Debit Card BS

[ditchdj]

I always wonder what the heck an ID is supposed to prove anyway.

It's called a "feelgood".

[Anakah]

A good way to tell if its real, look for the holograms. If they don't move when you move the ID up and down, that's a really good indicator, especially with CA ID's. I caught a woman that way. Besides the fact that she had another one glued to hers but whatever lol But I'm sure if you don't handle tons of Id's all day like I do, then you wouldn't know what to look for. We even have a book on what they should look like.

My favorite one so far, this guy has an Id that the background is totally fake and he spelled the city wrong! lol Or we've had idiots who show us the wrong id where they are underage and then oops, here's the "real" one.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

In the case of having the same last name, do they really prevent theft more then they annoy people? Probably not, and with my 4 years as office staff I never made a big deal out of something like this.

In my experience working with credit card fraud, fully half of the fraudulent transactions I deal with are perpetrated by family members. We even have a name for it: false family fraud, FFF for short.

It is called false family fraud because the bank will not dispute the charge if they are told that the person who did it is a member of the card holder's family. The card holder is instructed to get the money from the person themselves.

Which means the card holder then calls us, demanding that we reverse the charge because their 14 yo kid or their estranged spouse they're trying to divorce or their criminal sister-in-law is spending their money without permission.

[Difdi]

I'm sorry, but that's not correct.
<snip>
However, it is clear that you are NOT forbidden from asking for identification; they only discourage it.

Yes, under those rules, a merchant can ask for ID. But they also can't deny the sale if the customer refuses to supply the ID. So while it's technically true that they can ask for ID, there's no point in doing so, since they have to allow the sale whether the ID is shown or not.

[BookstoreEscapee]

The real suckage here is that the store returned most of your purchase to the shelves even though your husband told them you were coming with proper ID.

I agree with that. How long did it take you to get there? If he told them it would be 40 minutes, they should have at least waited an hour before putting anything away. Even when people left books on the counter and said "I'll be back in half an hour" I didn't put anything away until at least an hour later, even if I was 99% sure they weren't actually planning to come back. And if he was still at the store, why would they put anything away, anyway?

But I'm sure if you don't handle tons of Id's all day like I do, then you wouldn't know what to look for. We even have a book on what they should look like.

That's one part of the problem. Most retail workers aren't trained on what to look for, even in their own state's ID. The stakes simply aren't that high for most retail stores; unless you are working with a regulated industry (like alcohol sales) or high dollar (like a casino) there just isn't that much emphasis on how to spot a phony ID.

Edit: I've never had a cashier actually handle my debit card, unless I was using it as credit. If I put in a PIN, they don't touch it, let alone check a signature. I used to have "Please check ID" on one of my credit cards (it was an experiment to see how many people did it - in 4 years I could count on one hand the number of times I was asked) and one girl asked me why I had it there. I told her it was to see if cashiers actually looked. She said "oh"...and handed me my receipt. I've also had customers who wrote that, and when I asked for ID they got all defensive and said "Why?!" I'd show them the back of the card and say, "cuz you told me to" and they'd get all sheepish and pull out their license.

[blas]

I think you're always better off just using your own card, and never someone else's. In any situation. You're just going to be "hassled", because it's policy to protect you.

It's because of angry spouses who have stolen their SO's credit/debit cards and gone on shopping sprees and fraud like that, why it's so important that you always have ID and your own card, not someone else's.

[llythe]

There have been a couple times where my mom has given her debit card to my dad and I, and I've had to go in and use it because they won't question my name (being femaile).

There are only a handful of banks around here that actually put names on debit cards, though. Most of the time it's just your account number stamped into it. My debit card isn't even signed.

We used to have to ask for Photo I.D. when a credit card signature wasn't signed, or the signature was worn off - this was just to verify that it was the correct person using it, since we couldn't verify the signature. But nowadays with the newfangled chip cards, even credit cards have PINs.

[Chromatix]

My bank card (which has debit-card facilities) is a chip card but also has my name embossed on it.

Since for some reason they put the surname first on the card, I always get confused over which way to write it in online forms which ask for the "name as it appears on the card". I find that writing it the usual way - surname last - works most reliably.

An increasing number of shops here have chip-and-PIN machines, but a lot (including some major supermarket chains) still use the old signature method. In Britain, however, chip-and-PIN is almost universal now, since banks started to make shops liable for fraud committed using a chip-card with the signature method.

[Rapscallion]

Credit card threads. Thinking about making a sticky to point people to.

Rapscallion

[trunks2k]

Just to add fuel to the fire:

I decided to go to CVS on Saturday to buy some greeting cards for some of my cousins (five in total) whom we were having a party for that day. I figured that since I missed my work out the previous day, I decided to run there (about 2 mi). Since I didn't want to have a big wallet nor all my keys in my pocket as I ran, I just grabbed my credit card and a spare key.

I ran there, half dead since I'm used to running on a treadmill, grab a water and grab the five cards I need. I go pay and they say I need ID in order to use my credit card, which I don't have on me. Normally I wouldn't care, and wouldn't mind showing ID, but I just ran two miles to a store that I have never been required to present ID for and has no signs informing me that I will need ID. So I wasn't a happy camper.

I argued with the manager and got her to let me pay. I promise I was very polite and calm about the whole thing.