When reader Steve went to Wal-Mart to buy Rock Star for his daughter, he reluctantly presented the cashier with a state issued ID containing just his picture, name and signature. Steve’s job is to consult with law enforcement about identity theft, so he’s more careful than the average bear. For one thing, he only likes to show his state issued-ID. The cashier, however, refused to accept it as a valid ID, and tense negotiations ensued. When Steve said he’d call corporate about their ID checking policy, the cashier refused to hand back Steve’s credit card or ID until Steve spoke to an in store CSM. That’s right, after he complained, the cashier held his credit card hostage. Check out the gory details, inside.
Dear Consumerist,
I stopped in my local East York Wal-Mart in PA on 3/22/08 around 12:00 pm to pick up an Easter gift for my daughter. I went to the electronics department to pick up the Rock Star video game for the PS3. They did not have any on the sales floor so I asked a sales associate named John if there was any in the back. John went to the back and brought one out. John told me that the purchase must be made in the electronics department. As if I would have walked out with it without paying for it. I guess this policy only affects the PS3 version of the game. If I wanted a 360 version I could have picked it up off the shelf and paid for it up front since I did have some other shopping to do.
No big deal I will just pay for it in the electronics department as I was told. So John rang me up and paid with a my signed credit card. I signed the signature pad at the register. John gave a brief glance to the back of my credit card and asked to see an ID.
A little bit about me: I have worked with credit card processing and acceptance for a government agency for several years. And also worked with law enforcement agencies in regards to credit card and identity theft. And also provided training to them on this very subject.
I know that the less personal information you give out in a store or online the less likely your credit card or identity will be stolen. So I have a State Issued ID what has my picture, my name, and my signature. Everything that is needed to confirm that is my card. But, all of the other info such as address, birth date, license number has been blocked out for security reasons and are not used to confirm the rightful card holder. Since some of those things can be used with the credit card number and CVS number to complete a fraudulent credit card transaction.
John told me “This is not a valid ID and you can not use it”. I told him that was no where in any credit card processing agreement that asks you to view a persons address, DOB, or licensee number before completing a credit card sale. So he called over another sales associate and asked him. He said basically the same thing probably out of not wanting John to look bad. So I explained that I would be informing Wal-Mart headquarters about this to make sure this is their policy. John said “I will have to call a CSM”. Now keep in mind that I already paid for the item and he at this would not give me back my credit card or ID.
After waiting around for about 5 minutes I made a decision that I now regret. I showed him another ID that had all my info on it. I just wanted get out of there and do the rest of my shopping. Now John tells me that since I will be calling Wal-Mart headquarters I have wait for a CSM. I was like “WHAT?” John will not give my credit card and 2 forms of ID back until he talks to a CSM. A few minutes later a CSM showed up and basically agreed with John. Then John said “since I showed another ID it was okay “
I regret giving up most of my personal information. I should have stood my ground. I did think about just leaving with my purchase and calling the police to get my credit card and ID back. But the police have better things to do.
Regards
Steve
Steve is being way too nice. It’s completely unacceptable for a store to refuse to let you leave, or to coerce you by holding your card. We’d suggest Steve float the idea of police involvement next time, but there’s no telling how John would react to this news. Flying tackle? Citizen’s arrest? Hopefully, Steve didn’t let John’s bullying phase him and escalated his complaint once out of arm’s reach.
(photo:SIRBERUS)
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@Leah:
Every post office I’ve been in has done the same thing.
They i.d. me but never refuse me.
I just love all the “don’t shop at Walmart” solutions.
1. Clerk had no right. But it’s the clerk and not super evil Walmart. Grow up people.
2. The CSM might have gone his way, who knows? All you need to do was wait. Again, it’s the clerk and not the store (at least he hasn’t proven it was the store)
To all the Walmart haters or people that let ONE (I’m not talking about constant problems) problem stop them from shopping at a store, do you really think anyone cares? Do you think they’re going to miss your few hundred bucks a month? Who are you really hurting? Now you have to drive further and pay more for what you’ve been fine with before this stupid incident.
Grow up people, don’t make one stupid kid at a counter spoil your night AND cost you increased prices and more gas.
Oh, I forgot to mention…
3. If it bothered him so much and he was right, just call the cops. I think 911 is a bit of overkill.
Hey, it’s a tough road to exercise your rights. You either hold your ground and endure the waits and delays or you submit to the kid at the counter and go home before you ice cream melts.
