disrupt your hormones as well, so even if they didn't give you a receipt, you probably shouldn't be eating McDonald's anyway.

i'm a cashier right now. i coat my dominant hand fingertips with cyanoacrylate to lessen my exposure to BPA.

Does that not feel terrible? Superglue feels like the tactile equivalent of nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. Though I suppose it's better than exposure to BPA

I've wondered for some time why card processors don't have an API to accept receipt data so that they could handle storing receipts along with the transactions. It would be a little less wasteful but also allow some of the newer banks to create some interesting products. Your bank or card issuer already knows which store you visited, when, and where. Knowing what products your purchased doesn't add too much more dimension of creepiness onto their pile of data.

The Visa VCF format does this, but like any old legacy format, it can be a pain to work with. Data quality is up to the merchant, and consistency among merchants is lacking even within a single industry with documented attributes like travel tickets, which AFAIK is still the primary use case.

https://online.ogs.ny.gov/purchase/biddocument/22712rfp_VCF4...

My Amex card does this for purchases at Square terminals. There's a "view receipt" link next to the transaction on my statement that opens the Square receipt. I haven't seen it for anything else though.

You can also do it with iTunes receipts on your Amex card.

This would also be really useful for increasing automation of expense reports if you are using a corporate credit card.

Given how much advertising companies would pay for item level data I’m sure someone and the credit card companies is trying to make this a reality.

I’m in Denmark. Whenever I buy something using my contactless credit card, the app I have for mobile payments receives a digital receipt. Quite practical.

Home Depot does this with their card readers. I entered my email address once to send an emailed receipt, and forever after, if I use that same card, it will just send me an email with my receipt.

Note: this is not even a Home Depot card, it's just my everyday Visa card.

I've also seen this with anybody that uses Square - it can be a little surprising because I'll check my email and see a receipt for a random food truck that I got a hotdog from or things of that nature.

That's not the card processor receiving receipt data. It's the POS vendor doing their own thing.

But, similar outcome in terms of reducing paper.

Finally had to stop lurking here to share the good news... if you get the CVS app, buried within app settings is the option to go paperless. Once you do so, the registers won't even try to print a receipt which seems to confuse 10 out of 10 cashiers when they're about to ask if I want my receipt. Bonus points, receipts go directly to email.

Can also manage your prescriptions completely as well, a surprisingly easy user experience.

thank you amazing human

I wish we could just get rid of paper receipts by default. At the end of more or less every retail transaction, they kindly hand you a few inches (or feet) of trash, which is a waste.

Many places are kind enough to ask if you need the receipt, but it still prints out if you say no - the cashier just throws it directly away for you.

I get that some people need or want receipts for various reasons, but judging by the trash can outside many stores exits, many people don't want them. The world generates enough trash as is.

Walmart pay is great about this. All of my grocery receipts are easily accessible in the app, including a picture of the product in case the description isn't clear enough.

I believe that sometimes there are regulatory requirements to print receipts (as a transaction without a receipt is more likely to be cash-in-pocket tax avoidance).

My parents lived in Greece during the financial crisis, and at the time the tax agency would randomly audit people and require them to present 25% of their yearly income in the form of receipts. This was introduced as a way to get consumers to ask vendors for receipts (as a way to force them to input sales into their cash registers and book them as income)

Since we live in the future, they could just e-mail the receipt directly to the guy who checks their tax returns.

> I believe that sometimes there are regulatory requirements to print receipts (as a transaction without a receipt is more likely to be cash-in-pocket tax avoidance).

Though it is quite ironic that most original receipts don't last long enough for any audit purposes. In Australia businesses need to keep all receipts for 7 years (and for individuals it's 5 years), for tax audit purposes. But I have yet to encounter a paper receipt which lasts more than 2 years.

Yeah thermal paper is pretty terrible. Also make sure you don't forget one on the dashboard of your car on a hot sunny day... At least where I live scans of receipts are accepted so I just scan everything

In the UK it's common for high street shops to ask to email receipts instead of printing. Unfortunately this means giving out personal data. For those using gmail google can track all your highstreet purchase history.

For me, paper receipts are a quick and simple way to verify on-the-spot that the retailer hasn't screwed up the billing. If you're at the supermarket and everything is scanned by barcode, then everything's probably OK. If you're at a random mom-and-pop shop where product numbers and prices are entered into the POS by hand, well, cashiers are human beings, and we all make mistakes sometimes.

It would be nice if I could get an instant notification on my phone whenever my card is charged, itemizing the exact charges being added to my account, but today, that's a pipe-dream. Even then, paper receipts might be better because they keep that higher resolution of purchasing behavior private from my bank.

I'd agree that it would be a waste if I didn't get some kind of value from it. But I do. Whether society in aggregate gets enough of a benefit from it and whether more ecologically-friendly solutions are worth developing is a different question.

I can live with the long receipts. What I hate is the huge penalty for not having an affinity card. Safeway did that first, then Walgreens and CVS followed. Lucky doesn't do that, and I usually go there.

Years ago it was possible to get a Safeway affinity card by enrolling as "Safeway Shopper", without providing any additional information. I don't know if this is still possible.

That's helpful if you wish to opt out of the tracking. Of course, if you pay by credit card, even once, the company has now associated a name with that affinity card.

As I'm sure you know, Scott McNealy proclaimed this a few decades ago: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it". How remarkably prescient that was!

If the store lets you use your phone number instead of the card try (local area code) 867-5309. Somebody has usually registered it already.

A couple years ago, Safeway rolled out an app that contains the best deals. It's slowly becoming a situation where you can either use the app (and get tracked) or get reamed on pricing.

For anyone curious, same with Kroger in the midwest. I generally choose Meijer...they do digital coupons, but nothing dramatic. And they don't inflate their prices for 'nonmembers.'

What's special about 867 5309? Is it a reference to a tv show like 90210?

it is from a song. "Jenny" by Tommy Tutone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny

from 1981.

This has been bothering me for a long time, I learned from this article that you can disable receipt printing from the CVS app. Go into account settings and set email delivery to disable local print.

But then I would have to tell them my email address.

Get a dedicated email address/domain? Handy for lots of situations and makes you not have to worry about this again.

I use an older Gmail address that's already been spammed like crazy for things like this. If I need something from it, I can search the archive.

Right... your temporary, disposable e-mail address. Like mailinator.com, 10minutemail.com, and thousands of others. Out of the many online accounts I have, I don't think I have one tied back to my personal e-mail.

I don’t want to install their garbage app though.

In Australia, most cashiers will ask you if you want the receipt when paying and you can decline so that they don't print it.

I usually decline and only ask for a receipt if the total is over $100.

I've only shopped there once, and I wonder if this is subconciously why.

(More likely something to do with revision control I suppose.)

I think if they just added coupons to your cvs card and emailed you a summary it would be a better customer experience

Well if they are so opposed to long receipts, why did they publish such a long article to begin with? /s

tl;dr coupons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWlNesxOGrU #ObligatoryHedberg

Loved the writing of this article!

Still a lot less paper than a kids school notebooks.

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