Scanning driver's license to buy gift card?

Went to a Walgreen's to buy a couple of $25 Visa gift cards for my nieces as a Christmas gift. Picked out the cards and gift bags and headed to the register. Clerk starts off the transaction by asking for my ID, which I showed her. Then she says she needs to scan it? What the hell?

Now I feel like I'm some sort of criminal. I asked her why she needed to do that and her reply was to prevent fraud and detect money laundering. WTF?! Anyway, she proceeds to ring everything up and I I get ready to pay with my bank card and the total due is $50 less than what rang up. I told her that their system is messed up and she then tells me that I need to pay in cash for the gift cards. I didn't have cash, so she tells me about the ATM at the front of the store.

Well, I went off. I told her there is nothing on the display stating gift cards are cash only. My wife just recently purchased gift cards and didn't have to go through this BS. She asked me if I wanted to void the transaction and I said yes, but would that undo her scanning my driver's license?

Questions for the community

1. Why do merchants have to scan your driver's license for these kinds of purchases. I see some things online about scanning a license for cigarettes, alcohol and return of merchandise, but I could find nothing on this being done to prevent fraud of money laundering.

2. Why are the displays not marked that these are cash only purchases (card fees can be paid with CC)? Is this just to be common knowledge now?

3. Why the frick do these clerks get all the way through the transaction before telling you that gift cards are a cash only transaction? Why not tell me right off the bat and save me the time, embarrassment and having my dang driver's license scanned!!!!!!!

a reply to: Freenrgy2

That would totally piss me off too man. It could be cause many drug dealers are buying up gift cards...like the 500 dollar ones...they buy 100s of them and cross the border so the cash isnt detected and everything looks less suspicious. They then deal with them as currency. Also I suppose you could buy whatever you wanted with them annoymously but for me personally thats why I like it.

Helps hide the xmas gifts you are getting for the misses or maybe you are embarassed to make a purchase. Id really hate to see these start being logged. Really puts a damper. I like to remain anonymous in my purchases and life in general. When shopping online I only use those cards so I have less fear of my cc number being stolen. Same with travelling...get a few cards if you are travelling in the usa. Such a shame to see these targeted.

The only time I'm normally asked for an ID, is when I'm picking up medicines. I've never had to show it just to buy gift cards or something small like that. If they do ask, I tell them no and if they get insistent, I just leave the stuff laying and walk out. If I buy cigarettes, they ask my year of birth and that's it. [ Being 50, I don't usually get asked ] Some of these companies are getting far too invasive and expect too much data that I consider private. Clerks do it because they figure you'll just go ahead with the purchase, where as if they told you first, you'd probably say forget it. I know it may be a hassle, but refusing to show ID just to get little stuff and going to another store, may make some of them think twice about their policies. But I wouldn't count on it.

Thanks. I usually have a short fuse anyway during this time of the year. Just seems that every time you turn around, another company is trying to pull this crap. If I would have used the ATM to get the cash, I would have ended up spending $10 just get $50 worth of gift cards!

I made a pretty vocal announcement as I left the store that there was nothing posted on the display that gift cards were a cash only purchase. Got back in our car and my saw that I was empty-handed. I told her they were getting a check from our free checking account at our credit union.

Walgreen's can suck it! The nice thing is that many of these companies have social media profiles and people paid to monitor them for negative comments. They sure as heck are going to get one from me today.

The cash only thing is not right. She was an idiot. No clue about the scanning part. That's new to me.

I bought a number of gift cards without any problems. Is this something new they will be doing???

a reply to: Freenrgy2

And that not all....

If you will look above the check out area and sometimes hidden behind the checker you will see a camera recording the transaction. We have no privacy anymore.

a reply to: Freenrgy2

Why do merchants have to scan your driver's license for these kinds of purchases.

Whats on the scan bar for licenses? The DMV record? That happened to me to at a CVS when I bought a money order. I paid cash and they needed to scan my license for that. it was 27.00. Big laundry operation…

Anonymity? Whats that? By paying with a credit card they have a record of your activity. Not only what you bought, but who you are and when you were there. Its a monitoring thing. If you pay cash you move about without a trail to your movements.

