True... but only if you consider what you pay for directly. Indirectly, we all pay.

When someone uses a stolen card and gets away with it, the bank refuses the charges, and so it is the store that gets ripped off. The store then finds ways to make up that loss -- adding a bit of extra profit to all of their merchandise that we ALL end up paying. So we DO pay for those charges regardless of whether it was our card that was stolen and used or not. The same applies to shoplifting, etc. All retails stores have built-in charges into their prices to cover for these kinds of losses.

The only real way of knowing if there is any real savings by having the clerks at any store check the driver's licenses of their customers is to compile statistics on just how many fraudulent purchases they actually stop, add up all the money they prevent from being ripped off, and then compare THAT to how much time/money it costs the store to have the clerks actually DO the checks (time spent in meetings instructing clerks what to look for; accumulated amount of time spent with the clerks waiting on people to dig through wallets/purses for their ID when the clerks could have finished and made other sales with other customers; customer ill-will towards the company which may result in fewer future sales, etc.).

If they are saving more money by preventing fraudulent purchases than they are spending in the activity of checking IDs, then I'm all for it. On the other hand, if they are merely checking IDs because they think it's helping without any real data to back it up, then quit hassling me and let me be on my way.

Personally, I think the whole credit card system is screwed. They need a much more secure way of determining who is and who is not allowed to use a specific credit card. Until they come up with a truly secure way of handling this, I think anything a retail store does is pretty much futile.

I write "check my ID" on the back of all my credit cards. 75% of the time they actually do. The other 25%, I ask why they didn't.

We could all try being honest...

I personally like the debits that allow you to put in a pin number, and that's it. If you protect your pin, then you ought to be safe. If you don't, well who's to blame but yourself? I know, it's not that simple. And quite honestly, security never will be, because no matter what system we come up with to 'protect' ourselves, there will be some way around it.

The most secure way to pay, if you're interested, is to always cash out your checks, hide your excess money in a well locked vault when you get home, and then only use cash from that vault to pay for anything. That way you have no credit card or debit card to have stolen. And no one will ever bug you for your I.D. Of course, you can't do eCommerce anymore, but you'll be secure!

I don't know... I'm hoping for something more hi-tech such as retinal IDs. I suppose there will be a way around that, as well, but it would be a bit difficult to stand in front of a clerk and get away with putting a fake eye in front of the retinal screener! ;)

And even if it doesn't work, it's just more cool than credit cards and driver's licenses. I'm ready for something new and less boring. :D

The yearly loss due to credit card fraud amounts to $8 and some cents per person in the US. I'll send in my $8 every year to avoid being asked for ID, which isn't helping anything anyway.

The card companies have lots of ways to make the systems more secure. But those ways cost more than the losses, so why do it?

Are you serious? It's only $8 + pocket change a year per person? Well, that explains a lot.

You guys are talking averages. Sure it averages out to 8 dollars a person, but when your the person who's slammed for $200, it's not so fun.

I thought the most you could be personally held responsible for is $50? How would you be slammed for $200? Are some credit card companies now raising the limit?

This is specifically for credit cards and not debit cards. Last I looked, which I admit has a been a few years, if you got ripped off on a debit card, you lost the full amount. I have seen some advertisements come in the mail that now claim to protect you from that, but I haven't gone for it. I stay away from debit cards because of concerns of personal protection should my card be stolen. And I don't mean so much physically stolen as it is possible to reproduce the plastic card itself, and with only 4 digits in the pin, I just don't feel safe.

Besides, if you pay off your balance every month, credit cards are extremely convenient. For no extra costs whatsoever, you get to "float" yourself a loan for anywhere between a few days to over a month (lag time for bill processing), you only have to make one payment (per credit card) for multiple purchases, and you don't have to spend hours and hours balancing a checkbook. Ah, efficiency (aka, laziness! ;)). It's even better when you have a spouse who does all the tedious work of bill paying! :D

Those are 1993 numbers. A quick google on the web shows that number to be 20 times as large for 2003 (however there were 2 different sources for those year/dollars in fraud combinations, so there is room for error). At any rate, the $8 is far too low.

Also, remember that 'per/person' includes all members of your household, even children.

I once had a cashier at a supermarket demand that I sign the store's reciept for a purchase that I paid with a Debit card. I replied back saying it's not needed and pointed out that there wasn't even a spot printed out where I would sign. The cashier insisted so I signed "Bite Me" and walked away. She didn't even look at the signature.

I had that happen, but told her to "bite me" (or stronger words maybe) and walked out. I don't suffer fools quietly.

Oops, I'll have to do some research again, but my numbers are only a couple years old and came from a very good source that I trust. They were used in a research study on customer perceptions, and I thought they were over-inflated at the time. Of course, these numbers can be derived in many different ways, and we have all heard about lies and statistics.

In any case, someone somewhere calculated that the time lost to stronger measures is more than the loss to fraud. You say it only takes 8 seconds to produce ID. Multiply that by all the transactions every single day, and there's a huge cost.

Bostonians in a frenzy
 

Well, not everyone has equal insight into the difference between a Debit and a Credit Card.

Some years ago, I wanted to purchase a portabel radio/cassette player in a Boston electronics store, before catching my flight back to Norway. Their computer system was down, and the employees in the store were really in a frenzy. They simply didn’t know what to do.

Finally I offer to pay cash. "No, no, you can’t do that! The computer system and the cash register is down."
I didn’t want to leave with an unfinished errand, and I really couldn’t wait anymore. So I said: "Look, here is exact change. I do not need a receipt. I have a flight to catch and have to leave now. If that’s a problem, you’ll have to call a guard."

Fortunately no one stopped me as I headed out the door with my paid merchandise.

...but it does make me wonder what stores would do today if their computer system is down for any length of time.

:cool:

Yeah, I had to do that once too. A couple times there's been some moron at a convenience store paying with pennies or something, and I'll just give the cashier $2 for my $1.50-ish bottled drink and walk out. Life's short.

Buying chocolate for someone forced to be helpful
 

.
I suppose I was terribly rude on this occasion. Just having parked my car, I needed to feed the meter, and went into a store to get some change. They fiftyish woman behind the counter absolutely refused.

"Well, I’ll take one of those," I said, fishing a nickel chocoloate out of a bowl on the counter. The woman behind it was fuming as she counted my change. "And this is for you," I said, pushing the little chocolate in her direction with a smile.

:)

Heh, very nice.

I was asked for ID at the Apple store today. I said no. They asked to see two other cards with the same name. I complied. Done.

So the lesson here is: Always steal the whole wallet.

Another one that someone did the other day was ask me the name on the card and the expiration date. Clever.

A Sam's Club card is defacto ID...

Further helping to prove how futile this all is. When I joined Sam's Club, I refused ID, as always. But I paid to join with a credit card, and they thought that was sufficient to prove my identity. Now twice this week I've been asked for ID, said I didn't have one (I don't carry it, ever), and they asked if I had something with a photo and my name. I showed my Sam's Club card, and they thought that was fine.

Moral of the story, get a Sam's membership as your first purchase with a credit card.

Or print up your own Sam's Club card, it's in black & white even.