Real answer:
Yes, I’ll stand my ground if I know I’m right, if my cashier feels something is ‘wrong’ and asks for an ID, I’ll back her up (especially if I agree) or decline the sale.
Joke answer
Only if he points a weapon at me. I mean, what choice do I have.
Pretty much any principle is more important than merely being inconvenienced. For me, it’s that you don’t get to renege on your commitments just because it becomes inconvenient.
The whole point of using credit cards is to shorten transaction time, and asking people to show their ID increases it. Even if I have them both ready, there’s no point in asking for the ID unless you are going to inspect it, and that’s going to take more time. If I get you to stop doing this, the amount of time saved will more than make up for the amount I wasted.
Plus, well, I don’t have a state ID. I’d have to pay for one. I’d not just be inconvenienced.
When I’m asked for ID, the cashier glances at the card, compares the name, glances at me (maybe), and hands it back. This takes maybe five seconds. For that reason, and because the whole point of it is to prevent fraud, it has never bothered me. It didn’t bother me before, and it won’t bother me now that I know it’s apparently acceptable to dig your heels in over some vague principle of… something. Privacy fears? They’re already going to have my name and credit card number, and frankly most cashiers don’t strike me as the “photographic memory” type, so I doubt my address ever lives past their sensory register. Revealing my age? I don’t give a shit. Embarrassment over my driver’s license photo? I’ll admit it ain’t flattering, but doesn’t that just make the real-life me look that much better?
I get that it’s a “right,” as it were, I just don’t see what’s gained by exercising it, or lost by having it “infringed.”
If my credit card gets stolen or compromised, I don’t really care very much. I’m inconvenienced that I have to make a phone call but that’s about it.
If my identity gets stolen, that is much more difficult to unravel. Giving up possession of my driver’s license increases the chance that the information is compromised, increasing the potential for identity theft.
Of course I never do this when I’m with my wife because she finds it annoying and I’ll pretty much do whatever she wants. There is the matter of the principle but I can only take that so far.
*They’re already going to have my name and credit card number, and frankly most cashiers don’t strike me as the “photographic memory” type, so I doubt my address ever lives past their sensory register.
*
What is the “photographic memory” type? Could you be saying that cashiers are not very intelligent?
Please don’t equate photographic memory with intelligence or employment.
I have a college degree and I am working “out of my field” as they say. Doing the best I can bro.
Bone - I never take possession of the ID. I am fine with just looking at it before I swipe the card and check to see if the photo looks like the person standing in front of me. A few seconds only.
Re: photographic memory and credit card or ID numbers.
As a hotel auditor and manager (different times and jobs, but I was still manager on duty when I was working the audit,) I didn’t have to memorize anything. (Although I can, to this day, type in the corporate travel card number for a major retail chain, along with the cell and office numbers for Deb, their company travel coordinator.) I had full access to clients’ credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers, etc. In cases where authorizations were faxed in, I had copies of the front and back of the card and ID. In other words, if so inclined, I could easily have committed a lot of felonies. I didn’t and wouldn’t, but I do worry a bit when I check into any hotel I’m not familiar with. I use either cash or a credit card, never debit, for hotels.
Photographic memory or eidetic memory is a rare trait that allows a person to look at an image and recall it with precise detail sometime later. They most often find jobs as cops on TV shows.
No one has suggested it in this thread, but in other discussions on the internet, people have suggested they are afraid of showing their IDs to store clerks for fear the store clerk may have an eidetic memory and will remember the details on their ID and use it for some unspecified sinister purpose.
You are right however that it is impossible to identify a person with eidetic memory just by looking at them. However, if you said that any given store clerk (or rocket surgeon or college graduate working out of their field) did not have eidetic memory, you’d be right 99.99% of the time.
The man was just another IDIOT customer, the merchant’s method of payment and verification is an individual business choice, not his.
I also object to being asked for ID with my charge card, and have had many polite discussions through the years on the matter. In recent months, I just say “it’s a signature card.” That seems to confuse most cashiers enough that they drop the matter.
What really seems strange to me is that after I’ve had a ten-minute knock-down drag-out fight about how it’s For My Protection and about their Store Policy vs. the Merchant Agreement and what trumps what . . . they never even bother to look at the signature on the back of the card. Hardly anyone ever does.
Shouldn’t the amount of the transaction change this post?
I think if it was less than ~$200, don’t worry about it. It’s too little money to matter.
More than $200-$1000 or so, definitely check ID.
The government decide not to introduce an ID Card in Australia, so basically we have no ID whatsoever, The police do not have the right to ask for id (they do anyway and we give it to them) All you have to give them is your name and address, if they have a cause to stop you and ask you, it is their duty is to inform you why they stop you for, So if we have NOT ID in Australia, why are people so fanatic to ask for something that does not exist. a drivers license is not an ID a license to drive a car, a credit card is a credit card, What are we Americans
What the hell ? Just like anywhere, drivers licenses are the main ID… (besides which, medicare , ATO, and social security cards and others… link to my.gov.au … Australia ID virtually implemented.)
Back to the OP’s question… the topic at hand… The actual situation is that the currently the shop can refuse any one to use any eftpos cards they wish.
They may then say “but you can use this means if you pay our $5 fee for using it”.
eg redirect you to the ATM sitting in the corner, which charges everyone $5 for it.
Meanwhile its becoming clear that electronic cash is becoming common.
Its also becoming a burden on small business, as they pay banks a larger % on transactions than big business, thats why small businesses have the “minimum $10 for transactions” signs…
The thing is that the governments are introducing government supplied eftpos… eg Hicaps for medical services, the medical service claims the funds from the health insurance company AND the government, and can then take EFTPOS payments too ! The result… the three payments all done there and then, here’s the receipt balance $0, all done !
Now what I am thinking is that the government should provide EFTPOS to implement E Cash fairly, or simply remove the transaction fee element from the banks (so that a shop can pay a minimal fee to keep their eftpos machine alive and transacting some reasonable total a year… ), and then the rules of use of the cards will have to be spelt out, so as to prevent the so supplied eftpos being OFFERED but then actual consumers pushed onto a service that attracts a fee… “sorry, we dont let your type use the free service, use our paid service, $5 a transaction” ??? When cash becomes rare, the cost of the ATM transaction will go up… So the consumer has to be sure ecash will work… they may put a “test here” device at the ENTRY door so you can sure it will work ?
Last time I checked, a merchant can refuse service to customers as long as they aren’t discriminating. If your store policy is to check ID’s then tell the customer he can take his business elsewhere if he doesn’t want to show his ID. That’s not discrimination. It’s not illegal. Not complying with a merchant agreement with Visa/MC is not illegal. It’s an issue between the merchant and the Card issuer, not the customer.