I use my old expired DL with a previous address when asked for ID. I also have it in a little wallet with a window that I hold up and don’t let them take from me.
No one has complained about this process yet. (Though once I used the wrong ID when trying to get through some airport security and they noticed the expired ID and I had to pull out my real DL.)
Don’t shop anywhere.
@MercuryPDX:
I prefer to look at differently: if you want to handle my ID, who’s to say you’re not some weasel trying to steal my identity? You’ve got my credit card, you authorized it, and you’ve seen all I’m going to show you. If you don’t like it, you (or your employer) has seen all they’re going to get. You need me more than I need you.
As for being asked to remove my ID at a club or to buy alcohol, it’s never happened. But then, I’m an old rich white guy, not the demographic that usually gets hassled when I want to give a retailer some money.
“he reluctantly presented the cashier with a state issued ID containing just his picture, name and signature.”
You know what would make a great post? a link to the instructions for how to get these id cards in each state….. =) And maybe even reviews/security concerns about each states offerings… like WA State, based on the FAQ, I am not sure, but it looks like for an ID card, you’re always going to get an RFID ‘enhanced’ card…
The credit/debit card issuer may have a policy of not requiring other ID, but the merchant may have a policy requiring it, at least in some circumstances. Heck, my bank teller sometimes requires my driver’s license number to be written on a check I am depositing! Stupid, but many things are.
If he blocked out information himself then he has defaced government property and could potentially be in trouble.
But yes, some State-issued ID has little info on it. I was homeless for several years, and carried two such forms with my name, picture, birth-date, in one case a registration number, and my signature. One is the “non-driver ID”: in my state, this is issued by the Department of Elderly Affairs (but you do not need to be elderly) for two dollars. The other is issued by the State’s Transportation Authority (in my case, for elder/disabled rates) for about the same amount.
OTOH, a couple of decades back I was somewhat amused/bemused at receiving a driver’s license with height, weight, hair color, etc. already filled in – but not gender!
I think most big companies right now have most associates scared to death about any kind of credit fraud, making sure to check ID seven times over… ect. This is more of an issue of a employee probably scared of trying to follow policy, or not really knowing policy…or a little of both.
@Seth_Went_to_the_Bank: If the cardholder does not sign the signature panel, the merchant absolutely can demand a government-issue ID that depicts the legal signature.
I don’t have access to the Visa/MC regs since I moved on from the processor. But, a rule change that impacted cardholders as directly as no longer permitting SEE ID would have been widely disseminated in all consumer-oriented media.
I had this very conversation with a Visa rep at my office as I was working on signature panel issues for client institutions. The rep HIMSELF used this method for his personal CC (but not his Visa corporate card!!!).
The USPS is violating their merchant agreement if they will not accept a SEE ID card presented along with a legitimate ID. Imagine that, a union clerk who gets half the story. That never happens, huh?
@MercuryPDX:
Though I haven’t gone through WA law, the definition of what is a valid ID is only for the purposes of state government and how IDs are issued. States issue them but they aren’t like currency–no one is bound to accept an ID card, and no one has to seek permission or licensing in order to check ID cards. (Though I think the latter will change in time.) (I might add that WA’s, as well as other states, procedure for coding DL numbers is ultra-stupid. It allows people to basically guess at DL numbers based on just a few bits of information. Thankfully, my state isn’t that stupid and its DL number is random. I would also say that the presence of the descriptor information (height/weight/eye color) is not for secondary identification purposes, but it’s there as an anachronism. When states added photos to licenses, they didn’t bother to remove the descriptor information from the license. (Though I want to say NH did.) The photo+descriptors is a uniquely North American thing. (Though it certainly can be used as secondary, or even primary, identification purposes.))
What I presume is meant by “block out” is that he affixed a block of paper with glue/tape onto the parts of the ID he didn’t want showing. Since it comes off easily it’s not really “defacing” by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.
For what it’s worth, a few years back, I got a legislator here in Ohio to introduce a bill allowing licenses and ID cards to be issued without address and/or date of birth. Alas, it didn’t go anywhere. A revision to the bill would allow licenses to be issued with DOB, but with an age descriptor (“Age over 21.” It doesn’t matter what your DOB is, it just matters whether you’re over 21, so it’s fine for the license to just indicate that.)
I had a similiar issue one time while shopping with my grandmother.
