Credit Card SC's

[mattm04]

This happened to me a few week ago. At my store the customer swipes their own card on a PINPAD. We don't have a way to scan cards except for the PINPAD on the customer side. This guy come up to me with a few things and after I scan them he hands me his ID and credit card. I'm not sure what he wants, so i flip over the CC and see he has written "See ID" where this Sig is supposed to be. I politely inform him that we can not accept a unsigned card, per our Merchant Agreement and your Card member Agreement. He claims that "SEE ID" is his sig. He wants the manager, so I page the MOD and he explains the same thing to asshat guy. Not willing to give up, he tell us that he will call his CC company on his cell right now and have them tell me that I am wrong. He goes off to a corner, is seen yelling on his phone, walks back up and pays with cash, never saying a word.

I like how people assume that "SEE ID" will stop fraud on their card.
a)most cards are zero libality
b)the thief will use the card at a store he knows will not touch the card or a gas station pay-at-pump situation, as quickly as possible than ditch the card
c)from my understanding, if you don't sign your card with YOUR sig and is is stolen and the CC company finds out, than the whole zero libality goes out the window because you don't follow the terms of the agreement.

[myswtghst]

I never understood that, myself. Nowadays, most places don't even check to make sure the sig matches, and the pinpad machines make such a tragic mess of my sig anyways, you can't even tell more than if it's kinda close. Also, my sig changes from time to time, and seems to lose letters when I'm in a rush.

[siead_lietrathua]

see, i wrote "see id" on mine too.. right under my signature. and that's just because i can never sign the same way twice.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Hell, some places don't even make you sign if it's under a certain amount. The grocery store near me only makes you sign if it's over $25.

[Sparkticus]

I had a fun one a few weeks back. Guy puts his card in, and presses his PIN. Invalid. So I tell him that and warn him he has only two tries before it locks the card. So he tries again, and again, Invalid PIN. So I tell him it's his last try and if the PIN is wrong he'll have to contact his bank to get it unlocked. So he tries, and guess what!?! Invalid PIN! He then starts shouting at me about how OUR computers have messed up his card and how WE'RE responsible for locking it and how I MUST have done something wrong... All the time I'm trying to explain that there's no possible way our computer can lock his card if he's putting the right pin in, because it links to the bank's computers, and if it's rejecting it, then it's at their end. He of course is talking over me and not believing a word...

...Then he looks at the card and shuts up.

"Oh, I thought it was the other card! I'm really sorry about that."

To be fair to him he did look genuinely sorry for it, so I just told him not to worry about it, and he completed the transaction and left... But still... next time maybe try to listen to what the person who does this 100 or more times a day is saying? >_<

[mattm04]

Also, I forgot to mention the SC's who's CC, Debit or EFT card doesn't work but they assure me that they have funds in the account to cover it. Nice try. You're not walking out until we have received cash or the plastic has gone thru.

[Sparkticus]

Oh! I nearly forgot a good one from one of my early weeks at my job! A guy buys a cheap item, about £5, and later decides he doesn't like it. brings it back in and gets a refund (fair enough)

Then he wants to buy another item, again for about a fiver, on the same card. Card comes up declined (in other words, not enough funds, as the refund hasn't gone through the system yet) I explain to him that he'll need to find another method of payment as the refund could take around 3 days to reach his account... so he goes crazy at ME! I try and calm him down but he's yelling at me because he doesn't have five pounds in his account!

gah!

[allniter]

I don't get it. Why can't credit card companies just start using pin codes like debit cards have to eliminate people being able to use a stolen card??

Does anyone know the reason for this??

[Sparkticus]

I don't know how widespread it is, but we do use PINs with credit cards too over here... in fact, store policy (not sure if it's actual company policy) is that we cannot accept use of a chip and PIN card (credit or debit) unless the customer actually uses the PIN... because if we DO allow them to sign and it's not their card, we as a store absorb the cost of sorting it out, whereas before it was the bank's responsibility...

We still get some attempted fraud, as not all cards are chip and PIN but most now are...

[Flood]

Also, I forgot to mention the SC's who's CC, Debit or EFT card doesn't work but they assure me that they have funds in the account to cover it. Nice try. You're not walking out until we have received cash or the plastic has gone thru.

