Does a merchant have the right to enter or swipe your debit card into a secondary system? That always concerns me and I will terminate that purchase if the cashier attempts to do that. The card should be only swiped for the sole purpose of payment and for no other reason. That happens at some Radio Shacks for instance...
Debit Cards
- Thread starter DonAngelo
- Start date
What is the purpose of the secondary system?
Radio Shack used to annoy me when they would ask for your name & address implying it is for "warranty reasons"
Many purchases were sold to J Cash, or I would ask them to show me where it stated there was no warranty if the receipt had no name on it
I seldom shop there anymore so I don't know if they still do that
Radio Shack used to annoy me when they would ask for your name & address implying it is for "warranty reasons"
Many purchases were sold to J Cash, or I would ask them to show me where it stated there was no warranty if the receipt had no name on it
I seldom shop there anymore so I don't know if they still do that
...they claim it's for their accounting records. I payed with my debit card once a Planet Hollywood for some t-shirts and they didn't hand out my merchandise even though the transaction was completed. They claimed the needed to swipe my card to complete the transaction. I was furious and called RBC when I got home and they agreed with me that the card can only be used for the purpose of payment. But how do I deal with merchands like this...I don't want to carry that much cash around.Gentle Ben said:
We always should remind ourselves to keep our eyes open when we purchase something at a store and pay with our debit and credit cards. Really, be alert and watch what the cashier is doing with your cards.
The few times I've had a debit card purchase go questionable:
1. ask for a clear description of what's going on (unacceptable - oh it's store policy...")
2. examine receipt closely. computer/printer won't provide receipt (this is most common problem I've experienced), write it out on anything with letterhead and sign it.
3. get cashier's and managers 1st and last name and business number, ext.
4. make grandiose statement that I'll check account to ensure transaction went through properly.
Not that any of above is going to stop fraud, it's my little way of saying I've got information required for prosecution/reimbursement.
1. ask for a clear description of what's going on (unacceptable - oh it's store policy...")
2. examine receipt closely. computer/printer won't provide receipt (this is most common problem I've experienced), write it out on anything with letterhead and sign it.
3. get cashier's and managers 1st and last name and business number, ext.
4. make grandiose statement that I'll check account to ensure transaction went through properly.
Not that any of above is going to stop fraud, it's my little way of saying I've got information required for prosecution/reimbursement.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041221/D8748SB80.html
Same holds for debit cards as they can be charged up to the limit.
Same holds for debit cards as they can be charged up to the limit.
W
WhOiSyOdAdDy?
As unpopular Rogers is... do you think they're running a business out of the back of a truck? They are a big time communications company that is under the microscope of the CRTC. They can't run the risk of fuckin around with people's personal info. But when you're creating a new aco**** for a new service, be prepared to be asked for your personal info so they know who to send the bill to and to ensure that you're not going to use their services for fraudulent reasons.yychobbyist said:
Generally a SIN card is asked for credit check purposes when you're getting a new service like the ones Rogers offers... sayyyy, oh I don't know... A CELL PHONE! Of course it's not wrong of them to ask you for it. That's all they are doing: just asking. There are usually alternatives to identification other than SIN.
Back to the secondary swipe issue...... I wouldn't do it, and would recommend that you STOP THEM before they try to swipe a different machine. There is no reason for a secondary swipe other than trying to gather your debit card information - which is how your card can get duplicated. Then Christmas shopping just became a whole lot more expensive!! Just be careful, better safe than sorry.....
yychobbyist said:
Actually the main reason why any retailler asks for personal information when a customer is making a return is for "Loss Prevention" ("LP") Purposes.
The retailer has no intention of contacting the customer - it's purpose is more focused on preventing internal theft or abuse of the company's return policy.
A huge percentage of any retailer's LP issues (ie. theft) come from within. By asking for each customer's personal information, it is more difficult for a cashier to ring through fake returns and pocket the returned cash.
It is a surprisingly easy method of stealing.
Fake returns are a huge problem for some retailers. Most companies keep track of employee purchases - including employee's debit and credit card numbers in order to catch an employee refunding money onto their own cards.
Another control set in place to deter fradulent returns is the requirement of two employees' signatures on each return document.
My advice is -> don't make a huge fuss when asked for address and phone number when making a return and remember that it is not the employee's fault (poor front-line workers always get the crappy end of the deal). Just create a new identity.
