On 26-Feb-12 04:39, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , 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,

I'm almost certain that's because your bank flagged it as a potentially
fraudulent transaction due to being from a foreign (for you) country,
not due to the amount.

and subsequently asking me for ID (which I thought wasn't allowed, but
there you are).

I'm not sure whether it's allowed or not, but it's common at merchants
with high chargeback rates. You can always refuse to show ID, but
they're not required to accept the card anyway.

Yes, there are many demographic factors that correlate well with local
crime rates, and a customer can fairly accurately predict (from a brief
look around the area) whether prepayment is required at a gas station.
However, card processors don't care about demographics; they only care
about chargeback rates.

Notably, certain industries (eg. retail electronics) are known to have
high chargeback rates regardless of demographics;

And your hypothesis is that stolen/skimmed cards will turn up equally
likely in retail electronics outlets in the good and bad parts of town?

It's not _my_ hypothesis; it's a statistical fact determined by the card
processors.

I'm not sure about "equally likely" either, but retail electronics
merchants even in "good" parts of town have "unacceptable" chargeback
rates and are required to take extra steps that other merchants in those
areas are not required to take. It's possible such merchants in "bad"
parts of town are even worse.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking