An anonymous reader writes "I've recently gone through hell with my ISP and everytime I call them up they want the last 4 digits of my SSN. WHY? Do they think someone is impersonating me to falsely report that my modem is getting no signal from Comcast?
This drove me mad enough that I called Qwest to set up DSL service, I thought they were charging too much, but I was willing to give it a try just so I could tell Comcast to pound salt. But they wanted my SSN too. I said no and the customer rep said he could try to get it approved without a SSN. After waiting about 10 minutes he came back and said I couldn't get DSL from Qwest without a SSN. This is despite the fact that I offered to pre-pay with a credit card. He said I might be a deadbeat who had skipped out on Qwest in the past.
The point here is that denying your SSN to private enterprises will likely result in you being unable to obtain these services.
If I'm offering cash in hand, or credit which is backed up by Visa/MasterCard or whoever, but refuse to give up my SSN why would you turn down my money?"