Lynn *defender of retail employees everywhere*
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Retailers say 'no' to serial exchangers
Technology helps stores crack down on fraudulent returns but irks some consumers
By Stephanie Kang
The Wall Street Journal
As the holiday shopping season begins, retailers are deploying new technology designed to crack down on one of the industry's biggest frustrations — customers who abuse return and exchange policies.
Retailers such as Guess Inc., Staples Inc., Sports Authority Inc. and Limited Brands Inc. are among those using software called Verify-1, a product of Return Exchange, based in Irvine, Calif. The closely held company helps retailers decide whether to deny returns or exchanges using a program that monitors a shopper's track record of bringing items back.
Such tactics are raising the ire of shoppers and privacy-rights groups who say the new technology is often an unnecessary and intrusive violation of consumer rights.
Retailers say they are on the lookout for various forms of fraud, including "serial wardrobers" who buy an outfit, wear it once or twice and return it; shoplifters who return stolen merchandise; employees who steal items and return them for cash; price switchers, who change price tags on items, then return one item for the higher amount; and shoppers who use fake or old receipts when making a return.
Return Exchange's Verify-1 system works like this: When a customer wants to return an item, the sales clerk asks for his or her driver's license or other form of state-issued identification, and swipes it into a machine much like those used to make credit card or ATM purchases. The shopper's name, address and birthdate is logged into a database. The program records details about the transaction, such as the store number, the amount of the return, the date, time and item description.
All that information is stored on Return Exchange's server in Santa Ana, Calif. Most transactions end there. But if a customer's "return behavior" seems out of the ordinary, the transaction is rejected and the consumer is given a receipt that instructs him or her to call the company's toll-free number for a copy of a report detailing their return activity. Shoppers can also request that Return Exchange investigate the rejected return. The program keeps tallies of the type of transactions, the total amount of the returns and the number of exchanges.
The company says the data are available only to Return Exchange, the customer and executives at the retailer. Other personal information, such as a shopper's physical characteristics, is not recorded.
Return Exchange was co-founded by executives who previously worked at companies that tried to prevent credit-card and check fraud. Verify-1 first went on the market in March 1999, and its latest version is the result of a $20 million development project that culled the efforts of software engineers, statisticians and Arthur Andersen consultants. Since its inception, company executives say Return Exchange has grown to an estimated $10 million a year business — with its software used in at least one store in every mall in America.
"It's the last big hole retailers need to fill," says company senior vice president of sales and marketing Mark Hilinski.
The use of Verify-1 is just the latest move by retailers intent on curtailing return fraud, says University of Florida criminology professor Richard C. Hollinger. According to the 2003 National Retail Security Survey, compiled by Hollinger, the retail industry lost about $16 billion to fraudulent behavior.
Until now, retailers have focused on tracking fraud at the time of purchase. New technology monitors unusual activities like price overrides — the purchase costs $75 but the customer is charged $25, for example. Camera surveillance also pinpoints questionable behavior. Verify-1 tracks customers, however, only when they return or exchange items.
"Retailers have been either ignorant of the extent to which return systems have been abused or lacked the technology to be able to develop databases that were easily retrievable," Hollinger says.
According to retail consulting firm KingRogers International, in 2003, the return rate for specialty retailers was 10.6 percent of total sales, higher than the industry average of 8.58 percent. About 9 percent of all returns are estimated to be fraudulent.
There's a delicate balance, however, between aggressively catching crooks and alienating honest customers. "They want something that is customer-friendly," says Dan Butler, vice president of retail operations at the National Retail Federation, a trade association. "At the same time they want to isolate dishonest behavior."
Technology helps stores crack down on fraudulent returns but irks some consumers
By Stephanie Kang
The Wall Street Journal
As the holiday shopping season begins, retailers are deploying new technology designed to crack down on one of the industry's biggest frustrations — customers who abuse return and exchange policies.
Retailers such as Guess Inc., Staples Inc., Sports Authority Inc. and Limited Brands Inc. are among those using software called Verify-1, a product of Return Exchange, based in Irvine, Calif. The closely held company helps retailers decide whether to deny returns or exchanges using a program that monitors a shopper's track record of bringing items back.
Such tactics are raising the ire of shoppers and privacy-rights groups who say the new technology is often an unnecessary and intrusive violation of consumer rights.
Retailers say they are on the lookout for various forms of fraud, including "serial wardrobers" who buy an outfit, wear it once or twice and return it; shoplifters who return stolen merchandise; employees who steal items and return them for cash; price switchers, who change price tags on items, then return one item for the higher amount; and shoppers who use fake or old receipts when making a return.
