My experience to date with CDW has been fairly positive, although I used to have the luxury of picking items up at the will-call window. Alas, recently they seem to have taken a sharp turn for the worse. I tried to order an item earlier this week and was told that, despite the web site claim of 2 - 3 days availability, it was out of stock for at least two weeks. I wasn't particularly surprised by this as I know that the availability numbers on the site are works of fiction intended to trap buyers. In the past I've had to wait a week or two for ~30% of the items I've bought. The latest shock was being told that, although my credit card details and address were okay, they could not sell the item to me as I had not given them my home telephone number. The only option to allow the sale to take place was for me to fax them an image of my driver's license. I checked with the sales person (who like all CDW people I've dealt with was friendly and polite). The summary of the email stream is as follows;
ME: Is this company policy?
CDW: Yes.
ME: Is there any alternative? You have validated my credit card and home address. Surely that's enough.
CDW: The only alternative is to cancel your order.
ME: What would you do with all my personal information?
CDW: My job is to collect all personal details from customers and if I can't do this with google, whitepages online or zabasearch I am obliged to ask the customer.
ME: Is it okay if I warn the rest of the world about this?
CDW: (implied) Yes.
So I can cross another supplier (and another vendor I'd endorse) off my list.