Yeah I&#x27;ve run into that. End up finding locals to buy phones for me.<p>In this case (~2006) T-Mobile was insisting that American Express would not process my charge if T-Mobile didn&#x27;t submit my SSN along with the charge. Which is obviously just false (Amex verified this to me).<p>A funnier thing I&#x27;ve seen in Guatemala is that many places will ask you to write your phone number down on the CC voucher. They say it&#x27;s for &quot;security&quot;, as if someone using a stolen card would provide their real number. They don&#x27;t verify the number as they just take it along with the signature, they just make a big fuss to get something written down.