Return Exchange's Verify-1 system works like this: When a customer wants to return an item, the sales clerk asks for his or her driver's license or other form of state-issued identification, and swipes it into a machine much like those used to make credit card or ATM purchases. The shopper's name, address and birthdate is logged into a database. The program records details about the transaction, such as the store number, the amount of the return, the date, time and item description.
All that information is stored on Return Exchange's server in Santa Ana, Calif. Most transactions end there. But if a customer's "return behavior" seems out of the ordinary, the transaction is rejected and the consumer is given a receipt that instructs him or her to call the company's toll-free number for a copy of a report detailing their return activity. Shoppers can also request that Return Exchange investigate the rejected return. The program keeps tallies of the type of transactions, the total amount of the returns and the number of exchanges.
The company says the data are available only to Return Exchange, the customer and executives at the retailer. Other personal information, such as a shopper's physical characteristics, is not recorded.
Return Exchange was co-founded by executives who previously worked at companies that tried to prevent credit-card and check fraud. Verify-1 first went on the market in March 1999, and its latest version is the result of a $20 million development project that culled the efforts of software engineers, statisticians and Arthur Andersen consultants. Since its inception, company executives say Return Exchange has grown to an estimated $10 million a year business — with its software used in at least one store in every mall in America.
"It's the last big hole retailers need to fill," says company senior vice president of sales and marketing Mark Hilinski.
The use of Verify-1 is just the latest move by retailers intent on curtailing return fraud, says University of Florida criminology professor Richard C. Hollinger. According to the 2003 National Retail Security Survey, compiled by Hollinger, the retail industry lost about $16 billion to fraudulent behavior.
Until now, retailers have focused on tracking fraud at the time of purchase. New technology monitors unusual activities like price overrides — the purchase costs $75 but the customer is charged $25, for example. Camera surveillance also pinpoints questionable behavior. Verify-1 tracks customers, however, only when they return or exchange items.
"Retailers have been either ignorant of the extent to which return systems have been abused or lacked the technology to be able to develop databases that were easily retrievable," Hollinger says.
According to retail consulting firm KingRogers International, in 2003, the return rate for specialty retailers was 10.6 percent of total sales, higher than the industry average of 8.58 percent. About 9 percent of all returns are estimated to be fraudulent.
There's a delicate balance, however, between aggressively catching crooks and alienating honest customers. "They want something that is customer-friendly," says Dan Butler, vice president of retail operations at the National Retail Federation, a trade association. "At the same time they want to isolate dishonest behavior."
The program has come under fire from consumers. Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, says one initial concern was that Return Exchange might aggregate data, meaning that data about a customer's returns to one retailer could affect his returns at a second retailer that also uses the monitoring software. Return Exchange says it doesn't aggregate data.
Givens, who has met with company executives, says she thinks the company generally has a "robust" privacy policy. Still, she's encouraging the company to be more transparent about how it pinpoints fraudulent behavior. (No group or individual has seriously challenged the right to return purchases under this program.) "By not sharing the rules of the game, the companies are playing a game of gotcha, and I don't think that's fair," she says.
Mark Hammond, co-founder and chief executive of Return Exchange, says the software looks at a variety of factors when determining denials, but he declined to give specifics of the process. He says he doesn't want to give "the bad guys" clues on beating the system.
Concern that honest customers might be hurt by the technology was an issue for Joseph Toth, senior vice president of Los Angeles-based specialty apparel retailer Guess. Since Aug. 30, the Return Exchange has been monitoring — but not enforcing — returns at 16 of its stores in an effort to glean information about its return rate. Toth won't see the data until the pilot program is finished at the end of the year, but he says Guess hasn't received any official complaints when customers were asked to swipe their driver's license.
"There have been some conversations at the register, but no incident where someone went nuts and said 'I won't give my driver's license,' " he says. However, about 10 customers didn't go through with the return once they were informed of the policy, Toth says, evidence that Verify-1 may work as a deterrent.
Using the technology means store employees, many of whom are in their late teens and early 20s, are not deciding whether to permit returns. "There is no arguing with this," he says. Toth says Guess will decide early next year if it will use the software full time.
Return Exchange executives say they decline about 1 percent of returns for each retail client, a much smaller percentage than what retailers reject on their own. Still, two out of every 100,000 transactions have been challenged this year, and 10 percent to 15 percent of those challenges resulted in the Return Exchange changing the information in a customer's report. Retailers then decide whether to refund the item.