In order to tell the story though, I have to explain about my grandma – she’s very vain! She didn’t like the picture she had taken on her drivers license, so she takes an old picture, and tapes (not like, with tape everywhere, just a circle of tape on the back of the “old”/New pic) and sticks it on top of the pic thats attached. Hard to explain, but trust me when I say that she didn’t damage the original card AT ALL – all you have to do is lift up the “new” picture and see the old picture underneath.
Anyway, so we’re checking out at Wal-Mart and the cashier asks for her ID after paying with a credit card. She shows her this license, and the lady just walks away from the register… we’re standing there like, “Uhm…?” She comes back with an, I guess, CSR, and she was like, “We can’t accept this ID as its been defaced. So wait, you mean you can’t lift up the little tape on pic and see the real pic underneath? Wow. People talk about common sense… its apparently gone out the window.
” a guy wrote a check off a just-closed bank account, figured it out within an hour, and went back and wrote another check off the new bank account. The Devil would not give him back the original check and then had him arrested for writing a bad check. And the Devil had already cashed the new check, too. Wal-Mart is the devil. “
So, let me get this straight. The guy knowingly passed a bad check … and Walmart is the bad guy?
I have found that I seldom have these kind of problems when I use cash for face-to-face transactions.
@KogeLiz: I think you’re on to something here…
Refusing to return a CC not reported as stolen, or an ID is a theft. In many states it is also considered to be an illegal detention, as it may be used to keep a person from moving on about their personal business.
If you don’t feel like calling the police in such a matter, then another tactic to make use of state laws which make it a crime for any corporate officer to knowingly allow subordinates to commit crimes. Send a letter (return receipt required) to the CEO explaining what has happened, remind him/her that it is a crime for him/her not to immediately put a stop to such behavior, and ask for documentation what they are going to do about it.
Such documents must be kept, and are discoverable should anyone else have similar problems.
Simply refusing to accept a CC is not a crime, but rather an issue with the CC company. Don’t waste your time with a phone call, send a letter to the CC CEO or head of marketing.
Fun activity for privacy “nuts”: wipe the magnetic stripe on your ID!
[www.dailyspeculations.com]
See Also:
[www.dailyspeculations.com]
I the confusion when retailers swipe – swipe – swipe it unsuccessfully for returns, whatnot, before giving up.
While those problems never should happen in the first place, paying in cash alleviates all such problems.
I live in York and I know the Walmarts well; well enough to stay out of them! They employ only the dumbest f-tards in the area. Stay away from Walmart and leave it to the zombies or they’ll eat your brains and make you one of them.
Agreed, should’ve called the police and pressed charges.
You know the sad thing is, WalMart just doesn’t give a shit. So what if you never go back, or a dozen of your friends, there is plenty of fools that WILL and they won’t miss your patronage one bit.
My credit cards and debit card have my signature and “CHECK ID” in the signature block on the back of the card.
I’ve never had a problem with anyone rejecting the card, and the clerk often will check ID.
Should any clerk retain my card or ID for any reason, it just might turn into a race to see who can dial 911 the quickest… Bet I’d win.
)
Tomas
I don’t smoke or drink alcohol. I am balding, and look middle aged. I don’t own a car. There is *nothing* I buy that would require any sort of age verification that wouldn’t be obvious simply from looking at me. None of my cards are through companies that permit merchants to demand ID in order to accept the card. I don’t show ID in transactions where the clerk handles my card; If this costs them my business, and results in a complaint to mastercard, so be it. As an added precaution, I have a little bit of tape over the number on the back of my cards, making it impossible to read the number without removing the tape first (and it’s GOOD tape, I’d notice someone taking the time to do it).
Were I in the OP’s position, having already completed the purchase, I would have simply taken my property, demanded the return of my property in the clerk’s possession, and if he refused, offered to call the police right then and there.
I just use my British Columbia Non-Resident ID. I had to get the thing to work (in a job where i touched alcohol) in BC one summer, and i’ve kept renewing it because it’s ironclad proof of age and identity in WA without giving people my address, a passport that most Americans can’t read, or much any personal information other than name, date of birth, citizenship, and “out of province address on file.” It does have an amazingly cute picture of me on it too.
Retailers in WA are so scared of annoying their increasingly primary source of income as the US economy tanks, and they don’t say much. If i don’t really care to explain that they’re in breach of contract by asking, they tend to get this ID. Or you can have my passport and that’s always lulz…
@Ailu: Awesome…except they would probably arrest you instead of the WalMart employee. Not that it would be correct, but the police could care less about you. They would take WalMart’s word over your’s…FTP!
