Reader Brandon is obviously familiar with number 3 in the 10 Things You Might Not Know About Your Credit Card post, holding firm in the face of a retailer who wanted Brandon to give his driver’s license when he bought something with a credit card:
Just wanted to let you know, armed with the Consumerist and a signed credit card, I thwarted the Best Buy minions who wanted to enter my driver’s license information into their “fraud prevention database” in Virginia. When asked for ID, I pointed out the card was signed and that as a condition of their arrangement with Visa they could not demand identification. I demanded a manager who sided with me and processed the transaction without identification. Interestingly, I was not asked to sign at all (even the final receipt) which makes me less secure in Best Buy’s transaction policy.
That’s right. If your credit card is signed, retailers are not allowed to require any additional ID with your purchase. To do so is a violation of their contract with the credit card company. Violators can be reported by consumers to their credit card companies, and possibly have their accounts taken away.
With the high number of retail database breaches this year, do we really need to be giving these chumps any more of our personal information than we have to? I’d like to keep my digits out of the hands of the Russian hackers as long as possible, thanks.
(Photo: Getty)
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Best Buy is not the only place that does this. Forever 21 routinely requires customers to show identification whenever using a credit card.
Hah! The other day at Home Depot, I was supposed to sign an electronic signature pad with my signature. I made a nice tic, tac, toe board with a couple of x’s and o’s, and the cashier just smiled and shrugged. I think I will change my name, like Prince did, to the tic, tac, toe chicken scratches.
I am an avid privacy advocate who also happens to own a small retail business. With that background this stuff tears me in two directions.
a) Not all credit card contracts with the merchant prohibit requesting ID. After reading this post I double checked mine, and it doesn’t comment on the practice at all. The promotional materials I get from my merchant provider actually strongly recommend asking for an ID when accepting cards.
b) While I hate handing over personal info, I can see where BestBuy is coming from. I am a small business that probably does in a year what one Best Buy store does in a few days. My product is customized and delivered, so I have your delivery address with every order. My customer service people call everyone by first name. Despite all that I average 2-3 charge backs a month due to fake cards, people denying the charge, etc. We can have the guy on tape using the card, and they still deny every being in the store. I can only imagine what a large impersonal store like Best Buy deals with. It must cost them a fortune, I can’t blame them for asking for ID.
I’ve never had them record information about me. A zip code, sure. I sign up for the rewards cards too. But recording my DL #, etc, I don’t think so.
I’m a military spouse, and military discounts are nice, but I don’t like to show my military ID. I’m a dependent, so it has my sponsor’s (husband) SSN right on the front, with his name and how he’s related to me. I’ve never had anyone record anything from it, but I do have to show it to shop at the PX and commissary. When getting discounts, so long as they don’t ask for a copy or write anything down from it, I’ll show it.
Once I was in the electronics section of Walmart (how I hate that place, but it’s the only dept store within 40 miles of me) they demanded to see my ID when making a credit card purchase, saying it was store ‘policy’. I refused, took my merchandise to the Customer Service counter, complained to the ‘supervisor’ there who seemed to understand that they weren’t supposed to demand ID but defended the practice because they had sold so much merchandise that had been bought with stolen cards. However, she processed my credit card purchase without requiring ID…why this is ok for the Customer Service desk to process without ID, but not for the electronics dept, is beyond me. I hate Walmart.