SSN Required To Buy Palm Pre 543
UltraOne writes "Sprint requires your Social Security number in order to run a credit check before they will allow you to open an account, according to a store manager in Silver Spring, MD. Since Sprint is the exclusive carrier for the Palm Pre, if you are not willing to provide an SSN, you can't buy this product.
I believe a full credit check for this level of consumer purchase is a clear example of overkill. I have supplied an SSN when buying a house and renting an apartment, but never for any other consumer purchase. I have purchased my cars with cash so far, so I don't have first-hand experience, but a car loan also seems to be an appropriate place to require an SSN for a credit check. At the very least, Sprint should have an alternative for people who don't want to give out their SSN. I also found the entire experience a powerful argument against exclusive license agreements." Read below for details of this reader's experience.
I was eager to purchase the Palm Pre to replace my aging Zire 72s, and also consolidate my PDA and mobile phone into a single device. Since reviews have generally been positive, I headed to my local Sprint store (8501 Fenton Street, Silver Spring, MD). My current mobile carrier is Verizon, so I also needed to set up service with Sprint.
The store had the Pre in stock, and the sale proceeded smoothly until the sales associate asked me for my Social Security number. He had already verified my identity with a driver's license. When I asked why the SSN was needed, he said it was to run a credit check. I offered a credit card instead, but he said that the SSN was required.
I asked to speak to the manager, who was a pleasant young woman, but not able to resolve the problem. She confirmed that Sprint required the SSN to run a credit check (through a credit bureau) before opening an account. I told her that I understood Sprint had an interest in making sure that I could pay for the service (I was planning to get the $70/month Everything Data 450 plan), but that I was concerned about identity theft and privacy. I offered several other options, including a check on my credit card limit, which is an order of magnitude greater than the combined price of the phone and two-year contract; placing the maximum deposit that Sprint requires from people with poor credit ($500); or pre-paying the entire two-year plan on the spot. None of these was acceptable options, so Sprint lost the sale.
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a cellphone provider that doesn't require you to provide your SSN before signing up for a contract?
how much does cost a SSN on black market ? (Score:5, Insightful)
a stolen valid credit card number and SSN costs pretty nothing.
if SSN requirement is to protect from stolen identity, it won't simply work.
They continue to fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Eventually, one of these manufacturers (I'm looling at you Nokia) is going to break ranks and stop signing exclusive deals. They'll actually make phones with a price point that is reasonable (ya know, like the god damn iPhone is outright? how the hell has Apple become the low cost option you greedy bastards?) and sell directly to consumers. Retail really isn't that hard these days.. just provide a web only shop.. then cave a few years later and open emporiums.
Welcome to the watchlist (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, perhaps mobile contracts require a SSN these days in order that you can more easily be monitored by law enforcement. In which case, you're SOL till they're on sale SIM-free.
It's pretty likely they'll be unlockable soon enough, and then you'll see them on ebay. You're obviously willing to pay a premium, so keep your eyes open.
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is that he made a more than reasonable effort to purchase their product without releasing personal details. They chose not to make the sale of a new phone; and the chose not to receive full, on the spot payment of a two year contract for want of his SSN. They didn't need it at that point, and lost a pretty good chunk of change.
It's a Trap (Score:1, Insightful)
Asking for that SSN to run a credit check is half of the problem. The second half is that credit is the worst thing to happen to working people and society as a whole. Almost all of us would be better off if we had really lousy credit ratings, Instead we have gotten to the point that we must have credit to house ourselves, to transport ourselves and now to simply get a phone. Wage slave is not a goal that one wants to reach. End credit and watch the prices of homes, cars etc. fall to reasonable levels.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a cellphone provider that doesn't require you to provide your SSN before signing up for a contract?
I suppose I can understand the requirement for SSN and/or Drivers License number for a credit check.. barely. Because, after all, you are signing a contract to keep paying for it, like leasing a car.
But what bothers me is that they KEEP IT ON RECORD. Sprint asks you to confirm the last four digits of your SSN when you call customer service. This allows them to profile you, potentially sell it (legal or not), and more likely have it STOLEN and then sold/used for nefarious purposes.
Why do they retain this information? Because it is valuable to collect information whether they know what to do with it or not. I think the risks for abuse are scary and NOT worth it. But, they don't care. Not until something bad happens and they get hoards of angry customers.
So ... many people are irresponsible (Score:4, Insightful)
So the gist of this story is that the submitter doesn't understand finance?
