Scroll up, Trans Fat Og and look at the post I quoted.
Sure. Possibly it was illegal, but since the IDs were either forged or someone else’s ID, I never got in trouble for it. The owner told us to do it. And I was always perfectly willing to call a cop while I held the card. Amazingly, nobody EVER wanted to wait for a cop to show up, they always booked out of the store and didn’t come back.
In those days, we had to call for authorization on credit cards, too, and occasionally we’d be told to cut up the card. So sometimes I did that, as well.
I fought the Kwiki Mart and the Kwiki Mart won.
If that had happened to me, I’d be the one phoning the cops and having the clerk charged with theft and anything else I could think of to make her life a living hell as the lawsuits against her, the Kwiki Mart and the credit-card entity piled up.
Besides, a lone clerk behind the counter at 2.a.m. obeying some anonymous voice from the safety of a call-centre cubicle 2,000 miles away telling her to cut up a customer’s credit card might find herself with a bullet between her eyes.
The clerk would be as stupid as those fast-food restaurant drones obeying phone orders to strip-search customers.
Okay, I definitely didn’t see what Lynn wrote before posting.
Is confiscating in such a case illegal? I can’t imagine that it would not be. Neither store clerks (…even store owners or operators) nor bank clerks (… presidents/branch managers) would seem to have an open perogative to confiscate (take) someone’s possession, even if they have strong reason to suspect illegality.
That said, no officer of the law is likely ever to also arrest someone acting so boldly, if the first party is carrying something either stolen or being used illegally.
Even in a case such as mine, would a “Lynn” be arrested? I feel that no, she should not be. And beyond that, it seems to me unlikely that she would endure anything worse than a lecture from an officer. I base this guess on various life experiences.
But IANAL, so maybe a lawyer or legal researcher can answer each case.
- Truly Innocent (in my two germane cases, if not always) Jack
Ok, this is killing me. There has to be a bit more to the story than that. Please?
What the fuck are you talking about? “Those fast-food restaurant drones” implies that this is a well-known story. ETA: if so, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
You’d probably lose, too. Ever read your credit card agreement?
You don’t see anybody phoning in credit card authorizations anymore, but it used to be a common practice when fewer people had credit cards. Granted, back in those days, you didn’t see so many people using credit cards at convenience stores. But department store clerks and hotel employees were absolutely told to cut up cards.
There weren’t computer networks to authorize transactions over the internet, so sometimes you would have to wait while somebody phoned in an authorization, especially on large purchases. It’s not an issue these days because authorizations are computerized and nobody wants to deal with the hassle of confiscating cards for the $4.05 purchase you try to make at 7-Eleven at 2am. It’s easier just to have the machine deny the card and flag it in the system for later.
Having lived in California for about 15 years before moving to Oregon, I was utterly astounded at the efficiency of the Oregon DMV. Filled out a form, waited about ten minutes, presented my passport and utility bill, took my written test, passed, had my picture taken, waited another five minutes, and was handed my new driver’s license.
I wandered out into the parking lot like I was walking away from a plane crash.
I got a $50 reward for confiscating one at a liquor store. We had to call in purchases of over a certain amount, and look up the card in a book they sent out if it was less than that. So I called it in, and when the lady asked to speak with the customer, I looked up and he was just driving away. Mailed the card in; got a check a couple weeks later.
The cops would just laugh at you. And look you up, to see if you had any outstanding warrants – people who try to use bad credit cards often do.
And it could hardly be theft, when the card is not your property, but that of the credit card company. Like it says right on the back of the card.
A lawsuit against the clerk would be defended by the lawyers for Kwiki Mart, and the credit card company. I’d bet they have more lawyers than you could afford. (Especially if you can’t even afford to pay the monthly minimum on your credit card bill, which is why they are confiscating it.)
This was definitely the standard procedure back then.
I worked in a retail store part-time during college, and we had to call in every card purchase over $75. Once I was told to keep the card, and to ask the customer to speak to them – he declined, and left. But I still had the card, and got a $50 reward when we mailed it in. Which was more than a days wages for me!
Ooh! Ooh! Look mommy - it’s a straw man!
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Except you’re jumping to conclusions, along with cops. The credit card wouldn’t be bad. The bank made the error.
Right. You’re mugged by an armed gang-banger who swipes your credit or debit card, and he gets away with it because it isn’t theft, since the card belongs to the bank. Sounds like Florida law.
Again, you’re assuming a hell of a lot, that I would be the criminal instead of the Kwiki Mart genius running a longtime scam of skimming cash off the hundreds of cards in his/her possession after “confiscating” them. (I can accuse the Kwiki Mart of criminal behaviour as easy as you accuse me).
I went through something like that about 20 years ago. The commercial-crimes unit of the Calgary cops finally charged the store with fraud. I was a witness but the retailer pleaded guilty. I considered a lawsuit but it wasn’t worth it since the retailer lost his business and ended up behind bars. I hope he and his wife were deported.
If you have to get fingerprinted in DC for employment, you go to the police station. There, you enter the fingerprinting office on the 3rd floor, where they tell you that will be $35 and you need to go pay for this at the DMV in the basement and bring the receipt back, and only then will they fingerprint you.
Because it’s not like the fingerprint office secretary is literally the only person on the floor at that hour and isn’t doing anything besides calling her doctor’s office for a prescription refill because she doesn’t have any actual job tasks to do, like accepting $35. No, it’s much more efficient to send unsuspecting civilians on a 10-minute hike down to the basement, where they get to join a line of 75 people needing to exchange license plates, pay parking tickets, renew licenses, ask where the traffic court is, etc. And that line is just to take a number. Forget actually getting to a service counter to take care of your issue.
I was livid. The DMV is one of those places that you need to know you will be subjected to well in advance, so you can mentally and physically prepare yourself. Sort of like a root canal, or jury duty. I did not go to the fingerprinting office expecting to wind up in the DMV, because the two have nothing to do with each other.
Fortunately, that day, the DC DMV was in possession of possibly the only sane, thinking employee in the entire metro area. He saw the insanely long line, called out for anyone who was just waiting to pay for fingerprinting/background checks to come to him and get a number (there were 2 of us), and sent us to the fast track lane. By “fast track” I mean it was only a 20 minute wait. Did I mention that this location took cash only and there was no indication of that until you got up to the counter?
This.
(If that link doesn’t work for any reason, just google: fast food employee strip search )
Synopsis:
Hoaxster calls McDonalds on night shift one night. Claims to be “Officer Scott”.
Says a certain employee is suspected of theft. Demands manager strip-search employee.
Or else employee will be arrested, taken to station, strip-searched there.
Moron shift manager strip-searches employee.
Jury awards employee $6M
Apparently, this was a popular hoax going around. There seemed to be lots of instances of it.
Can you believe that?
Here is another article about the McDonald’s strip-search case, from the Washington Post, with perhaps a little more detail.
It was actually a disconnect between the admission system and the current enrollment system. The secretary doing the admissions was her old English teacher, who damn well KNEW she was a current resident. You have to jump through a ton of hoops to get into the system, and since it’s so automated and locked up so tightly it’s impossible to get in. It turns out that once you’re IN the system as a student, they can do whatever they want. So since she was in the database due to her having taken the ceramics course umpteen years ago, the secretary could just make an “executive decision” against the automated madness.