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Comment by Username_TBD | Hacker News Reader

Home Depot lets you sign up to have your receipts emailed to you. Turns out if you do this they will send what you purchase to Facebook with your email, which was connected to my account.

I use Firefox to avoid being tracked by Facebook, and never login with Facebook. But it looks like I slipped up in signing up for email receipts!

Even if I didn't have a Facebook account, Facebook would still be building a profile on me using my email address /phone number in anticipation of the day I made an account.

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I hate this whole new way of handling receipts.

If you order via kiosk in Taco Bell, you have your receipt ONLY by text message or email. Yep. No print out option.

HOWEVER, if you order via cashier, you CAN print it out.

Hard to sympathize. Paper receipts seem like one of those wasteful pointless relics of a bygone era that can't die soon enough.

"I bought a donut and they gave me a receipt for the donut. I don't need a receipt for the donut. I give you money and you give me the donut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a donut." --Mitch Hedberg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWx6uA5aCrE

Mitch Hedberg is great, but I've expensed Dunkin Donuts while traveling for work many-a-time. And HR/Accounts Payable definitely want to see a receipt... even for a donut.

I've never understood expensing trivial stuff like that. It's far more effort than it's worth, in my opinion.

In an isolated instance, sure. But for those who live on the road, 5 bucks a day (minimum) would add up quickly enough. Those people are usually going to be doing the paperwork for other expenses anyway, so just tag it on.

Prefer a per diem rule. This can be a problem if you're my friend who services CT scanners around the globe because cost of living varies so much (the same price of overnight stay in two cities is the difference between a nightmare hostel and 5 star luxury) but if you mostly do the same trips especially in country a rule that says here's say $20 per day for food is easier than collecting and uploading receipts for every burger and coke.

It's easier for you, and instead of fighting expenses abuse and having a bunch of workers to check the expenses paperwork the business just has an understandable cost when it sends people to do their jobs.

My accountant gets upset if I don't expense stuff like that. If you go on a business trip and don't buy the kinds of stuff the government expects you to buy, then they start to question whether or not you actually went on the business trip. It's not so difficult to book a room somewhere and then change the booking or get a refund. But if you are saying that you went to SomeCity and you buy Dunkin Doughnuts in SomeCity, it keeps the auditors happy. I'm always getting in trouble for that (especially for things like local train tickets, bus tickets, etc, etc).

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