The brokers don't want to be caught with their pants down on an electronic buying scam. If people have to call it in it makes it tough to steal someones account and trade it.
When I call into my broker I have a verbal password set up. If you don't know it, you can't do anything with them.
Etrade just called to verify that I wanted to purchase mlobf. Said that there was suspicous activity on the stock. I replied that when etrade traded at a forward pe of 2 they would have "suspicous trading".