I’d say he should have called the cops right there at the register on his cell phone. Tell the cops he was mugged, after all, they took his ID and credit card from him and would not return it upon request. I wonder how eager the punk would be to getting cuffed and hauled downtown?
The important part is the customer needs to call the cops to get his side of the story in first before the punk calls the cops and give them his lies.
@Jakemon: So, let me get this straight. The guy knowingly passed a bad check … and Walmart is the bad guy?
Well, no…if you had actually read what he wrote, rather than just skimming it, you’d see that he forgot the account was closed, and upon realizing he’d written a bad check an hour later, went back to fix it. So yes, cashing his good check and having him arrested for doing the right thing is rather evil.
I have to say that I feel that if you shop at Wal-Mart, then you get what you pay for.
I’m sure I’ll be crucified for this, but I simply hate them. I just don’t shop there because they absolutely suck so much. SUCK!
Sorry that the poor man had a bad experience, but why shop there? I mean, really? I try really hard not to shop someplace that makes their employees wear smocks. But that’s me.
@S-the-K: I doubt it was a punk. I would have to say it was a low-income individual with a coercive-entitlement complex. Bastards!
I am constantly in a position to check credit cards as shift supervisor of a local restaurant. If the card says “SEE ID” on the back, I check the ID. If there’s a signature, I check the front of the card to see if the name matches. If I can’t read the signature, I ask for ID. Most people appreciate this, and I get thanked all the time. It is very dangerous not to sign your card. You may think you’re requiring everyone to ask for ID, but if your card is stolen or lost, ANYONE can sign your card and provide ID with the name on it, fake ID’s are everywhere.
I always show my Federal gun permit…. usually works….
I will tell you what. If i have already paid, THEN you ask for ID, forget it. Give me my card back.
Secondly, it is illegal for them to detain you for any reason after the transaction is complete unless you are suspect to a theft.
Dude should have called the cops, and i would be writing wallmanrt’s brass to tell them the deal, and would want some form of compensation for the time wasted (ie your typical hourly charge that you would charge a police agency) for wasting your time.
@Buran:
I wouldn’t think he’s actually paid for it until the clerk completes the transaction.
@KogeLiz:
Don’t shop anywhere.
If people keep boycotting every business that annoys them they won’t be able to shop anywhere eventually
I’ve commented on this subject before, but it’s really frustrating to deal with debit/credit purchases.
Half of the public will thank you for checking their ID and the other half gets offended.
I agree that a state-issued ID with a matching name should have been enough. But the fact that Visa and MC have policies which seem to favor theives is a little troubling. A cashier should never take a record of your info, but asking to check and make sure that the name on your ID matches the name on the card doesn’t seem out of line.
Because if your card gets stolen and some jerk buys him/herself a new wardrobe, your first thought will be “If the cashier had asked to see ID, this would have never happened.”
@ecwis: Would it be ok to keep his ID if it were an employee at, say, Macys or Nordstroms. I would say that letting ANYONE at any store keep your ID is not a bright thing to do.
The employee doesn’t care about your oh so important information. And just because someone works at Walmart doesn’t make them dishonest, or you and your information special.
You can report this type of merchant behavior to Mastercard directly at (this links directly to the form):
[www.mastercard.com]
The form is for reporting merchants who: require IDs as a condition of accepting the card, require a minimum purchase amount, or who add a fee as a condition of credit card purchase.
(Visa doesn’t seem to have an equivalent. Their site says to call your Visa cards issuing bank. Good luck on that one.)
As much as I hate Walmart I have to disagree with Steve here.
John is probably some young kid who is just doing what he thinks is right. Something out of the ordinary like a card with merely a picture, name, and signature would probably raise alarms with me as well. I could easily make a card with a printer and a laminator using a different signature and claim that it’s an official ID. Who would know the difference? Especially someone who works for Walmart.
I commend John for noticing something out of the ordinary and taking action. If this had been a real identity thief he would have been caught and everyone would have praised John for his tactics. By holding onto the card and the ID, John would have at least stopped the thief from using those items again.
I’m sorry Steve, but you should have praised John for noticing something “different”, especially after working with police on identity theft matters. It’s those people who ignore strange occurrences who allow identity thieves to continue to get away with people’s money!