I received an interesting complaint from one of my readers. He currently has Chase Freedom Visa Card, Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express, Citi Diamond Rewards Card and Citi PremierPass Card. I think we can learn a lesson from his story. Here is the story:

I went to XXXXX (deleted by me) Buffet with some of my friends on May 3rd to eat. After our meal I went to the counter to pay and used my Chase Freedom Visa Card as payment. The cashier asked me to show ID to her and I kindly declined this request. I was then told that they were not going to be able to finish this transaction without my official government issued ID. I insisted that they should not see my ID because I have already signed on the back of the card and they can just check my signature. However, the owner of that restaurant was getting angry when I argued with him. Then he called the police and asked the police to arrest me for not paying for the dinner! I was fully embarrassed! I has 2 credit cards in my wallet at that time. After a while, one of my friends paid the money with his credit card along with his ID.

After reading his story, I looked up some visa card agreements and found out that it’s a violation of their credit card merchant agreements to ask for ID in order to complete a transaction. As it’s cleared stated in an official VISA statement: Stores can’t deny a transaction unless the credit card itself is unsigned.

Merchants may not refuse to honor a Visa card simply because the cardholder refuses a request for supplementary information. The only exception is when a Visa card is unsigned when presented. However, “See ID” is not considered a valid signature. In these situations, a merchant must obtain authorization, review additional identification, and require the cardholder to sign the card before completing a transaction.

To report any merchant practices that you feel are inappropriate, please notify the disputes area at the financial institution that issued your card account. Your card issuing bank has access to the appropriate Visa rules and regulations as well as to the Notification of Customer Complaint forms which should be used by your bank to document and file merchant complaints.

As an alternative, you may contact the Global Customer Care Services to report merchant practices that you feel are inappropriate. Please contact the Global Customer Care Services at 1-800-VISA-911 (1-800-847-2911). Please advise them that you were referred to file a complaint. The staff will be able to initiate a complaint form over the phone.

Next time, when you was requested to present your photo ID with your visa card purchases, you can just deny it. You’re officially protected by the visa!