Yeah I've run into that. End up finding locals to buy phones for me. In this case (~2006) T-Mobile was insisting that American Express would not process my cha

Yeah I've run into that. End up finding locals to buy phones for me. In this case (~2006) T-Mobile was insisting that American Express would not process my charge if T-Mobile didn't submit my SSN along with the charge. Which is obviously just false (Amex verified this to me). A funnier thing I've seen in Guatemala is that many places will ask you to write your phone number down on the CC voucher. They say it's for "security", as if someone using a stolen card would provide their real number. They don't verify the number as they just take it along with the signature, they just make a big fuss to get something written down.