Well I bought myself a pair of shoes today and used my brand new credit card. Yeah, it’s my first and I know very little about common usage of such cards - I didn’t even realize I had to call to activate it for a while… so naturally (I guess) I hadn’t signed it. My bad, I know I was wrong, it’s fixed now, no big deal.
Question - The cashier saw it wasn’t signed and said “do you have any picture ID before I even give this back” and held it away from me… the implication being that I wouldn’t get it back without proving it was mine. Seeing as it absolutely was mine, is this technically legal?
(I realize it was actually smart on her part, and probably something to do with store policy. She was still nice though, and I was in a good mood, so there was no issue to be had)
Now playing devil’s advocate, and assuming I was in a really bad mood and decided to do my shopping elsewhere rather than show my ID would she have to give my card back anyways? Could I snatch it from her hand sans repercussions? Could I jump the counter and take it back? How about hip-tossin’ the chick and stomping on her head until she let go of it?.. OK I know the last one is extreme, but is this situation anything like having someone steal something of mine and me using reasonable force to get it back; or are there special rules concerning suspicion of fraud and so forth for this scenario?
I’m quite sure if you showed me your camera I couldn’t demand proof that it actually was yours and when not getting it say “well I’m gonna keep this and drop it off at the police station 'cause I think you stole it” and then walk away with it.
Usually if it’s not signed and you refuse ID (or don’t have ID), they just refuse to take the card and hand it back to you. The store I worked in didn’t tell me anything about taking or keeping the card.
A. It is NOT your card. It is the property of whoever issued it (bank, etc.).
B. The store and it’s employees, when handling the card, are acting as agents of the credit card company and/or issuer - if either of them has a policy that says an unsigned card is not valid, then yes, they could require that the agent (store and its employees) do what is known as a “pickup” - take physical possession of the card.
As this is a matter of an agent carrying out the instructions of the owner of the card, you would have no immediate (legal) recourse. You could get a lawyer and sue, claiming public humiliation, etc.
As IANAL, I will let others answer the questio if just how far such a suit would get.
p.s. a few years ago, the credit card companies paid the store $50 for each “hot” card they recovered - don’t know the current rate.
As a matter of fact, your merchant agreement requires you to monitor credit cards, “Unless you feel your saftey is threatened.” When I worked at Sheraton awhile back I got a call from American Express and they said our employees were not cooperating with them. She said in the last week we had 20 pick up cards and failed to get any of them. When I said the employees don’t feel right about taking cards Amex explained that they would simply take their machine back. Of course a hotel can’t run without AMEX so we had to train our emplyoees to be a bit more agressive.
Before anyone asks, this is not a valid way of using a credit card. According to your user agreement they must be signed. You can also write ‘see ID’ but unless the card is signed it is invalid. Some places might let you get away with it, but they shouldn’t.
This has been discussed many times on this board and is not valid. You are not free to determine how to use the card. You are bound by an agreement with the issuer which requires you to sign the card and if you do not sign it you are in breach.
I’m pretty sure that only the bank, and not the merchant, can order a card confiscated. The merchant might actually take the card, but only when the bank tells 'em to.
Usually, this is via a message on the handset machine, but it could be done through bank policy. A merchant’s policy isn’t good enough - the most they can do on their own is refuse the card.
If a merchant is suspicious, they should contact the bank, and/or their local police. If a checkout clerk snags your card without the bank’s say-so, you might or might not be able to sue 'em, and you could probably get a cop to sort things out by demanding the clerk call the police (or by calling 'em yourself).
I would not try to take the card by force. That would probably be a Bad Thing.
I am not a lawyer. Not even remotely.
Alas, the mailbag has been superseded by people who work in the industry and read the contracts you sign when you sign up for a credit card. The mailbag answer is wrong, and may result in getting your card confiscated. What is the date on that article? It probably should be updated.
Contact your card issuer and ask what is required. It’s pretty clear that you must sign the card for it to be accepted. While some stores may accept it, that doesn’t mean it is right.
I’ve had credit cards for years and have never signed any of them. My mother always told me that signing them was a bad idea, so I never did it. She claimed that it would make it easier for someone to forge your signature etc.
Anyway, my unsigned credit cards and I have never been questioned or stopped. No one has said a word. I’ll gladly give up my I.D. if asked, but I’ve never signed my cards, and I won’t start now.
And if you lose your credit card? Wouldn’t a perp just sign it A. Lias and therefore have a perfect “forgery”. And how easy a forgery at that?
And then, when your credit card company demands that you honour the withdrawals against it, whatcha gonna do? Get your mom to call them and sort it out?
Interestingly enough, a cashier has “verified” my signature exactly once over the past year or so. I think they’re less likely to check nowadays because a lot of stores have those swipe machines on the customer’s side of the counter; that is, the cashier doesn’t even get the card, since the customer is doing all the swiping.
(You know which machines I mean? The little doohickeys where you swipe your card, punch in what kind of card it is, do you want cash back, is the amount correct, and so on?)
Perhaps this is a local thing, but every store that I shop at around here takes the credit card from you, once you’ve swiped it, and at least briefly glances at the back before handing it and your receipt back to you. My SIL from New Jersey was (pleasantly) surprised by this practice…she said that no one looks at credit card signatures there. You could write “Check ID” or “Bozo T. Clown”, and it wouldn’t matter at all.
A store clerk looked for my signature once on my card & didn’t find it & refused to use it. I did sign it before, but it wore off. I don’t know why I didn’t just sign it in front of her though.
Once at a resteraunt in my hometown, I paid with a debit card issued from a local bank. I got someone else’s card back that looked identical to mine (from the same bank), and she got mine. We unknowingly used each other’s cards for 3 days before I tried to use an ATM and didn’t have the correct PIN. Upon discovering I had the wrong card, I contacted the bank. We got it all sorted out, and compared our debits to see who owed who some loot (I ran up $5 more on her card than she did on mine).
This led to a discussion about a week later, on the day that I received a new, replacement card. Some of my friends were surprised that nobody had noticed that I (clearly a male) had been using a card with the name “Anita” for days, and nobody noticed that or checked the signatures. Since my new debit card was still unsigned, this led to a bet about how frequently credit card signitures got checked. I signed my new card: “FirstnamePIMPIN’Lastname”, with “PIMPIN’” written in large, print letters.
I had long since forgotton about the bet when, for the first time 6 months later, I was mildly embarassed by a Best Buy clerk who asked, “Uuuummmmmmmmm… does that say… pimpin’?”
When I first got a credit card I didn’t sign it. About 6 months into having the card one clerk told me they can’t take a card that isn’t signed and handed me a pen. So, I signed the card and handed it back to her. She then swiped the card as usual, had me sign the slip, then checked the signature on the slip to the one on the card! Some people are too stupid to be let out alone…
The funny thing is, my signature is kinda smudged. It doesn’t look exactly like my signature on the receipt. After all, cards come out of and go into wallets and purses all the time, and their magnetism wanes over time, too. So even if they were to check it, it’s not an exact match.
Thanks for all the replies people, but just to reiterate my OP, can the cashier refuse to give me back my unsigned card? It seems like they won’t get in much trouble from some of the responses so far, but will I get in trouble for snatching it back anyways (which would be quite easy)?