A Palm Pre, or any other smartphone, costs a boat load and is subsidised by the carrier, but you need a contract to pay back the cost of the phone. In effect you are getting a $400 - $800 loan, depending on the device, the phone, and the contract/amount it is subsidised.
Now normal loans (not just "car loans" which are just one type of typically unsecured loan) usually have a credit check because it would be stupid to lend money to someone with a credit history that is all arrears and defaults. The poster probably doesn't realise that many, many people actually live life in debt, arrears and defaulting, and that a simple credit check can remove a lot of risk for the phone companies.
The obvious solution in this case is to allow someone to buy the Palm Pre at full price, and then supply them with a rolling contract (without subsidy cost factored in).
Re:So ... many people are irresponsible (Score:4, Insightful)
So the gist of your post is that you don't read the story? In particular, this part:
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't requiring the SSN illegal? What does social security have to do with a cellphone contract?
Re:Welcome to the watchlist (Score:5, Insightful)
If the SSN is there to verify credit, and only to do this, then a full up-front payment should utterly negate this need
So how much should that up-front payment be? Let's set it at $25,000 just in case you make $24500-worth of calls before you default on payment.
Re:Welcome to the watchlist (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I do IT stuff for a regional Verizon dealer. (Please note that this is neither Sprint, nor related to a Palm Pre.)
AFAICT, in working amongst the sales staff, an SSN is required for any (non-prepaid) phone. Even if you pay for the handset outright. It's even a prerequisite for any account changes (or at least the last four digits are).
Why? Because they're going to bill you, after the fact, for the services that you've used, and they just want to make sure that you're (likely to be) good for the money when the bill comes. Hence credit checks, and/or a deposit if your credit rating is poor. (Not every company is so friendly as Dreamhost, who will send you reminders about the money you owe them for months and months while still continuing to service the wayward account as usual.)
Just like any other utility. The power company here wants to do a credit check before they'll give me service, so does the local (landline) telco, and the gas company, and my banker, and my previous landlord(s), and... It's just to establish merit. Fail the credit check, and get asked to put a deposit in. Pass, and you skip the deposit and move on with life. End of story.
Of course a credit check is in Sprint's interest to conduct whenever a phone (on a month-to-month plan) is sold, and (AFAIK) such credit checks need an SSN to complete.
Nothing to see here, folks; move along (and throw away that fucking tinfoil hat while you're at it).
Re:Welcome to the watchlist (Score:5, Insightful)
So how much should that up-front payment be? Let's set it at $25,000 just in case you make $24500-worth of calls before you default on payment.
Put a credit cap on your account at $100 a month. It's not rocket science.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's infuriating is that the last four digits are the most important; the first 5 are determined based on time and place of birth.
Which is precisely why asking for the first five would be a completely ineffective to ascertain your identity.
Re:And? (Score:1, Insightful)
Certainly not come across one in the UK at least.
Sounds more like the person in TFA has just awoken from a coma and entered the 21st century.
To be honest, I don't even think a credit check is unreasonable, you can rack up a pretty hefty bill on a mobile phone and yet lots of people from all walks of life want one. There's bound to be a lot of people out there who'd gladly sign up to it, not have any kind of self control whatsoever, rack up a $1000 bill and then be completely unable to pay it because they're the same people who also managed to max out their credit cards too.
I understand it sucks having to hand it over, but I'm not sure what the answer is from their perspective otherwise - simply trust everyone and ultimately get screwed because many people really just can't be trusted which is partly why the world is in the current financial system it is in the first place?
If you don't want to pass details over the pay as you go option is there. Can't get the best handsets on it? Well that's because they're subsidised by your contract and they sell so few at their real price it probably isn't worth selling them as pay as you go at all.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I've been concerned that I will run into the same thing with switching and getting an iPhone....but, to get around that...gonna do it through my company I formed to do contracting through. I'd be ok giving my EIN, rather than my SSN.
I just do not give SSN out, I'll pay deposits no problem, but, I don't give out SSN. Sure it is a bit of a hassle with utilities, but, it can be done.
Credit Rating Agencies in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not beyond the wit of the credit reference agencies to identify a US citizen from stuff other than the (it appears horribly abused) SSN?
I mean, if Experian can manage it in the UK (Name, Address, DOB is usually enough to identify you with the CRA,) why can't they do it in the US?
Or is this just simply laziness on the part of the CRAs?
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's infuriating is that the last four digits are the most important; the first 5 are determined based on time and place of birth.
Which is precisely why asking for the first five would be a completely ineffective to ascertain your identity.