The more frequent occurrence may be from customers unaware of the ID requirement. Carmen Wolf says she refused to hand over her driver's license when she tried to return pants and shirts from the Express store in the Glendale Galleria mall in California. Wolf says no signs about the policy were posted at the store or detailed on her receipt. An Express employee "made me feel like some sort of criminal," she says. She was denied the return even though she had her receipt and the tags were still on the clothes. Express couldn't be reached to comment.
With help from the Better Business Bureau, Wolf six weeks later received a refund for $267. "It just seemed so wrong to impose on me something that I never agreed to and was never informed about," she says. "I will never shop there again."
Givens, who has met with company executives, says she thinks the company generally has a "robust" privacy policy. Still, she's encouraging the company to be more transparent about how it pinpoints fraudulent behavior. (No group or individual has seriously challenged the right to return purchases under this program.) "By not sharing the rules of the game, the companies are playing a game of gotcha, and I don't think that's fair," she says.
Mark Hammond, co-founder and chief executive of Return Exchange, says the software looks at a variety of factors when determining denials, but he declined to give specifics of the process. He says he doesn't want to give "the bad guys" clues on beating the system.
Concern that honest customers might be hurt by the technology was an issue for Joseph Toth, senior vice president of Los Angeles-based specialty apparel retailer Guess. Since Aug. 30, the Return Exchange has been monitoring — but not enforcing — returns at 16 of its stores in an effort to glean information about its return rate. Toth won't see the data until the pilot program is finished at the end of the year, but he says Guess hasn't received any official complaints when customers were asked to swipe their driver's license.
"There have been some conversations at the register, but no incident where someone went nuts and said 'I won't give my driver's license,' " he says. However, about 10 customers didn't go through with the return once they were informed of the policy, Toth says, evidence that Verify-1 may work as a deterrent.
Using the technology means store employees, many of whom are in their late teens and early 20s, are not deciding whether to permit returns. "There is no arguing with this," he says. Toth says Guess will decide early next year if it will use the software full time.
Return Exchange executives say they decline about 1 percent of returns for each retail client, a much smaller percentage than what retailers reject on their own. Still, two out of every 100,000 transactions have been challenged this year, and 10 percent to 15 percent of those challenges resulted in the Return Exchange changing the information in a customer's report. Retailers then decide whether to refund the item.
The more frequent occurrence may be from customers unaware of the ID requirement. Carmen Wolf says she refused to hand over her driver's license when she tried to return pants and shirts from the Express store in the Glendale Galleria mall in California. Wolf says no signs about the policy were posted at the store or detailed on her receipt. An Express employee "made me feel like some sort of criminal," she says. She was denied the return even though she had her receipt and the tags were still on the clothes. Express couldn't be reached to comment.
With help from the Better Business Bureau, Wolf six weeks later received a refund for $267. "It just seemed so wrong to impose on me something that I never agreed to and was never informed about," she says. "I will never shop there again."
To enter a casino in Ontario you may be asked to have your drivers lic. swiped...is this right?
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I am not someone who is paranoid about these sort of thing (for example, I have no problem providing my personal information when returning an item) but, DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO DOUBLE SWIPE YOUR CARD! The retailer has no valid reason to do this and, if they refuse to give you your merchandise under such circumstances, call your bank immediately as they are violating their service agreement with the Interac organization.
Unlike the actual Interac network, which has set security standards, you have no way of knowing how secure your information is on the machine doing the second swipe. You also don't know if the swipe is part of an actual corporate policy, or a rogue store trying to steal your debit information.
This is not some paranoid tinfoil hat issue - your debit card is a direct link to your bank account. There is no legitimate reason for a company to be collecting your bank account information. If there is a problem with the transaction, Interac and the banks can provide them with all of the information that they require. Just say "no" and, if they provide pushback - raise a fuss.
Unlike the actual Interac network, which has set security standards, you have no way of knowing how secure your information is on the machine doing the second swipe. You also don't know if the swipe is part of an actual corporate policy, or a rogue store trying to steal your debit information.
This is not some paranoid tinfoil hat issue - your debit card is a direct link to your bank account. There is no legitimate reason for a company to be collecting your bank account information. If there is a problem with the transaction, Interac and the banks can provide them with all of the information that they require. Just say "no" and, if they provide pushback - raise a fuss.
