Dan Foster wrote:
Beats me why they'd require the SSN, especially since it was never
intended to be a national identification number, and I don't think the
Social Security system is a particular concern of the FBO...

The way it works is that there is nothing that prevents a
business from asking for it, and nothing that compels you
to give it (and nothing that compels the business to do
business with you either); most people are completely
careless with their privacy -- or more scary about any other
information, including information entrusted to them by, say,
customers -- and give any information to whoever asks. My
take, when asked for SSN by someone who has no legitimate
reason to be asking for it (i.e., anyone except the IRS,
employer, bank and unfortunately the DMV) is to put 'DO NOT USE'
as the answer, the worst that can happen is that you might have
to find another place to conduct your business (which is
not as bad as what could happen by giving away the info
carelessly); alternatively, if you feel like it, you could
also give away any number between 987-65-4320 and
987-65-4329 inclusive which are numbers used by the administration
to run tests and guaranteed never to be assigned to anyone...

oh well, here I go again, a pet peeve of mine :-))

--Sylvain