Last time I bought something at Dunhelm Mill in the UK:
"Can I have your email address so we can send you the receipt?"
"Lol, no."

Edit to add: OP should have said: "Coincidentally, my name is Cash. Johnny Cash."

"I'm Devin Null, but I prefer Dev, I live at 777 segfault drive, phone number (192) 168-0101."

Hopefully someone is going to lose a day tracking that down when they validate the database.

Yeah, places have done that on and off since the 2000's. Brick and Mortars want your data just as much as online places.

It's always been easy to just say no and move on and if they insist because their managers are corporate junkies, I've always given out random area code + Jenny's number along with any given random name. Dirk Diggler will live on buying things as long as I live.

Bruno is my go-to name. No matter where I am in the world, Bruno sounds right.

My doctor's office had a space on the form you fill out when you come in that said nickname. So just for fun I put in Your Royal Highness. I didn't realize that was the name they called when they were ready for you to Go to the exam room. They had to repeat it twice before I noticed.

No they're gathering data to sell you shit. Fuck them, the employees may be mandated to ask for it though so don't be hard on them. Feel free to lay into management if they make a stink about it.

I live near a microcenter and they are like this. I had to pick up an Ethernet cable and I just paid cash. When I didn't want to tell them my phone or email the cashier looked at me like I kicked a puppy.

Well you see now this is just a but embarrassing... my name is actually "Fuck-Home-Depot"

It's not your fault, but it's also not the cashier's fault.

Their boss signed up for some shitty customer management app under the guise that you can get online receipts or see high-value customers and sell to them.

Best you can do it no, sorry I don't want to give out my information, If i'm going to be tracked, I'll just buy it online.

No, not wrong. But I usually give a silly name, like Glutomis Maximus! Yes, there is an exclamation point in the name.

Had a server who laughed at this and retorted, "oh, so it is an ironic name, like they called the bald stooge Curly."

Yes, I have no ass. Bitch. I am going to tip you so hard now. 30%.

"So the cashier will call you by name" means they don't care if it's your real name, just react when they call it.

First thought was that they were flirting with you.

...I guess not though.

No. This is the way.

Not wrong at all. More people need to learn to say no instead of mindlessly complying to every request.

Like the guy at Walmart that wants to look at your receipt when you leave. I just say "no thank you" and keep on walking.

I work in retail at a small business. Our boss wants us to get the name and email of everyone we can. He's got some belief that it's useful. It is nice to get someone's name just so we can connect a receipt to a name in case of a return. None of us really push it much though, I don't even ask if people are buying something small.

You're not weird or paranoid. They're assholes. I have a catch-all email address for my mail domain, so I test clerks who ask on those rare occasions. "BestBuyCanSuckmyBalls@mydomainname.tld."
It's entertaining to see the look they get when they're faced with typing it in or just taking my fucking cash.

I used to work for a major outdoors chain, and since so many cashiers would just skip past the phone number prompt to speed things up, corporate started tracking a cashier's phone number capture rate, and if it fell below like 95% it counted against the cashier in their evaluations.

I just got good at making up random numbers using local area codes.

I don't think you will find someone on Lemmy who thinks you were in the wrong here. Unless you are buying something that is legally regulated and requires you to identify yourself there is no good reason to be demanding personal identifying information. I always just say "no thank you, I get enough junk mail and spam already" and try to keep it friendly. Every once in awhile they might insist and I tell them I am not going to do that and then they give up. I think most cashiers are at best ambivalent about their employer and don't really care about enforcing company policy, as long as you are friendly and respectful they would really rather just drop the issue and move on with their job.

It's for the coupons!

I would just play the witchy card, true names have power. Plus im onto that fey crap, you may not have my name, you can call me John. Now would you mind holding this iron horseshoe?

And no your not wrong, refusing to feed the infromation economy is the first steps to freeing yourself from it. It is effort, the modern world has too many traps, but you can do it.

My name's Mantis Toboggan, and my phone number is 8647 6767

No some shit is stupid. I once took 20 minutes on phone trying to cancel ADT because "I had to give a reason" to which I refused.

Why the heck did they ever need to call your name? For stuff like starbuck, sure, but then it's entirely unnecessary since number can works too. These practices are unnecessary as heck and work as a way to gather data. Unless required by law(pharmacy, for tax reason, etc), If any shop asked for name/phone i would've just say no, if that's unacceptable i would walk.

A new water company (currently the government want to privatise these) was checking water meters last week. long story short they broke one and the cap on the hole keeps popping up outside my house on the pathway. Rang them today to tell them about it "what's your address?"

I had to obviously give them that - I guess I could've said I was a neighbour, and just given them the location. Wanted my name and phone number. I said "I don't want or need to give that, I am just telling you about the manhole cover."

"I need to get your name and phone number to continue"

"I don't know my phone number, my name is private Jones. I have been put on hold two times already. a lady and a child already tripped over this cover, I don't care if you can't continue. I have given the information, and it won't be me that anyone sues if they break something tripping over it."

I stayed polite and we ended the conversation. but holy shit. You are not wrong to not give it to them. They are wrong for persistently asking for it.

Saul Goodman 1 (505) 503-4455

Machine Mart (UK) has done this for decades. Back in the day, before the internet was a thing, they would use this database to send catalogues. I became suspicious of it and started providing bogus names. They currently greet me as Yuri Tarded and I say 'not so bad yourself'

Local area code + 8675309. Used it since the early 00's. As an added bonus, many places have discounts set up for that number.