Phone number required before credit card accepted

Hi all,

I hope that this is the appropriate place for this post - if not please move it/send me a pm and I'll repost.

Some time ago I posted in Insurance about being refused an insurance quote on the basis of not allowing the company my phone number...well just thought that those of you who would like to pay your TV licence- as the ads encourage us to do and would like to use the automated system to do so - unless you give your phone number they won't proceed with your payment.
I spoke to a customer service agent and asked if it was An Post policy that customers buy a telephone before they may pay their licence by credit card - the answer was "if there's no phone we can't accept payment". Surely this makes a mockery of an individual's right to privacy - An Post have your name, address and credit card number and now they want your phone number as well - are people prepared to allow private information - non-relevant to our business dealings to continue to be collected by companies for their purposes and possibly for the purposes of any company that takes over An Post in the future. Or am I out on a limb here?

Just a final example to show that information retention does happen and is an issue - 10 years ago I worked for a company and held a company credit card the bill for which went to my home address. After I left the company I returned the card and both they and I cancelled it and my details - or so I thought. Last week, after 10 years of no contact, I got a statement from the credit card company telling me that I still have zero balance(whew). I rang the company and was told that due to a computer/printer error old information had been used to generate statements - I asked (again) that my details be erased and was assured that this would happen. Showing, that retention of private information does happen! Is this a culture that we want to allow to develop?

Sorry, but this looks like a Letting Off Steam issue to me, or maybe Legal and Financial. I'll let one of the other moderators make the call on whether it should be moved or not.

Just a word to explain the logic of putting it in this section - the heading being Consumer issues and I do feel that the collection, retention, and use of personal, private information by companies is an issue for consumers. Hope that this explains where I'm coming from.

All the best.

An Post may actually need your phone number to authorise the credit card payment. Sometimes the details you supply are checked by the authorising bank against the details on file for your card. This is to reduce fraud on "card not present" transactions.

If they don't need your phone number for this reason, give them a "fake" number.

MugsGame said:

An Post may actually need your phone number to authorise the credit card payment. Sometimes the details you supply are checked by the authorising bank against the details on file for your card. This is to reduce fraud on "card not present" transactions.

Click to expand...

You dont supply a phone number for buying online, which would be the same "card not present" transaction.

Depends on how much the merchant cares about fraud. Most of the web-sites I buy from do ask for phone numbers.

I certainly accept the point that there should be some consideration to prevent fraud but surely a merchant would authorise a transaction in advance of sending the goods/providing the service.
The key point is that it is personal information that is requested - the security digits on the back of the card were put there to provide an assurance against fraud and these could and should be used instead.
I'm sure that some of you may be aware of a BBC programme from some years ago that described the operation of some supermarkets that use customer profiling based on information that they acquired. I'm aware of a supermarket chain that introduced a time limit to car parking on their premises. To enforce this they employed a person to note the make,model and registration of all vehicles parked in the car park. This information was then uploaded to the supermarket's server each Friday for coding in a database. The point being that information about customers is worth money to companies. We haven't had the level of experience yet of the States where telemarketing companies call regularly and where our addresses are a merchantable commodity but the level of intrusion on peoples' private lives is increasing.

MugsGame said:

Depends on how much the merchant cares about fraud. Most of the web-sites I buy from do ask for phone numbers.

Click to expand...

"Yes Garda, The stolen credit card was used to purchase from the website, and here is the thief's fake telephone number"????????

Itchy, a variety of realtime fraud scoring and prevention measures are employed by merchants, credit card companies, and banks. These measures often involve the verification of cardholder details (such as the telephone number) supplied by the initiator of the transaction with the credit card number.

Some further information on the topic:
1. contacted IFSRA re insurance quotes and was told that the companies have wide latitude in attaching conditions and that if they deem it necessary to supply a telehphone number then no problem from IFSRA's pointof view.
2. IFSRA suggested a call to the office of director of consumer affairs. The ODCA told me that no problem in looking for a telephone number and that its not a consumer issue and suggested that data protection commissioner.
3. The DPC said that there's no issue in requesting the telephone number but that it should be deleted immediately after the transaction is complete - does this happen? Does anyone know?

From the Financial Services Ombudsman's [broken link removed]:

• Credit card anti fraud measures are appropriate even when they cause inconvenience

Click to expand...

Its all a load of bullocks really. If you try ordering from maplin.co.uk with a irish CC they will not accept it because we don't have postcodes and they can't check the billing address. They seem to use some sort of postcode verification system which only works with UK cards.
Another example is Dell. They say they won't ship to any address except the billing address. I got around this simply by putting in my CC number and the delivery address as the billing address, bold I knows but nothing happened and the laptop showed up ok at the address I wanted it at. So much for anti fraud measures.
I rang BOI CC centre who told me that they do not verify names or addresses for any merchants. They said it violates the DPA to release such info to the merchants.

I've never had problems ordering from Maplin, most recent one was just a few weeks ago. Many UK sites assume you have a post code and insist on the field being filled, generally sticking 'na' in there works.
Leo

bond-007 said:

I rang BOI CC centre who told me that they do not verify names or addresses for any merchants. They said it violates the DPA to release such info to the merchants.

Click to expand...

The usual verification process does not involve the card provider releasing any data. They simply give a 'yes' or 'no' response to verify the address provided by the cardholder/merchant.

RainyDay said:

The usual verification process does not involve the card provider releasing any data. They simply give a 'yes' or 'no' response to verify the address provided by the cardholder/merchant.

Click to expand...

They told me they would not confirm or deny the address.

the question is....should something be done about all this surplus personal information that's floating around about people? Any feelings on that?

bond-007 said:

Its all a load of bullocks really. If you try ordering from maplin.co.uk with a irish CC they will not accept it because we don't have postcodes and they can't check the billing address.

Click to expand...

Give them 0000 or 00000 as the postcode and it works fine.

Orga said:

the question is....should something be done about all this surplus personal information that's floating around about people? Any feelings on that?

Click to expand...

This is why I felt this would be a Letting Off Steam topic-what does it matter what people feel?

If IFSRA, the ODCA, the FSO and the DOC see nothing wrong with it, then what is their to do other than start campaigning for change? (and note that AAM is not the place for this).

Hi Orga,

I agree with you about extra information being required when not needed etc, however in this case the phone system isn't getting confirmation of a completed transaction before the call ends. So your number is required for an agent to do a callback if there was a problem with processing (eg: over spend limit or credit card company randomly requested additional details).