Credit Cards

[bluesqueak]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Melody" <Malady579 at h...> wrote:
> Jules wrote:
> > When I was watching the Oscbournes the other day, Kelly borrowed
> > Ozzy's credit card, *without him knowing*, and went off shopping.
> >
> > How does that work exactly? If you did that in Britain, you'd get
> > arrested as soon as you tried to use it.
> 
> Melody:
> Most of my friends often times went out with their parents 
>credit cards shopping.  Most stores don't check that closely.  
>After all, the store still gets paid.
> 
> With Ozzie's daughter, I bet, especially with her style, all the
> stores she shops at know her and know her family can afford it.  
> Since she is a long time and good customer, the stores would say 
> nothing.
> If they don't look at the card, then they don't know.

> Melody

When I was selling theatre tickets in London's West End, we used to 
have quite a problem with Americans who would try to use their 
parent's/spouse's credit card. Most were pretty good humoured about 
it when we told them they couldn't do this in the UK, and put it 
down as one of those interesting cultural differences you go on 
holiday to discover, but sometimes they'd be annoyed. 

Another thing American tourists found strange was the amount of 
checking of credit card signatures that goes on over here. 

I remember one gentleman who was only persuaded that he could *not* 
sign his wife's signature when we pointed out that in the UK, this 
is fraud, and 'actually sir, we're being nice to you because what we 
*should* be doing is retaining the credit card and calling the 
police.'

If a retailer manages to spot and retain a fraudulent card, the CC 
company gives a 50 GBP reward to the assistant who spotted it. It 
encourages checking.

Pip