"Steve B" wrote in message
...
"Robert Green" wrote
NEVER EVER EVER let your credit card or license leave your sight.
Sorry, I don't want to leave my guests, get up and follow a server through
a
labyrinthine maze back to the credit card machine. I use LifeLock, plus
my
VISA allows me to not pay any disputed charge.
Werks fer me.
I meant to write credit card AND license. Sorry. I was in shock that
anyone would surrender both documents to a waiter/waitress and let them
disappear for a time. (Sorry Don W. - too many years reporting crime have
made me *very* paranoid. You're free to take any level of risk you're
comfortable with, but there is a possibility you're unaware of how
vulnerable the restaurant customer is to skimming.)
Let me ask you this, Steve: Would you let both your driver's license AND
your CC leave your sight in a restaurant?
I ask that because in my limited but still substantial experience,
restaurants are the absolute NEXUS of lower-than-minimum wage, transient,
possibly illegal, possibly ex-felon employees. Add a bar and you've added
potential pimping, drug dealing, gambling along with other activities that
require money. A high res image of your license is a get-out-of-jail card
for an ex-con or squint. They can use your license to convince the police
that they are you long enough to escape custody and leave you stuck paying
the bill. The criminal bill. But it's quite possible that other people
don't see restaurants in quite the same light. (-:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078488/...side-id-theft/
Malcolm Byrd was home with his two children on a Saturday night when a
knock came at the door. Three Rock County, Wis., sheriff's officers were
there with a warrant for Byrd's arrest. Cocaine possession, with intent to
distribute, it said. Byrd tried to tell them that they had the wrong man,
that it was a case of mistaken identity, that he was a victim of identity
theft. But they wouldn't listen. Instead they put him in handcuffs and drove
him away. Again. It was nothing new for Byrd, who has spent much of the
past five years trying - unsuccessfully - to talk skeptical police officers
out of arresting him. But this time, it was worse. Two days later, he was
still in jail.
I wouldn't count on VISA or LifeLock being able to reverse the physical act
of being incarcerated for 2 days nor the incredibly bad effect it can have
on your life.
The above cited article goes on to say:
There's nothing new about criminals using aliases to evade the law -
criminals often try to give their buddy's name, address, and date of birth
to dupe police. But the explosion of identity theft, and the ready
availability of stolen digital dossiers on innocent victims, makes it just
as easy for a criminal to give a stranger's personal data during an arrest.
Once police book a suspect under a fake name, that mistake can plague a
victim for life. "The alias becomes a disease to the true owner of that
character," said Sgt. Bob Berardi, head of the Identity Theft task force in
Los Angeles.
I am pretty sure (but memory loss is plaguing me) that you can request a
manual imprinter be brought to your table. VISA merchant agreements are the
product of a lot of legal man hours and contain clauses that relate to bad
experiences of unhappy merchants and customers.
Restaurants clearly are a business different from most other card
operations. That's an interesting enough question for me to call VISA today
and ask them what my options are at restaurants and whether I can request
they bring a manual imprinter to my table. What they'll say is "you are
protected from fraudulent charges" but that doesn't address what they can do
with an image of your license. I'll make a point to ask if they can demand
to take you license away, too. I doubt it. I would imagine the contracts
reads "must present or display" ID but not "surrender to server."
I agree that it's inconvenient to go to the front desk to execute the
transaction, but not much more than taking a leak. If for some reason I was
out of cash, I would take the precaution because of the steepness of the
down side. The only place I surrender my license - briefly - is at the
bank's drive-in window where I can actually see the teller for the whole
time. Bank employees are usually less likely to have a criminal record
because of the nature of their work.
But all those hassles disappear when you use the Franklin card. Cold, hard
cash. Plus, you don't leave a transaction trail in the incredibly invasive
world of customer behavior tracking. There are plenty of good places to use
credit cards. But restaurants clearly aren't your best bet because of the
seemingly endless string of skimming rings arrest stories:
http://www.google.com/search?q=resta...imming+schemes
Eight plead guilty in credit card-skimming scheme
Jun 11, 2009 ... Eight people involved in a credit card-skimming scheme
which netted more than
$700000 from customers of area restaurants pleaded guilty ...
Police Uncover Credit Card-Skimming Scheme
Mar 24, 2006 ... WASHINGTON -- Restaurants in the D.C. metropolitan area are
working with Secret
Service agents to shut down a credit card-skimming scheme, ...
May 9, 2011 ... 36000 Credit Card Numbers Stolen In Skimmer Scheme ... There
are 36000 victims,
in a major credit card skimming operation, and Orange County ...
2 Arrested In Credit Card 'Skimming' Scheme - News Story - WFTV ...
Sep 15, 2009 ... Officers are trying to track down the restaurant employees
....
Restaurant Worker Pleads Guilty in Credit Card Scheme | NBC Washington
Jul 31, 2010 ... In the summer of 2008, Ward paid two other servers she had
recruited at the
restaurant to help her in the scheme. Using credit card skimming ...
I know that people are obsessed with racking up airline miles but with what
I know about restaurants and what I see in the news, they're not an
especially safe place to use a card BECAUSE it's one of the few places where
a card does leave your sight.
As for relying on LifeLock? I wouldn't do that either:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/03/lifelock.shtm
LifeLock Will Pay $12 Million to Settle Charges by the FTC and 35 States
That Identity Theft Prevention and Data Security Claims Were False
LifeLock, Inc. has agreed to pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission
and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general to settle charges
that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection
services, which it widely advertised by displaying the CEO's Social Security
number on the side of a truck.
Life's too short to spend 2 days in jail because I got careless with my
personal information.
--
Bobby G.