Re: Lets Beat on Bav Auto

[Steve.Goldstein@xxxxxxxxxx (Steve Goldstein)]

In Digest #763 Duane commented:

>>What's up with Bav Auto?  They lost over $200 of my business today by
>>declaring that they must have my home phone number.  When I told the
>>salesman that I don't give out my home phone (I already get enough sales
>>calls) he said he had to have it to process my order.  I told him no, all
>>he needed was my credit card and address.  No, says he; Bav Auto needs it
>>to verify my credit.
>
>Dan,
>
>Not that I'm a Bav Auto fan (I'm not, they are generally BMW-clueless
>amazingly enough), but the salesman is correct in this instance.  He does
>need your home phone number to verify that the 'ship to' address and your
>credit card address match on his terminal.  <snip>
>

Two points:

1) It has always been my understanding that merchants could not legally
   *require* customers to provide their telephone numbers.  Is this not true?
   Is it possibly true in some states and not others?

2) In the case of an unpublished telephone number, providing said number to
   the merchant will not help to confirm identity because they shouldn't be
   able to see it on their system.  If they can, then you've been paying
   extra to the phone company for naught!

Note there's a difference between "unlisted" and "unpublished".  Unlisted
means it's not in the book, but can be gotten by calling information.
Unpublished means it's supposed to be unobtainable in normal circumstances.

Steve

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