

Clay iPads  (Source:










Sources: Digital Journal, CTV News

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RE: Wal-mart needs to stop being lazy....
By sprockkets on 1/18/2012 1:45:35 PM , Rating: 2
The bank eats it from what I understand.

Heck, when I exchanged a kindle due to the screen cracking so early, the Target person checked the serial number on the box to make sure it was the same as the device for like 3 minutes.

By Solandri on 1/18/2012 2:20:01 PM , Rating: 3
Walmart eats it. The bank issues a chargeback, whose net effect is that they don't pay Walmart for the fraudulent purchase. Walmart ends up losing the merchandise.

The way the credit card system is set up, it's the merchant's responsibility to verify that the person using the card is in fact the owner of the card. If the cardholder issues a chargeback, the only recourse the merchant has is to prove that it was in fact the cardholder who made the purchase.

The signature is usually the most common proof (merchant sends copy of the signed credit card receipt to bank, who compares it to the signature when you applied for the card). It's complicated though by a law making it illegal to require a credit card user to show their ID. The merchant can ask you to show your ID to confirm your name/signature/address, but if you refuse they cannot use that as grounds to deny the sale. So merchants do other things like cross-reference phone number and address.

There is a lot of room for improvement in this system, but it's hard to build up enough critical mass. Merchants have to accept your card for customers to want to use your card. Customers have to have the card for merchants to want to accept it. Discover is the only card which semi-succeeded, and that was because they used to be Sears' credit card. Right now the banks and credit card companies are sitting pretty, raking in money for transmitting a few bytes of data along wires, while the merchants eat the losses. So they have very little incentive to improve things.

By Just Tom on 1/19/2012 8:16:01 AM , Rating: 2
There is no national law prohibiting requesting/requiring ID for credit card purchases, although it is true in some states. The credit card companies themselves have rules that prohibit requiring ID for credit card purchases, so any merchant who does so is technically in violation of VISA/Mastercard/AMEX's rules. However, the merchant always has the right to not sell to the customer if it feels something is wrong; as long as the reason for such refusal to sell is not discrimatory they are perfectly free to say no sale.

By PrinceGaz on 1/19/2012 9:40:13 AM , Rating: 1
What about the PIN number you must enter these days when using credit/debit cards (I haven't used my signature to buy anything for years-- in fact the last time I used it at all was when I signed the back of a new card at home last year because they still want your signature on it even though it is never used now).

By Taft12 on 1/19/2012 1:58:35 PM , Rating: 3
There's plenty of places in the USA that still don't have chipcard tech on debit and credit cards.

