Tuesday, I got a call from a woman at the San Jose Post Record, who needs a copy of my fictitious business name statement. In order to make sure that process is complete, the fictitious business name has to be published, along with a short description of what the business does, and a phone number (yay for cellphones) for a period of a month. They'll send a record of that back to the county clerk's office, blah blah blah. (A fictitious business name statement, also known as doing business as (DBA) is required if you're starting up a business with a name that doesn't include your surname.)
It occured to me today, as I was making a copy to fax over to her, none of these people asked me for any sort of identification. Not the city of Sunnyvale when they gave me a business license--they didn't even verify my address, though if they work for the city, they're probably pretty familiar with it's boundaries, but still. The county clerk recorder's office didn't ask for it, either, just blithely accepted that the info I was providing was correct.
I guess, strictly speaking, it's not necessary information, but why is it that we need to provide photo ID to get on a plane, to buy things with a credit card, to apply for a job, but we don't need it to get a business license. How interesting.
Posted by Liz at June 24, 2004 09:10 AM