Online shops requesting ID

ChemicalGeek

I bought an Xbox online for my son the other day, and have now had a message from the shop asking me to provide them with a copy of either my driving licence or passport plus a utility bill before they process the order, as an anti-fraud measure.

Although they suggest you can cover sensitive items like the passport number, I don't want to send this type of information by email. They've not provided any information on how they will keep this secure, and I also don't see what use the document is to them if these numbers are covered - they can't check back to see that they are genuine and these documents could be easily faked.

Has anyone else been asked to provide this type of information?

googler

Who on earth are you buying it from...?

ChemicalGeek

They are called "Coolshop"

InsideInsurance

I have when I bought items from Germany but it is a very different market there with few people paying online but instead doing "cash on delivery". As that isnt an option for an international delivery they take extra precautions.

Given they are a Danish company it could be that they have similar set up

Hazzanet

I had a similar experience when attempting to purchase from Indigo.ca. I cancelled the order.

artbaron

Cancel immediately (IMO). That's absurd. I really don't like this concept spreading through the UK and Europe that the customer is a criminal until they can prove otherwise.

Gromitt

They just want to make sure you are the card holder before they'll process the order. Its better than just processing it anyway and finding out later that its fraudulent and having the money taken back off them by the bank.

If you do not want to supply such documents then you need to cancel the order and find somewhere else.

The company I used to work for did something similar: For orders of £100 or more, if your address didn't match with the registered card holders address, we asked for proof of address.

chanz4

A few places will, they used 192.com to verifiy or gb group

Gromitt

chanz4 wrote: »

A few places will, they used 192.com to verifiy or gb group

It's typically easier to use the Address Verification Service (ie, you include the address with your authorisation request and are told if the address matches).

A few other things that can trip up a "Prove who are you are" request:

Larger than normal orders
Ordering lots of the same item (depends on price)
Paying for the fastest delivery service (only if combined with others)
Ordering goods with a high resale value
Using free email services (particularly services such as mailinator, less so services such as gmail)
Only giving a mobile phone number
Requesting to ship to a PO box

So for example, if someone new ordered £100 of goods using a throwaway email address and mobile phone number, we would normally call them up to talk about their order. Even though it could be the same day, some people had no idea what they bought, or how much it cost - rings alarm bells.

lil.smartie

We had an order from Australia, paid via Paypal but not via a Paypal account, hotmail email, mobile phone no and mail box address, 2 orders 1 just under £1000 2nd exactly 24hrs (to the min) later for £50.. we asked for ID he got shirty when after a month he actually bothered to reply! We cancelled the order and the ID request was per Paypals suggestion!

Kate

[Deleted User]

Coolshop.co.uk's prices aren't that great.

4GB Xbox with Kinect - £219 from them, or £209 from Amazon.