HOW SECURE ARE YOUR POINT OF SALES TRANSACTIONS
By Elesean
Gordon-Fuller
Elesean Gordon-Fuller is a 2012
graduate of the University of the West Indies, Mona- CARIMAC. She is seeking to
become a media practitioner and has an interest in journalism and customer
relations. For feedback, please send emails to eleseang@yahoo.com.
Our banks have been doing a lot to emphasize the
importance of protecting ourselves from the unauthorized access of our
electronic cards especially with an increase in scamming activities. But are
our merchants doing enough to protect us from these unfortunate occurrences?
I decided to put this to the test. There have been
several occasions when my husband I joked about me using his credit card to
make purchases without him being present but decided against it out of concern
for me being embarrassed when not being able to produce an id to verify card
ownership.
Here we were in a clothes store about to make a
purchase… So we decided let’s not offer the sales clerk an id but wait for it
to be requested. To our surprise the transaction was completed, he signed the
receipt to approve the transaction without proving that he was the owner of the
credit card! Ok, maybe the clerk had forgotten but wait, here is the issue of
your card possibly being compromised; there is no room for excuses. What if his
card had been stolen? Is it so easy to
make purchases with a stolen credit card?
As if this wasn’t enough to think about we decided
to try this again. On another occasion in a popular franchise restaurant our
purchase was completed and no id requested. And I could go on and on about the
numerous stores where this occurred. We were now noticing a trend so much so
that on one occasion when he did not have his id we were able to deduce based
on our experiences that we could go to a particular store because the
possibility of the cashier asking for your id before confirming a credit card
purchase is nil.
While we should not begin to assume that this is the
practice of most business places, one cannot help but imagine the exorbitant
bills that could have been charged to his individual were he not the owner of
this credit card.
Customer service extends beyond smiling, greeting
and assisting your customer with a purchase but also looking out for their
interests especially where the use of electronic cards are involved. We all
have a role to play in ensuring that the highest level of security is observed especially
electronic card purchases. It involves a team effort from; me, you, our banks
and merchants too.
Editor's Note: Persons should check to see if a signature is on the credit card and if it matches the signature signed by the person using the credit card.
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