your Loblaws gift card
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
For 14 years, Loblaws fixed the price of bread and ripped off Canadians. Its secret is out and is hoping a $25 gift card will fix everything. But it is making Canadians submit sensitive personal information just to access their gift card.
This is the last straw. Tell Loblaw's CEO to stop demanding personal information and give a fair payback to Canadians.
A,
For years, Loblaws fixed the price of bread, a staple food for many Canadian families. When its secret got out it offered a limited amount of $25 gift cards to try to gloss over this massive PR nightmare. But now that... the cards are rolling out, many Canadians are being asked to provide personal information -- like their driver’s licenses -- in order to access the gift card.
Even the Privacy Commissioner is asking why Loblaws is forcing customers to submit sensitive personal information in order to access their gift card -- and it has just launched an investigation.
The gift card, and its identification requirements, are a slap in the face to working Canadians who were stolen from to line Loblaws' pockets. And demanding personal ID goes even further to show that Loblaws is not acting in good faith to repay Canadians. At this point, how can Canadians trust a company that defrauded them for $1 billion to destroy this sensitive information?
Loblaws billionaire CEO Galen Weston needs to drop the identification requirement immediately and apologize to Canadians -- and promise real compensation to the Canadian families that lost from this scheme.
Loblaws pocketed an estimated $1 billion in profits from defrauding Canadians. And just-released analysis suggests the average Canadian family lost $400 in this price-fixing scheme.
Galen Weston, the CEO of Loblaws -- the company behind Atlantic Superstore, the Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills, Dominion, Zehr's and Maxi and Cie in addition to brands like No Name, Joe Fresh, President's Choice -- is sitting on a family fortune estimated to be worth $13 billion, and in 2016 alone his compensation totalled more than $5 million. In the last quarter of 2017 when the news of this scandal broke, Loblaws announced earnings of $883 million in profits -- a 110.7 percent increase from the year prior.
Despite this, Loblaws' payout to Canadians is expected to total just $75 to $150 million. And for systematically defrauding Canadians, that's chump change.
Loblaws worked hand in hand with other grocery giants including Walmart, Sobey’s and Metro to pull the wool over Canadian's eyes and take money right out of their pockets. The ones who suffered most from this are low and fixed-income Canadians like seniors and those with disabilities. It's appalling that corporations profited on the backs of Canada's most vulnerable.
The Competition Bureau is investigating these crimes, but Loblaws already received immunity from prosecution. We need to make sure that Loblaws appropriately compensates Canadians, instead of making them provide personal information to receive a measly $25 gift card.
SumOfUs has taken on grocery giants before. We've taken on Walmart time and time again for intimidating workers, to support women who work at Walmart in their fight for equal pay, reliable hours, and paid family leave and more. We've also put pressure on US grocery store chains to get bee-killing pesticides off shelves, and we've taken on food waste of some of Europe's largest grocery chains.
We know that when many of us come together we can hold corporations like Loblaws to account.
Thanks for all that you do,
Emma, Amelia and the team at SumOfUs
P.S. Privacy experts in Canada are urging Canadians to not submit their personal data to Loblaws. They recommend you refuse to provide this data, and contact the Privacy Commissioner if you receive such a letter. To read more, check out this piece in Maclean's.
More information:
Loblaws’ price-fixing may have cost you at least $400, Macleans, 11 January 2018.
After overcharging for bread, should Loblaws demand ID for a $25 gift card?, CBC, 18 March 2018.
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