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On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, Iain Poole wrote:

> At 12:53 AM 4/19/95 -0400, Daniel P Dern wrote:
> >Eric K Meyer, a.k.a. meyer@newslink.org, recounted:
> An interesting issue. Many people have been told by Radio Shack that they
> "must" give this info, or else they will refuse the sale, and there ARE
> cases on record where RS has actually meant it!
Actually, it depends on what you are buying.  Transmitters, Encryption 
Products, and Computers are discretely tracked by government agencies.  
99% of the time, no one cares.  Radio Shack also awards bonuses to the 
sales people for getting names, and penalties for not getting names.

> Just try telling them you don't have a telephone. What sort of social
> deviant are you - we don't sell anything to your type of people!!
It gets fun when I give out my Work/Message/Pager/Personal as one phone #.

> As far as I know they are the only company (reported on Usenet anyway)
> which has this policy; and it's most likely to be rigidly enforced by new
> or inexperienced salespeople who fear managerial wrath etc. Does anyone
> have more stories about this issue?
CompUSA gets wierd when you try to pay cash for certain items.  Again, I 
would guess that it was something that Uncle Sam was trying to track.

If you want to set of alarms in about 20 government agencies all at once 
register an internet domain in your 10 year old son's name :-).

> Iain 
Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Sun Apr 30 22:59:50 1995
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