Credit cards and ID

[wolfie]

Inspired by this thread on Customers Suck:

Sadly it is against the credit card companies rules. If you go to the Mastercard page, their is a place where you can file complaints, and one of the reasons is "store asked for ID" If a person files a complaint using that reason, the store can be fined and even loose the ability to be able to accept those kinds of cards. Apparently if a card is stolen the credit card company will just reimburse the customer and they get the money from the retailers that the card was used at.

WTF? If someone uses a stolen card at a store, the credit card company will take back they money from the store. Meanwhile, they prohibit the store from exercising due diligence to avoid accepting a stolen card? I could understand the chargeback if the store FAILED to check ID, or the prohibition on checking ID if the credit card company ate the loss (since they're prohibiting the merchant from taking a reasonable step to avoid accepting stolen cards), but why the hell should the credit card companies have their cake and eat it too?

[PepperElf]

is the money taken away from the store?

Now personally I have to ask to see the card if it's credit so that I can enter in stuff from the card. If it's not signed I ask to see an ID - yes technically I can say "no" but I doubt that will go well. I also ask for ID if it says "See ID".

But if it's signed then I don't ask. although in my case I have more of a chance of noticing if it doesn't match their stuff cos most customers who hand me credit cards have also filled out personal information in my system.


Plus don't forget - you are always allowed to check the signature to see if it matches what they sign.

[EricKei]

Pepper -- under this policy, yes, the store pays if the transaction is fraudulent. Said policy also forbids merchants from checking customer ID's *at all*.

So yeah, Wolfie is right, the CC companies are having their cake and eating it ... Bonus: To make it even better: afaik, many CC companies charge the end-user for "fraud protection", so the CC company gets a fee for providing the useful service of taking money away from someone else: a merchant that is being deprived of its primary anti-fraud tool.

...Please excuse me for a few minutes; this is all making my head hurt.

[Seifer]

Our company policy is to check ID if the card isn't signed or if it says "See ID." If the card is signed, we don't ask for ID, but we are supposed to make sure the signature on the credit slip matches the back of the card. However, I doubt all of the cashiers are studying each slip closely to make sure the signatures match.

[NoMoreRetail]

Also if the card says "see ID" that makes the card invalid and it is not supposed to be accepted according to some credit companies. Same goes if it is unsigned.

I just can not wrap my head around this at all.

First why would anyone want to go through the hassle of getting their card stolen and having to dispute the charges? Yes they are getting their money back but it takes weeks for it to happen. I had my debt card stolen while at work. They were able to charge 100 bucks worth of gas before the card got reported stolen. Yes I did get all of my money back but it took weeks. Their were certain bills that I couldn't pay on time because of this crap. When you are at the time a single parent working a craptastic retail management job, you just don't have a lot of extra income lying around.

My first thread on CS discusses a woman who got upset because her moms card was stolen and it was charged up at one of our locations. If this was a true incident and not a scam, the whole thing would have been prevented by a simple look at an ID.

Second, it is not fair to the merchants at all. They are the ones who for this garbage, not the consumer and not the credit card companies. As I posted in the CS thread. when verifying ID, I check to see if the name matches the card, and glance at the picture. ( I don't take much stock in pictures anymore because the new thing, at least in Texas, is to renew your ID online, so your current picture stays they same. So you can have the same picture on your card for 14 years. I honestly don't look the same as I did 7 years ago.

For people to say it is identity theft are crazy. I would have to memorize everything on your ID to do any damage, honestly with the amount of people I would see in a day I would be lucky to even remember your first name two customers later.

This is exactly why prices go up, the merchant has to cover this loss some how and they only way they do it is by putting it back on the customer. If only we could tell them exactly why the prices go up.

SC: "why have your prices gone up? I used to get this jean for X.XX amount 5 years ago?"
ME:" Well they go up because our company has to make up the loss due to shoplifters, who we are not allowed to stop. They go up because people throw hissy fits because they do not know how to read a sign that says tee shirts $5 dollars and expect to get everything on that table for $5 including shorts that are $20, and thanks to spineless managers above me they cave in because they don't want corporate on their butts. Prices go up because people who return things 6 months later and throw a hissy fit because they want full cash back even though their receipt expired 4 months ago, and once again spineless managers give it to them and now we can only sell said item for .99 when craptastic person got $40 back. Prices go up because people return shit just to return it. GUESS WHAT IT HURTS OUR NUMBERS FOR THE DAY,WEEK,MONTH WHEN YOU DECIDE TO RETURN $400 WORTH OF CRAP, BECAUSE a. YOU CANT BE BOTHERED TO TRY IT ON YOU OR YOUR CHILD, OR b. YOU HAVE NO SELF CONTROL AND BOUGHT SO MUCH CRAP THAT YOU CAN'T PAY YOUR BILLS! They also go up because a simple act of having to show an ID for a credit card causes people to become irate crazy people! So when their card is the one that is stolen they don't have to pay for it but neither does the credit card company. IT IS US that pays for the stupidity of others! Finally they go up because PRICES ARE NOT GOING TO STAY THE SAME AS THEY WERE 5 YEARS AGO!

[Rebel]

This is the one thing I love about working in my liquor store.

If a credit card comes to us and it doesn't have a chip in it, we automatically ask for a government piece of ID. If the person complains, we happily point out the fact that as a store selling age restricted products, it's well within our right to ask for ID at anytime in the transaction. We don't care if you have white hair and a walker, if you want to purchase from us with a chip-less credit card, be prepared to show ID.