SSNs were never intended to provide identification, and with flaws like this it's no wonder they weren't.
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, most plans I see have 1000's of anytime minutes as a minimum...with nights and weekends free....and long distance is free too. How do you run up such high bills with all that time?
By purchasing songs, ringtones, texting, sending photos, and possibly in rare cases, 1-900, and other premium numbers.
SSN = National ID Number (Score:4, Insightful)
Where have YOU been? Didn't you know that over the past 20 years, the SSN has turned into the National ID Number? It doesn't matter that there was EXTREME concern that this might happen way back when the SSN was invented, it happened anyway.
Your right to privacy and anonymous purchasing disappeared a long time ago, so get used to it. "Credit checks" were just the first step. After that, it was manipulated for tax purposes. Then it spread to all kinds of interesting other "must have" situations or they refuse service. Even several doctor's offices I went to (and no, they weren't running a credit check nor was I on Medicare/Medicaid) HAD to have my SSN. PROSPECTIVE employers insist they HAVE to have the SSN. Movie rental places seem to think they HAVE to have your SSN. It took MANY YEARS of fighting before the citizens in my state FINALLY had the SSN removed as the mandatory driver's license number.
The package will be nice and complete once the Fed starts to force collection of fingerprints and DNA from everyone; it is coming... Most Americans don't have any understanding about privacy and security. "If you have nothing to hide" and all that, is the typical, brainless, response.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't buy it.
If you don't want to sell me something on sensible terms, I don't want to buy. Supply has to match demand at least at a nominal level, if it does not, no sale.
I dunno, when did we get so desperate to buy that we bent over backwards on whatever our possible business partner wants? I could see it for food or shelter, but for electronic gadgets? First, I lived without one so far, I will be able to survive without one. I have proof that I can (I lived so far). Second, my life depends on many things, but not on this one.
Bottom line: I will survive without you as my supplier. Will you survive without me as your customer?
The Pre is exclusive by design... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's less about "because you are signing a contract" than it is because they are, in point of fact, extending you credit, in the form of allowing you to rack up usage charges that they will bill you for after the fact. They may not disclose what your credit limit is on that front, but believe me, behind the scenes, that number -- how far into usage charges they will let you get without payment -- has been calculated to the penny and stored in your account info.
Why do they retain this information? Like any other creditor they know that your credit situation changes, and they will periodically 're-check' your credit to see if their internal number for your credit-worthiness needs to be adjusted up or down as time goes on.
Put the tin-foil hats away, folks. Until you come up with a better system for identifying consumers to credit agencies, there's "nothing to see here."
So you have surrendered to the erosion of personal privacy, personal rights and personal integrity; I haven't and neither has the author of the post. You may be one of those willing to trade your rights for convenience. I too would refuse my Social Security number.
Social Security - just think about what that was supposed to mean and what it has become to mean.
"offered no acceptable options" vs "refused to" (Score:1, Insightful)
Sprint requires from people with poor credit ($500); or pre-paying the entire two-year plan on the spot. None of these was acceptable options,
We've been through this with the iPhone already. The law prevents them from requiring your ssn as terms of a sale. They can request it, but must offer an option, usually in the form of a much larger down payment or deposit. It's not uncommon for sales staff to not be educated on this policy since it's rarely invoked. From the sounds of it, you protested, and did finally get offered the option, which you turned down. You lose the right to complain.
Quite simply put, there's no law that says they're required to offer you an "acceptable option".
Re:how much does cost a SSN on black market ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we can all agree that the SSN is perhaps the only "GUID" available in the US and that we really need such a thing for commerce. The problem is that this GUID we all love has been compromised and is no longer reliable without a private key (i.e. a super-lock on your credit history). The country needs a new GUID that is designed for commerce, privacy, and security from the start.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you have surrendered to the erosion of personal privacy, personal rights and personal integrity; I haven't and neither has the author of the post. You may be one of those willing to trade your rights for convenience. I too would refuse my Social Security number.
So you only use pre-paid cellular, do not use credit cards or take out loans, or any other transaction that requires interacting with a credit agency?
How's that working out for you? Seriously. Living a life without interacting with the credit agencies in this day and age is difficult, and I'd like to know what you have to give up (like discounts on phones in exchange for contracts, etc) in order to keep your SSN completely private. (Where Completely = You, your employer, your health insurer (if you have one) and the gov't.)
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
...with absolutely no limits due to being able to rack up hours and hours calling "premium" numbers...
