Do they want my business?

Last night, I tried to buy a digital camera over the net. I buy thousands of pounds worth of stuff online every year, but I'd never used this particular company before. The price was OK, and they had the camera in stock, allegedly. I was a bit put off when the checkout process kept adding extras to the bill without asking (a loyalty card for £14?!!) but I removed them and completed the checkout. All seemed well, until I checked my mail this morning and found the following:

Dear Mr X

In our bid to reduce fraud on the internet, we have issued new measures of security.
To proceed with your order we will need some extra details from you.

If you are opting for delivery to the same address as your invoice address, please send us something that has your name and address on it from the following :

• A copy of your driving licence, OR
• A copy of your social security card, OR
• A copy of your bank statement, OR
• A copy of your council tax bill, OR
• A copy of a recent utility bill.

If you are opting for delivery to a work address, please send us :

• A copy of your passport, driving licence or recent utility bill, AND
• Company letterhead or business card, with switchboard number that we can call to verify that you work there.

If you are opting for delivery to a private address that differs to your billing address, please send us:

• A copy of your passport, driving license or recent utility bill, AND
• A copy of a driving licence, recent utility bill, or something else that has the name and address of the person who will accept delivery.

This can be sent to us either by fax on 00 33 1 nnnn nnnn, or by replying to this email with either jpeg, pdf or gif attachments.
We do not accept mobile phone bills or online statements. If you have not already done so, please provide us a daytime landline contact number.
We are sorry about the inconvenience this may cause you. These measures are intended for our customer's protection, due to the large amount of credit card fraud on the internet, and to allow us to quickly reimburse anyone who has been a victim of a fraudulent transaction.


Since I don't own a scanner, fax machine or photocopier, this was going to be inconvenient to say the least. I was also uncomfortable about the security implications of sending all this stuff to some firm I'd never done business with before. That fax number was also an international call (I'm in the UK, that's a French number). So, I emailed them back and told them to cancel the order, I'll go somewhere else that doesn't give me so much hassle. I can't believe that they'll stay in business if they go on behaving like this.