So I was looking for a good price on a little Honda I’m interested in. I stumbled across a site that pings all the dealers in my vicinity for their best price.
One thing I do when I’m not sure of how trustworthy a site is…is use my initials instead of my first name. And usually I accompany it with “plus” addressing, which is simply a way to identify if an organization is selling your email address to third parties. You put “pjsherman+[something else]@gmail.com”, and Gmail will still deliver it to your base address. If you start receiving spam at that address, then you know that the company sold your address. And, you can easily block it.
So I fill out the form, and enter “PJ” – short for Paul Joseph – into the first name field.
And the form barfs. Plus, it gets all scoldy with its CAPITALIZATION of CONTACT and VALID. In my head it sounds like a smarmy schoolteacher.
Then I got curious and entered in some variations to see if the form would accept certain two-letter first names.
Nope.
So the upshot is…if you’re Bo or Al or Ty or Jo, this company isn’t interested in your business.
{ 4 comments }
Reminds me of a similar experience I had with those list of bank security questions.
Q: what was the make of your first car?
My Answer: AMC
result: sorry, no good. Must be 4 letters or longer.
But there's only 3 letters in AMC!
And only 3 in GMC.
And only 3 in BMW.
And only 2 in MG.
blurg.
For that matter… GM. Boom!
Reminds me of a similar experience I had with those list of bank security questions.
Q: what was the make of your first car?
My Answer: AMC
result: sorry, no good. Must be 4 letters or longer.
But there's only 3 letters in AMC!
And only 3 in GMC.
And only 3 in BMW.
And only 2 in MG.
blurg.
For that matter… GM. Boom!
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