That sounds like a technical problem that can be easily solved by the cell provider. I can find out how many minutes I've used as of right now, why would it be so difficult to restrict access to premium numbers based on the account type?
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
They do.
I presume you're in the continental US.
Go to Canada.
Go to Mexico.
Go to Hawaii.
Voila. Roaming charges.
Re:And? (Score:1, Insightful)
You're talking about Capitalism, friend.
And you're absolutely right.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which leads me to wonder, why in the hell the cellphone companies feel entitled to that kind of invasive questioning now, when it costs them so little to provide many of the most egregiously abused billable services. Texting, which they'll gladly charge thousands of dollars shaking down teens costs them precisely nothing to provide.
Re:"offered no acceptable options" vs "refused to" (Score:5, Insightful)
Try re-reading your excerpt in context. Those were options the poster offered to the sales rep, and it was the sales rep who wouldn't accept them.
Re:Welcome to the watchlist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"offered no acceptable options" vs "refused to" (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice cherry picking there. The poster said these were his offers to Sprint (along with some others), which they did not find acceptable:
I offered several other options, including a check on my credit card limit, which is an order of magnitude greater than the combined price of the phone and two-year contract; placing the maximum deposit that Sprint requires from people with poor credit ($500); or pre-paying the entire two-year plan on the spot.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to sound too brusque, but you do realize that was a complete d1ck move to do to the people working in the store, right? To prevent fraud and abuse, they're not allowd to make exceptions. They clearly could have been fired for violating company security and financial policy in approving someone with insolvent credit. And getting fired happens all the time: having worked retail before, you become expendable hours that gets thrown out at the drop of a hat.
As the poor low-level suckers who got stuck working in the retail arm of the company, even if they could authorize a transaction like that (hint: they can't) they probably didn't even have a way in their system to accept all of the money up front. So kicking up a stink in the store for 2 hours is mostly just making their (and your) life miserable for something they probably can't do, and if they could they'd probably get fired for doing it.
When you encounter situations like that, please quickly escalate to their customer service lines or head office. Directly interact with people who *can* actually do something about it. But railing on the poor floor people is just unnecessarily causing discomfort in an already crappy job, without any chance of success, due to a fundamental misunderstanding of how retail works.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you hear this? This is the world’s smallest violin playing.
Customers don’t walk into retail stores to please the staff and give them a job; no, they walk in to be pleased BY THE STAFF by plunking down good money and — GASP! — BUYING STUFF FROM THE STORE!!!!
FCC (Score:3, Insightful)
You're talking about Capitalism, friend.
NO.
This is a government created and enforced monopoly (see FCC).
Try tossing a tower in your back yard to provide cell service to your neighborhood and see how quickly the FCC comes knocking.
If you can't enter the market without buying a license from the government then it's not really capitalism.
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me guess. He's still a newborn... Less than a year old?
You'll be thrilled come next April and you find out that you don't get the $3650 tax deduction for having a dependent unless the dependent has a SSN.
No, they're not required, but you're going to pay tens of thousands of dollars over the next 18+ years to keep him from having one. And for what? So he can sign up for one himself as soon as he realizes it's required to be a full member of our society?
Re:FCC (Score:4, Insightful)
Incorrect - if you can't enter the market without paying the government then it's like any other market - there are barriers to entry. That doesn't make it 'not really capitalism'. If those barriers to entry are 'no because we said so' then that's not capitalism because there cannot be a market.
'Monopoly' is a capitalistic term.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
But did that actually cost Sprint very much? If not, who cares if you cannot pay the bill? As long as you can at least pay enough to cover Sprint's costs, it shouldn't be a big deal for them if you simply owe them a lot of money.
If you're not happy with the terms, then don't sign the contract. Presumably you're an adult, spending your own money and legally competent to handle your own affairs. Clearly you understand the service agreement, so you can't say you've been tricked. Sprint has no hold over you except that which you willingly grant them. And a valid contract asks nothing of you except to abide by the terms you willingly accepted.
Sprint is in business to make money by providing products and services. They attempt to choose appealing products and then charge what the market demonstrates it is willing to pay. You're perfectly free to disagree and vote with your wallet: Reject their offer and buy a competing product/service from another party who for these exact same reasons is just as eager to have you as a customer. But, unless you invest as stockholder, putting your own money on the line, it's really none of your concern how much profit any company "deserves" to make.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the employees are there to serve you doesn't mean you should bitch at them to do something beyond their power. Nobody is going to put their job on the line for your insane privacy needs.