Data Base Marketing: A Life Saver?

I have always been one of these "paranoid, big brother is coming" types who has been very vocal about online privacy. Because of this that I don't give my postal code out when stores ask for it and am pretty stingy about being on mailing lists. In general, dbase marketing as a consumer (note not marketer) makes me crazy. I don't want to be tracked and see very little value in it for me.

But that was before last week. What happened between then and now?

I belong to Costco. And I have to say, in spite of myself, i love Costco. It's around the corner from my house and always has something that I just can't seem to live without (can you say 40$ cashmere turtleneck sweater?).

Because they are a "member" only business, I have to use my Costco card every time i go there which means I'm tracked to the max. Now at first, this bothered me. But they assured me I would not get Costco mail (which I have not), Costco phone calls (which i have not) or any other annoying usual dbase marketing communication.

And in the past week, I've come to realize that dbase marketing could actually save my life. How?

For anyone not familiar with the story, Canada had the largest recall of food products in its history with Maple Leaf Foods recalling untold amounts of processed luncheon meats with the current death toll of 11 from the bacteria listeria.

I mentioned the food recall to Peter (the hubbie) who was up North and had bought a bunch of stuff at Costco before he left. He was sure that Costco meat was not on the recall list. I double checked and it's not (It's still not by the way). However, later on when i checked my voice mail, i had a phone call message from Costco saying that we had bought a Kirkland meat Pastrami which was from Maple Leaf Foods and should be thrown out immediately.

If anything was going to get me to change my mind that there is some value to dbase marketing, that moment was it. It might have saved our lives. Now if only they had ALSO refunded us the cost. :)