Reader George writes in because Macy’s asked his wife for her Social Security Number when she tried to return a pair of jeans she bought online with a gift card. No, she wasn’t trying to get cash back. Yes, she had all the documentation from Macys.com.

George writes:

When it was finally our turn, my wife handed over her jeans still in the original plastic shipping pouch with the invoice and all the other paper work it came with. The cashier started punching all sorts of buttons (Why does it always take so many keystrokes for clothing store employees to ring up an order?).

She then asked my wife for her drivers license. It seemed like a semi-reasonable request to verify her identity and help avoid return fraud, so my wife dug our her drivers license. After some more serious key mashing, the cashier pointed to the credit card terminal and asked my wife for her Social Security Number. Wait a minute! Time out! There is no way we are giving my wife’s Social Security Number after this sales associate just took down my wife’s driver’s license info (full name, address, eye color, etc.). The thought of this employee opening a home equity line of credit with this info flashed through my mind.

Eventually George’s wife had to speak to a manager to get out of giving up her SSN.

Now, we hear a lot of stupid crap while doing this job, and we are somewhat numb to it, but this really ticks us off. Who in their right mind would give their SSN out to someone just to put a pair of jeans back onto a gift card?!

We checked out Macy’s return policy for returning items bought online to the bricks-and-mortar store. There is no mention of this “policy” on their site. Macy’s, we’d like you to explain yourselves. Consumers, be like George’s wife, do NOT give your Social Security Number to someone just to get store credit on a pair of jeans. For pete’s sake!! —MEGHANN MARCO

SSN for Returns at Macy’s? [Fat Pitch Financials]
Macy’s Return Policy [Macys]

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