Online purchases

[Arif]

I was researching a new company to list our properties on the local MLS. When I googled in the info and got a website which I read and was ready to commit. The site was not secure however it wanted you to provide credit card information and submit the request. I called the 1-800 number and a message comes on saying to leave a message. No "Hi, you've reached XYZ realty..." just please leave a message. I just knew this was a scam so I emailed them and suggested that they invest in a secure website and it might help their business. Here is the response I got:

We are looking into that but it does not make people ordinarily wary. One thing you should know is that the security features are very expensive and with the very low margins that we have we could not offer the services that we do at the price we do without some concessions. In the meantime we would call you or you could send a check--in all cases AFTER you are listed. Thanks, Bruce


Arif writes:Why is your site not secured when you are required to input your credit card information? In this day and age of identity theft that seems like a minimum for any web-based business. This might make other potential customers wary as it did for me.

Am I just being paranoid or is this just bad business practice at work?

 

[eridanus]

A SSL connection is very cheap. It's pretty much one new file and re-naming a page. I guess if you have to hire someone to do it it'll get expensive, and then if you want Verisign to verify it.....

Can one of your banks/cards create a temporary number? I know MBNA allows it.