If they were using Bank of America cards, they may have been telling the truth.

I recently stayed at a Hotel in Seattle. After checking in, I had just set my bags down when the phone rang. My card was declined. I called the Bank of America automated hotline (as it was 11:00pm) and checked my balance. A couple checks that I had deposited the day before hadn't cleared yet, and my shoddy head math said that I was short about $100. Hotel guy Mike was really understanding and agreed to wait until the next afternoon to run my card again. I called BoA the next morning to see that my checks had deposited and then happily went out and about in town. When I got back, Mike called me back and said that my card still hadn't gone thru.

At this point I panic. Maybe my math was wrong. Maybe what I heard to be the total was actually the nightly rate. I called home to ask my parents if they could lend me the money. After much begging and pleading, they agreed. Mike just needed to get a fax. While waiting for my parents to cobble together some fax info together, I ask Mike how much it would be. His number was much lower than expected. My math was very shoddy. I knew for damn certain that I had that money in my account. Something was fishy. Mike said that he had tried charging a nominal fee of $50 but even that was declined.

My parents turned out to be unable to fax anything that night, but would be able to in the morning. Mike was cool enough to allow that, so I went on up to my room and to bed.

The next morning, I got up and asked Mike if I could try a different tactic. Maybe something was up with their computers. I went to an ATM across the street and discovered the secret as to why my card kept getting declined.

Bank of America was not transmitting any information to any location on that block. It was the first time I had ever gotten the error message "Unable to connect to server" from an ATM. I had to walk five blocks (uphill both ways, in the snow, barefoot) to an actual Bank of America (that was closed, of course) and use the ATM built into the wall before I could withdraw any cash. And even then, I got $200 short of my bill when I hit my daily withdrawal limit.

Moral of the story: Wachovia rules.

[Broomjockey]

If they were using Bank of America cards, they may have been telling the truth.

to be fair, I believe the issue is people trying to leave before the transaction finishes, and so they haven't actually paid, regardless if the money is there or not. It's all well and fine to say "oh, the money's in there", but that doesn't help the business if the customer walks away when the transaction's still going through, and then gets denied for some reason, possbily similar to yours, or because the money isn't there, or whatever. I had a customer pull that on me on a busy night, though they'd actually simply walked away while it was going through, and it declined. I still don't know if it was intentional on their part.

[GolfCart34]

mattm04... You are my new hero! I'm glad that other people have read, understand, and uphold proper credit card processing procedures!

I had one job where we would not accept credit cards that were unsigned or said "see ID" on them because of the very same merchant agreement you mentioned (and I thought he and I were the only ones who actually read the entire policy). If a customer wanted to use the card they had to present a valid photo ID and sign the card in front of us. No id or no signature = no card use. Simple as that. And my manager at that particular job held up that policy to the letter.

I don't know about you, but the most common excuse I got for not signing a card was, "Oh, if I don't sign my card, other people can't use it." Uh, no. If somebody steals your card and it's unsigned, they can just sign your name in their signature and get away with it. After all, how are most merchants going to know, especially if the signatures match? Those people are convinced that thieves just forge signatures because it's really easy. Truth is, it's not as easy as it sounds. They also don't believe me when I tell them that they're still liable for the charges if the credit card company finds out that the card was unsigned. Oh well, that's their loss.

[Bright_Star]

ALL my credit cards have my signature on them. Putting "SEE ID" is NOT a valid signature despite what a lot of people think. Personally, I think that putting "SEE ID" where you're supposed to sign it is just asking for trouble.

[fma_fanatic]

Yes, my ex husband did the same thing when we would go shopping. He'd get a lot of flack because if it, then tell me to pay.

I finally had enough of it one day (it was close to when we finally divorced) and I told him no and walked out of the store.

[Andara Bledin]

If they were using Bank of America cards, they may have been telling the truth.

Outages happen everywhere eventually, and to every bank, too. I do the credit card processing for my company, and we get "processor declines" all the time for a variety of reasons, one of which being that the processor couldn't get confirmation of the funds with whatever bank the card is with. The most recent was a Capital One (aka: watch out, 'cause they can't keep records for carp - yes, I had one from them).

^-.-^