theevaluator
Member
Registered: Sep 2003
Location:
Posts: 3 |
hey all,
long time lurker, first time poster.
i'm facing kind of a dilemma here- which is that i would like to pre-order one of these from larry at dreampages, because there is perhaps a 20 percent chance based on Ingram's inventory information that larry might actually receive one before i can lay hands on one.
the problem is that larry wants me to photo-copy my DRIVERS LICENSE, and then photo-copy my credit card, and then sign this and fax it to him...
i'm not sure how you guys feel about this, but because i've worked with computers all my life, and having kind of a security background- this strikes me as slightly insane, and identity theft waiting to happen.
now larry seems like a nice guy, and he's been very responsive, but he explained to me that this fax would be kept in a locked file cabinet- which is not really confidence inspiring, considering 90% of identity theft and credit card fraud occur in situations where employees have access to things like that.
my other issue is that larry must assume even if i was insane enough to photo copy this sensitive financial information and actually fax it to him, where it might lay around on the fax machine for people to peruse, that i have a flat bed scanner/copier, which unfortunately my little hp is not...so i'm not able to actually copy this information without a trip to kinko's or somewhere- all of this after i filled out his SSL encrypted order form on his site!
this seems to defeat the whole purpose of buying something online!
i'll be attending the mission impossible event in san francisco this week, i know my local t-mobile rep, and i generally have no issue paying a pretty healthy premium on ebay for something, (as i did for my sony ericsson p800 almost a year ago) rather than waiting, so i'm not too worried about being able to get one.
now larry explained how he faces fraud and fake credit card charges all the time, and i can sympathize with his plight- and i would take the risk perhaps if larry knew these things were coming in spot on the 10th, and so on, but this is what i would consider extremely high risk, for possibly no return- what if i get a treo somewhere else? what happens to that fax with my life on it? does it sit in that locked cabinet for a year? is it destroyed?
some of the main vendors i regularly purchase from online don't require these kinds of things, (outpost, amazon, buy, computers4sure.com) so i wonder if they just deal with the hassle, or if smaller distributors like larry are preyed on more because of the channels they sell through.
anyways, interested in your thoughts- or even if any of you have been victims of identity theft before, or how you feel about smaller merchants demanding the extra hassle to protect themselves...
again, this post is not meant to be derogatory to larry or his numerous commerce sites, (dreampages) who appear to btw have good ratings in yahoo stores, better business online certs, and who has been responsive to my emails.
andre salazar
san francisco, ca
---------------------------------
UPDATE-
well i just exchanged another email with larry, and it looks like i can pay him via paypal, because i'm a registered member, so hopefully it will all work out-
i'm still interested in your opinions on this issue though- and my thanks to larry and dreampages.
Last edited by theevaluator on 09-30-2003 at 10:02 PM
|
09-29-2003 11:57 PM
T-Mobile corporate contact
Email This Page to Someone! |
Receive updates to this thread
]