Sandwich shop asked for zip-code and examined back of card

Submitted by CrabStory t3_yijtwg in personalfinance

Is this standard practice or should I be concerned? I've never had a business ask for that, but it's worth mentioning I've not been to this specific one in over a year though.

I wasn't signing up for anything. Just buying a sandwich. She was brief with it and stayed working on her register's screen with all info given to her, and I noticed the charge went through to my card immediately, so I'm not too concerned.

Just wanted to ask around. This chill?

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Comments

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DeluxeXL t1_iuizyhc wrote

It's unusual for chip cards, but if the merchant is still using swipe or manual entry/"card not present", they want a little bit more assurance that the card is not stolen.

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lilfunky1 t1_iuj0ma1 wrote

maybe the shop has had some issues with fake or stolen cards lately so they needed to do more verification

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ahj3939 t1_iuj1faw wrote

They were probably entering the 3 digit code on the back of the card.

If you were a criminal with a cloned card it would not match what is stored on the card's chip or magnetic strip.

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beagletronic61 t1_iuj71fs wrote

It’s an older/outdated verification procedure…you don’t have to know the correct answer but if you put the incorrect zip code in, the marginal cost of the transaction fee increases a small percentage to the merchant.

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Liquidretro t1_iuj8rw7 wrote

Fairly common with a debit card, and gas stations do it all the time at the pump (asking for the zip) or when outside your normal home area in my experience.

I believe actually asking to see the card technically violates Visa's TOS but no one seems to care.

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alexm2816 t1_iuj0982 wrote

Name and ZIP are used for marketing purposes and almost exclusively to sell your information and not for any validation at all.

Outside of gas pumps I've never gotten pushback for declining or when told 'we need it to proceed' giving them '44444'.

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