Roland Perry wrote:
at 16:55:37 on Sat, 25 Feb 2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:

There's some over-simplification here. While I agree that some retailers
(especially high-margin ones like restaurants) may not require a
signature, there's a second floor limit above which they have to call
the credit card company. That limit seems to me to be much lower than
you'd get in the UK for a similar transaction verified by PIN.

By "call the credit card company", do you mean actually speak with a
human, or just do a standard automated authorization?

With a human.

Perhaps I just don't spend enough money to run into that ceiling, but I
regularly charge amounts up to ~USD 3k.

My bank does periodically call me /after the fact/ to verify atypical
transactions, but merchants never see that: their authorization goes
through normally.

Like I said before, I had a $300 transaction in the USA which resulted
in the retailer having to make a phone call, and subsequently asking me
for ID (which I thought wasn't allowed, but there you are).

Why wouldn't he ask? Your transaction was flagged.

Sure would be nice if you retained the attribution lines per quote
level so we can all tell who said what.