We are signed, sealed and delivered everything we do now. Either get used to it (this is the tip of the iceberg) or…

a reply to: Freenrgy2

here in the uk many stores ask you for your post code , i always refuse to give it to them and tell them that i already have to much junk mail coming through the door .

Funny I found this thread. I just ran to the dollar store at lunch, and happened to notice the big sign by the visa/prepay cards. Cash only when purchasing prepay cards.

I had no idea. And no idea about what an above poster stated about the activity with them.


And yeah, they wouldn't have gotten my license.

a reply to: Freenrgy2

What you have there is an aspect of the Surveillance State. Pre-paid Visa cards can be used to buy black market goods across the Internet. You could go to a site like Evolution and pay for drugs or stolen credit cards.

Moreover you could, in theory, use the cards to pay for stolen phones/laptops that could be used for secure communications between terrorist groups.

The NSA and associated partners monitor and collect a lot of communications (searches, phone calls, emails, IPs etc) and it's less use when the source is anonymous. By ensuring that pre-paid Visa cards have verified IDs attached to them, they're reducing the opportunities for anonymity.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thanks Kandinsky, but what Walgreen's has now is one less customer.

a reply to: Freenrgy2

Fair enough

The Surveillance State has stored your disapproval alongside your history of card purchases, phone calls, internet history and sundry official records.

George Orwell had the right idea!

a reply to: tom.farnhill

They do that here as well. From what I've been told, they do this to track the geographic location of its customers, so they know how to better distribute marketing materials.

Sounds weird to me. In the store I work in (a little retro game store) we don't ask for an ID for giftcards.
The only time we ask for an ID is if it's someone who looks younger than 18 trying to buy a rated M game, or if someone sells us property. And that's because it's easier to track the person down if the property ends up being stolen.

It's weird that she scanned your ID for giftcards.

a reply to: Lyxdeslic

I don't think this is an issue for an individual merchant giftcard. But like Kandinsky said, the anonymity of the pre-paid Visa could lend itself to illegal or fraudulent activity.

Look, I'm all for trying to crack down on fraud, etc., but does the government really need to make the rest of us law-abiding citizens feel like we are the problem?!

originally posted by: Freenrgy2
a reply to: Lyxdeslic

I don't think this is an issue for an individual merchant giftcard. But like Kandinsky said, the anonymity of the pre-paid Visa could lend itself to illegal or fraudulent activity.

Look, I'm all for trying to crack down on fraud, etc., but does the government really need to make the rest of us law-abiding citizens feel like we are the problem?!

Unfortunately yes. A few bad apples ruin the bunch.

I used to do loss prevention back in the day.

Your license is tied into the POS software and camera system. You had to show ID to return something. I could enter that ID and it would bring up every interaction you had in any of our stores and also pull the video of you making the purchase/return. Same thing with any gift card/credit card and checks. The only way not to be in the system was paying with cash.

The system had many built in alerts to detect fraud and would give me a list every day. Most were false, but sometimes they yielded big things.

Gift cards as used as normal currency. Shoplifter goes in, steals stuff, returns it for a gift card, sells gift card to someone for a little bit cheaper than the actual value and uses the cash to go buy drugs.

It helps identify trends and people that are obviously stealing. There are also a number of other scams with gift cards that I'm not going to share.

It would piss me off showing ID to purchase a gift card. I've never had that happen to me, and since I know some of the reasons it would irritate me even more.

The cash only thing is to deter credit card/check fraud. If you steal someone's card it's a lot easier to buy up a bunch of gift cards then it is to buy a bunch of expensive and large merchandise. By the time the store is aware, often the gift cards have been sold and spent.

Oops.

Just a thought, but scanning your DL isn't telling Big Brother anything he doesn't already know.

Many stores have stopped allowing the purchase of gift cards or prepaid debit cards via the payment method of credit card. This makes perfect sense as a certain segment of the population will realize that their card is nearly maxed and deliberately overdraft it into a prepaid or gift card worth far more than they had on the card. Then they default on the card.

Money laundering as well - though the war on drugs ( which is what they are referencing ) is a total farce in my book. Not to say drugs aren't bad - just to suggest that Uncle Sam makes more off of the drug trade than all of the cartels and dealers combined - at least in my humble opinion.