One day we had a customer that was refusing to provide his driver’s license and the cashier asked me (the assistant manager) what to do. My response was quite simple. The employer requires an ID for credit card purchases. If he will not provide the ID then refuse the credit card.

The customer responded with, “you can’t do that!”. Oh yes I can I replied. It is company policy that we check ID to insure that the person using the credit card does in fact own and therefore have a right to use said credit card. Besides, it’s for your protection. If someone comes in trying to use your credit card, they will not be able to because we won’t accept it.

By the way. Unless those so called regulations are written in law, they are not regulations. They may be rules that the Credit Card companies have, but they are not regulations.

Speaking of such. Those rules may constitute an unlawful act of any person accepting a stolen credit card being in collusion with the thief. It’s called “accessory after the fact” you have received stolen property.

Another point you miss. Many people, even after reporting that their credit card has been stolen within minutes of it being stolen, have been held liable by the credit card companies. I’m not talking a couple hundred dollars which is unacceptable standing on principle, I’m talking about thousands of dollars that were charged to the card that the company could have prevented by freezing the card as soon as the card holder called it in.

Final point: After the financial collapse that was caused by the crooked financial institutions of America; are you sure you want to trust the credit card companies policies?

I don’t.

There might be some protection against fraud by comparing a pix with me I suppose. I don’t feel singled out and now that you brought this to my attention I’m going to start paying attention to what’s happening with folks of other colors.

I do know that one of the more powerful questions I’ve ever been asked is: What’s it like to be white?

Geeze what’s that’s revealed to me.

You’ve raised an interesting point here and I’ve wrestled with this issue myself since I started Merchant911 back in 2001.

You are correct in your interpretation of the regulations regarding ID for credit card purchases but personally, I’ve never quite gotten my head around the logic of the regulation. Consider that if it was someone else presenting your card, you’d probably be glad that an ID was asked for and the transaction was refused. It’s true that you wouldn’t be responsible for the fraudulent charge, but there is the hassle involved in clearing it up. I think the regulation is based not on security, but on the number of transactions per minute and the least amount of inconvenience to the cardholder. To put it another way; dollars in the Association’s pocket.

The “profiling” thing is something of a grey area. I understand your point and I can’t argue that it’s wrong. On the other hand, as a former police officer, I can tell you that it’s something of a fact of life. If a police officer is on patrol in a residential neighborhood that’s predominantly white folks driving Lexus and Caddies and sees a (you name the non-white subject) driving a beat up Chevy, he’s going to get a bit suspicious. Is it profiling or is it good police work? It doesn’t really matter who’s driving – it looks out of place and therefor suspicious. The same can be said for a white guy in a Lexus cruising Harlem. I think, as a former intelligence officer, you’d agree. I don’t see the scenarios that you’ve described as being much different.

Personally, I’d like to see the regulation about ID go away and require merchants to request ID. It’s not going to happen. In an attempt to make everyone happy and stay within the regulations, I always recommend signing the card AND writing “See ID” on the card. But the sad fact is, how many merchants even look to see if the card is signed, let alone compare the card with the signed slip?