"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


My knowledge about the Mastercard/VISA rules is rusty at best, but I
knew
that walking away with your card and license is just not allowed,
especially
now that both card companies are being plagued with skimmers and other
forms
of ID theft.

Walking away with both? I can't think of a time when the wait staff
did not have to walk away to run the card in the US.

I believe that if you ask, they MUST bring an imprinter to the table but I
haven't had a chance to call VISA and confirm it. After all, they tell you
that you shouldn't let anyone else use your card. To then force you to put
it in the hands of a stranger seems a bit contrary to that advice. It's a
matter of convenience for restaurant merchants and the epidemic of
restaurant card skimming sweeping the nation could easily put an end to the
"convenience" of having a waiter you've never seen before disappear with
your card for five or ten minutes.

I know that in Europe, they bring an imprinter or an electronic reader
to
your table so that your card never leaves your view - at least in almost
all
the places I dined at. Many of the credit cards there also have an RF
chip
that makes skimming quite a bit harder. I assume from that experience
that's also your right in America, but honestly, that's something I am
not
sure about and it seems that you'll be finding out about.

RFID readers exist that lets a Nefarious Person walk past you with a
reader and essentially pick your pocket.

Only off unencrypted chips. Again it's the CC companies not wanting to
scare merchants off by requiring them to invest in expensive and safer
equipment that's driving the train in the US, AFAIK. The data capacity of a
chipped CC is far greater than the mag stripe technology and much harder to
skim. But I will agree that there's always someone building a taller
ladder.

Back in the early 80's NSA instituted a card system that allowed people to
access various secured areas based on the RFID chips. Sov spies sat outside
in the parking lot with hi-tech skimmers that could read the codes well
enough to determine who the big-wigs were. It was quickly abandoned.

So were the furnaces that burned the copious classified papers that
accumulated daily when a furnace exploded and blew almost a ton of unburned
classified data into the air at Ft. Meade. The fort's soldiers were kept
very busy for the next few days scouring the nearby woods for TS docs. They
switched to a shredding/slurry process that makes the classified waste into
a sort of paper mache that's then dried AND burned. It's hard to
reconstitute shredded goo. Details are in the book "The Puzzle Palace."

One good reason, beyond the ID theft threat, not to hand over your ID is
that it often gets mixed up and people get the wrong cards back,
sometimes
too late to do anything about it immediately because the other patrons
have
already left with YOUR card.

Haven't had that happen except with my best friend. We happen to both
CCs from the same company. Of course, most of that is probably on us
after the cards come back (g).

If *you've* had it happen once, you can pretty much bet it's happened to
other people. I got scammed once at the now defunct Hechingers. I was
tired, it was near closing and the clerk made a mistake (I think
deliberately) on the receipt. In the ensuing hubbub I forgot to get the
card back and it was used within an hour after leaving the store by the
thief. Fortunately I realized that it was missing when I went to charge
some gasoline for the trip home.

After that I thought about buying an electronic wallet that beeps if you put
it away without the missing credit card, but after than experience, I pretty
much stopped using them except for places where it's almost impossible not
to, like booking hotels and air flights. Now that the TSA has made flying a
torture, I only use them to book hotels. I may yet have to buy that wallet
as I become more and more forgetful. )-:

--
Bobby G.