I have had credit card people do that to my cards when it is something that I do not do regularly. I love it. They are watching and reacting fast. I accept the hassle because I want them to be watching like that. 
I know from working retail credit in the '80’s and '90’s, we used to have store clerks occasionally confiscate and cut up cards. Not just for over limit or expired cards, we had to have a fraud or stolen report on the card. The cutting up of the card was so it couldn’t go from the cash register into the sales person’s pocket.
StG
I recently had the modern-day version happen. Upon making a simple and supposedly innocuous e-mail query to my American credit-card company concerning my card, I received a response saying they were sorry my card was lost (
) and they had just canceled it so no one could use it (:mad:). (I had not reported it lost.)
They can’t reactivate it once they’ve canceled it, so it’s practically the same as cutting it up. I had to wait for a new card to arrive once I’d chewed them out. Fortunately I have other cards.
Back in the 80’s I worked in a shop and we had to call in every credit card transaction for approval. (We had to run it through the manual machine, have the person sign, and then call for the approval number to include on the receipt).
Once or twice I was advised by the operator to cut up the card.
This seems like something that doesn’t happen anymore - as someone mentioned upthread, now I think they just freeze your card.
Yep I was very clearly incorrect.
It’s been years since I was in retail. Even under management training with Home Depot the company was very explicit under no circumstances should a cashier take a customers credit card. It was explained to me cashiers had no right to do so. The various explanations I quoted above were told to me by one of the trainers.
My guess is it was a company policy to avoid conflict with customers.
That’s very likely. Even the actual instructions from card issuers explicitly advised the cashier to return the card if the customer offered any kind of threat, so it’s certainly not beyond the bounds of imagination to picture a given chain of stores deciding to avoid the problem entirely.
I put my car on my credit card.* I thought I was below my limit, but it turned out I was over by a thousand. The card went through without a glitch (the car dealer was surprised) and the credit card company just told me I couldn’t charge anything more until I was below my limit.
Cards were cut up because it took time to get word out to the merchants. You got a weekly list of bad cards and were required to check every transaction against it. But if a card was stolen or over the limit, it would be several days to a week before word could get out. If you didn’t take the card, it might be used for more transactions (especially for those below floor limit) before the merchants could know. The credit card company would be stuck with those.
Cutting the card also rendered it useless. The clerk might otherwise take the card and make charges on it on the credit card company’s dime.
Now that information is sent electronically and updated immediately, it is no longer a problem. A bad card will be flagged as a bad card anywhere as soon as it’s reported.
*Note for those appalled by that statement: I was planning to write a check and had the money for it in the bank. But with the credit card, I got a ton of points and a free hotel stay.
Yep. A booklet, actually. One for each card issuer (Visa, MC, AM Ex) and the store got a new one weekly. Each register had a copy and the cashier had to manually look up each card. Tell me again why we long for the good old days…
When I was a cashier, we had a “floor limit” – I think it was $50 for BankAmericard and $75 for MasterCharge. Only transactions above that limit had to be looked up. There was also another limit past which the charge had to be called in rather than just checking the book.
There’s another reason to add to your list:
- Your pattern of spending is atypical, so the card issuer puts a hold on your card.
That happened to me. I got a new job and went out to buy a load of nice clothes. At the third shop or so the store retained my card and cut it up even though I was begging them to at least wait until I talked to my bank and I’d provided ID to demonstrate that it was my own card. Even when the bank confirmed the reason they’d put a hold on the card the store refused to return it and cut it up in front of me. They were very apologetic, but it was company policy.
nm
I am a store cashier. We are instructed to take the card in our hand, swipe it and, regardless of outcome, immediately hand it back to the customer. We are told not to put it on the counter, but to hand it back as soon as it goes through (Here you go) or is denied (I’m sorry, your card was denied).
Not handing the card back immediately is considered a serious offense.
No doubt true. Also, card cutting or keeping was definitely a thing back when, as several personal anecdotes attest to.
It was always somewhat embarrassing to deal with bad credit when I was in retail. I felt bad for the customer. The card cutting thing, tho, always seemed (to me) to be because of a serious breech, tho.
As for the movie trope of asking for all the cards in your wallet (Trading Places, for one), it was an exaggeration for comedic effect based on something most people were at least somewhat familiar with, I end prepositionally.
This is true. And it must be surrendered upon demand.
ETA, that doesn’t mean the clerk becomes an agent of the card company as far as retrieving it goes.
Late 1960’s, I was filling in as a summer bank teller in a summer resort community. I swear that one of my coworkers had ESP. She would pick up 4 or 5 cards a day that were stolen and get the $50. reward for each. And she also was able to get a 10% reward from the bank for all the counterfeit currency she caught BEFORE it was credited to someones account. (Once it was in the till, the bank took the loss). And this was before the days of online card verification. She could just sense when someone was wrong and trying to get a cash advance. Hope she went on to police work.
Yes and no. I used to work for a bank and it was technically possible for a the fraud department to temporarily reactive a lost/stolen credit card, but it was a huge hassle for the cardholder. They would need to call customer service before each transaction, wade though the IVR to get a live CSR, then get transferred to the fraud department, ask for a 1 time override, answer additional security questions, and let fraud know who the merchant was and the transaction amount before running the card. Basically the only customers who put up with all that were travellers who didn’t have any other choice. Also it had to be the actual cardholder on the line, not just an authorized user.
About 2 yrs ago I had a 3rd shift temp job, and happened to me while grocery shopping in the middle of the night.
Not my issuer (Chase). They flat-out told me on the phone that it could not be done, period. I had to wait for the replacement.