I have a question about classes

[NOMADMAN]

I've been working on this project and this problem for a long time. I got understand the istream and ostream of classes well enough, my book is ****, this question will probably be simple for a c++ vet.

I have a class, customer. Its templated. Declare a varible of type customer(newCustomer). When I do cin >> newCustomer it goes through its routin about gathering info, like it should. In the istream function of the class I have it cout << some of the data the user just inputed (for a test). After the istream finishes it goes back to main, then I cout << newCustomer (another test). It prints out like it should except the user information is a bunch of null crap. Any idea whats going on? I just don't understand how c++ works.

Heres the code:

Important segment of main:

	auto customer<void>			newCustomer;

	cin >> newCustomer;
	cout << newCustomer;
	custTree.insert(newCustomer);

istream and ostream fnctions in customer class:

template <class person>
ostream & operator << (ostream &o, const customer<person> c)
{
	o << c.ccNum << "\t"
	<< c.fName << " "
	<< c.lName << "\t"
	<< c.status << "\t"
	<< c.prevRentals << "\t"
	<< c.cardDiscount << "\t"
	<< c.prevRentDiscount << "\t"
	<< c.fedTax << "\t"
	<< c.netCost << "\t";

	return o;
}

template <class person>
istream & operator>> (istream i, customer<person> c)
{
	auto int tempStatus = 3;

	cout << "Enter Credit Card #: ";
	i >> c.ccNum;
	cout << c.ccNum;

	cout << "Enter first name: ";
	i >> c.fName;
	cout << "Last name: ";
	i >> c.lName;

	cout << "1. Platinum  2. Gold  3. Regular\n";
	cout << "Card status: ";
	i >> tempStatus;
	switch (tempStatus)
	{
	case 1:
		c.status = Platinum;
		c.cardDiscPerc = 0.06;
		break;
	case 2:
		c.status = Gold;
		c.cardDiscPerc = 0.03;
		break;
	default:
		c.status = Regular;
		c.cardDiscPerc = 0.0;
		break;
	}
	
	cout << "# of Previous Car Rentals: ";
	i >> c.prevRentals;

	cout << c.ccNum;
	
	return i;
}

custTree is a tree data class. I'm sure it works as I got it from my teacher. The problem lies within myself.
I will include a zip of my entire project if this for some reason isn't enough. Please keep in mind I'm new to C++.

Thanks to anyone who attempts this question!

NOMAD

[CornedBee]

The zip would be good, I'd like to see where exactly it fails.
One thing up front:
const customer<person> c
should be
const customer<person> &c


I've just realized that this is surely the problem you have. It's not that grave for the << operator, but it makes the >> operator useless (learn a bit about call-by-value and call-by-reference and you'll understand why)