is it legal to ask for ID when using a CC?

[Locut0s]

Again, a signature >>>>> a photo ID. I can easily get an ID with your name for next to nothing in about an hour. I couldn't forge your signature if I practiced every day for a year. I am not arguing that CC fraud is bad and needs to be stopped, but if merchants started checking the back for a signature and making a customer sign a physical copy of the receipt it would work out much better than asking for an ID. Visa's logic is correct, fake ID's are easy to come by, faking a signature is fucking difficult. Even an untrained eye can easily spot when a signature doesn't match up.

Technically this is true. Reality is different. Almost no one checks signatures and both the CC companies and store managers know this. Also trust me from working in retail for over 4 years a hell of a lot of people don't sign their receipts the same way they sign their card.

For example you could have an Andrew Blake who had really a really neatly written signature on the back of his master card and when signing the receipt just signs it AB in block letters. I've seen it many many times and trust me these were mostly legit customers. People just aren't consistent.

Then there are people who literally just scribble some mess that's never the same from one sig to the next. Had one guy who just put pen to paper and drew random squiggles.

 

[KeithTalent]

Things that imediately come to mind:

2 Zone bus pass $99
Carton of cigs (up to) $95
Whistler Ski Pass $79
Cell phone airtime vouchers (up to) $100
Cell phones (up to) $120

Take a couple of these and add a bunch of snacks and other groceries to make it seem a little bit more like a legit purchase and you immediately have several hundred. I can remember several families buying Ski Tickets that amounted to over $1000 on credit cards.

We sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in bus passes along at the end of every month. Had long line ups for bus passes on the 31st and 1st of the month. And we hardly made any money off those.

Huh, wow, had no idea. I was there on the way home from work and spent $4.37.

That things you listed are not anything I would ever purchase, so I could not imagine it. I do recall seeing the discounts on the ski passes, so that makes some sense. :hmm:

KT