Even with all this, we still average about 2-3 people a month buying a large amount of booze and trying to dispute the charges later on. Our camera feed is lovely at identifying the person on the day and the fact that we ID'd them at the time.

[MaggieTheCat]

As a (very very) small merchant, taking credit cards is both a boon and a hassle for me. I sell at craft shows and conventions, and have the ability to take credit cards via an application on my tablet (complete with card slider that plugs into the microphone jack.) It's great because a lot of people like to use cards, but I am always nervous that someone is going to freak out on me when I ask to see ID, which I ALWAYS do. I do it to cover my ass, and because I think recently a girl tried to use a stolen card. She wanted to buy a necklace and handed me a card, and I asked if she had her ID with her. "Oh...it's in my car." "Okay, would you mind going to get it?" "Yeah, okay." I handed her the card back, she handed me the necklace back...and she never came back. I saw her walking around the event several times, but she never actually came back to buy the item she wanted. So I have a feeling she either just didn't have her ID, or was trying to use a stolen card.

Anyway...if I did end up running a stolen card and then the credit card company reimbursed the owner by taking the money from me...it could be pretty devastating for me. I dread if someone pays for a large order ($100+) and then I'd be out both the money and the items.

[HYHYBT]

How does the card's having a chip guarantee that the person using it is the rightful owner?

[Slytovhand]

My first thread on CS discusses a woman who got upset because her moms card was stolen and it was charged up at one of our locations. If this was a true incident and not a scam, the whole thing would have been prevented by a simple look at an ID.

Actually, given my experience of a stolen card, AND having worked in a servo with many colleagues, I can say that the issue was in NOT following MC's requirements - checking the signature! Where I worked, I'm sure I was about the only person who always checked a signature (and read the details on fleet merchant cards).

[Andara Bledin]

I watched the boyfriend buy groceries with his card recently. The clerk flipped the card, looked at the back (it might have had a signature at some point, but you certainly couldn't tell by looking at it) and handed it back without so much as a blink.

My credit card is signed, but the entire first half of the signature has been worn away. Plus, it's really easy to take a few minutes to copy the scrawl on the back of a credit card, so that's not really any protection against a clever crook. My debit card, which I also often use as a credit card, has never been signed in the 15 years I've had the account. Nobody has ever cared and the only time fraud has been involved, it was someone hacking through an ATM (brute force - I'd never used the machine or even been inside the shop in question).

Another thing worth noting about cards is that it's dreadfully easy to copy the information onto a dummy card and then just use that for your purchases. The entire set-up would likely run less than $100 and the signature on the card would belong to the scammer, though the name would probably be a fake.

^-.-^

[Rebel]

How does the card's having a chip guarantee that the person using it is the rightful owner?

It doesn't really.
If a card has a chip, the basic assumption is that they have a PIN on the card which would offer extra protection.
This isn't always true but it is currently the case for about 95% of the credit cards that come through my store.
There's never going to be a checking method that'll be 100% accurate.

[Cats]

Sometimes, the technology itself can be an issue. At my company, while you can reject a signature, by that time, the charge is ALREADY pending on the card, and there is NO way to back out of the transaction.

I found this out the hard way a few years ago. It was right when TD Bank came out with their new cards that don't have the raised numbers (so I hadn't seen one before). I can typically see enough of someone's signature on the back of their cards when they swipe it, so I don't often have to ask to see it. This one not only was a card I hadn't seen before and therefore could have been a fake, but there was no signature, they couldn't show ID, and the purchase was over $100 (majority of sales fall under the $20 or below range). So, I refused the sale.

But there was a problem....by the time the signature box pops up, there is NO way to cancel. Signatures are collected electronically, and attempt to cancel simplly forces a hardcopy slip to come out. I, trying to save the card from being charged, rebooted the register, since our system does not record a transaction that isn't complete (record is produced when the receipt is). A few hours later I would find out that yes, the card was stolen, but my attempt to prevent the card from being charged backfired...it was charged anyway, and since I rebooted there was no record of it in the company system.

Never found out if the victim got that money back, but I would think so, since she did report the theft to the police, whom I did speak to with my boss about the incident (the theives hit several places that night), and the crooks didn't get away with any merchandise.

Even if one checked the signature in advance, if it didn't match, you wouldn't know until the signature box pops up on the screen...where it's the point of no return.


In a world where more and more people are going electronic with their money, stuff like this needs to change to protect both the consumers and the merchants.

[HYHYBT]

That's a serious problem. (Really, any system where you can't back out once you've begun is a problem; we ran into that at McDonald's with gift cards on occasion. Not quite the same thing, but a gift card might only cover part of the order, leaving the rest to be paid by another card or cash... and once the first card was swiped it was impossible not to complete the order, meaning that, if they didn't have the rest (perhaps thinking the card had more on it, perhaps trying to get away with something, it didn't really matter) it was an awful mess to straighten out.)

[wraiths_crono]

Heh yeah, I remember sitting at work in disbelief when I found the article about it NOT being required and if you ask it violates terms, esp after learning that my mothers card was stolen used as credit with nothing, NOTHING being done to stop it on even the larger $680 non normal charge... bah! I think we SHOULD be allowed to check for ID all this privacy excuses are stupid.

[BlaqueKatt]

this is one of the reasons I love my bank's debit card policy, unless I call them and verify my name, address, DOB, SS#, and acct# and tell them where I'll be, my card will NOT work outside a 50 mile radius of my home, and any online transactions from a company I have previously not done business with they call me and verify-IMMEDIATELY, before the charge goes through.