On Nov 9, 12:03*am, Bob wrote:
On 11/8/2011 16:28, Evan wrote:

This is why some businesses still take imprints of the credit cards,
it proves the card was present at the time of sale...

In the past ten years the only businesses I have had take credit card
imprints have been hotels. *I use a secure or virtual account number to
guarantee the reservation, but they have never honored it at the desk
unless the reservation included prepayment.

Sounds to me like you haven't dealt with a small enough business,
the big chain stores use electronic capture of signature of the
person using the card as well as store CCTV footage to document
who made the purchase rather than keeping a printed copy of
the receipt on file in the store for the required retention period...

Smaller stores still imprint the card, especially when the card
doesn't swipe and the numbers had to be punched in manually,
as the card is either swiped or imprinted to prove it was there
at the time of purchase... Smaller stores also still deal with
keeping extra copies of the receipts on file in case of a
charge back during the retention period...

LOL... Using a "secure" or "virtual" account number to do
anything where you have to reserve something is stupid,
as the virtual account number won't match your name
and address like the info on your actual real account will,
hotels tend to like knowing the real name of the person
reserving the room in case of a no show as they have
the information to send the bill -- this is why your attempts
at anonymous reservations with a credit card that didn't
match the name you reserved under were not honored
without payment of a deposit...

~~ Evan