Circle K's carding policy, (or carding policies in general)

[Mike 03]

I think there is NOTHING wrong with establishments like Circle K or Seven-11 carding people who purchase beer or cigarettes, but I do have a question, if anyone here works at one of these sorts of establishments:

Once or twice a month I will stop at my local Circle K and pick up a six pack. Most of the time they ask to see my ID but they just glance at it, because it's obvious I'm over 21. But every now and then they make a huge deal about it and run the magnetic strip on my driver's license through some sort of computer.

My question is why do they need to run the strip through the computer?

Unless they are retarded, can't they just look at my date of birth and figure out that I'm way over 21?

Not to be paranoid, but I am disconcerted about this, and I'm wondering what they obtain from running my ID through the electronic strip thing that might come back to haunt me?

Is there some Circle K central computer that is going to document me every time I purchase a six pack of Corona or every time my sister buys a pack of cigarettes?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. Beware the mark of the beast

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. It's been almost 20 years since I worked in those type of establishments

But back then the cops used to run sting operations trying to bust people for selling to minors. Not just the ones who didn't card, but the ones who carded wrong. They tried to get me one time..... kid pulls out a drivers license that had obviously been altered.... he sees me looking at it and says "Oh yeah, it just went through the wash and got all messed up".

Except I recognized the name and address on the license. And it didn't belong to the kid who was holding it. Nor was it his little brother. So I said "Nice try" and grabbed the beer. Sure enough, 30 seconds after he walked out, I see the cop car pull out from behind the store, with the kid in the back seat. Undercover or paid informant? Who knows.

Unfortunately one of my co-workers fell for the scam despite my warnings. They temporarily pulled the liquor license and made us lock down the beer coolers for 2 weeks. Don't know how much money that cost the boss, but it made my life a living Hell for the next 2 weeks dealing with all the whiny drunks who couldn't understand why they couldn't get that 1:58 AM 6 pack after the bar closed.

[petronius]

3. those scanners read the magnetic strip, which is supposed to contain the

same info as the front of the card. The machine determines if the card is expired and what the holder's age is, and the clerk is supposed to compare the name and other details displayed by the scanner to the printed info. It's pretty benign, but they do keep a record of all the info from the mag strip and that could be transferred to a database, so Circle K could keep track of every person who was carded, and when, which could easily be linked to cash register records of what was purchased...

[Mike 03]

6. Okay, that is really helpful information. That makes sense.

Thank you.

[LeftyMom]

4. Some of the places here have to do the magnetic strip check because they got caught

selling something age restricted, usually cigarettes, to minors.

[Mike 03]

7. Thank you. You all are providing some answers that really do make sense.

This is reassuring. And I wouldn't be surprised if the establishment I have in mind had gotten into trouble in the past for selling to minors.

[RoyGBiv]

5. This is nothing sinister ...

At most the magnetic strip contains the same information printed on the card. Depends on where you are. Some of them don't really contain anything but something to verify whether the card is real, a code. "Running" it simply verifies it. Believe it or not, people fake these things, and it's much harder to fake the magnetically encoded information. Plus, if you run the card, then you have a "paper trail" to show you made a good faith attempt to determine age.

Why they do it is simple. They can *go to jail* if they sell to someone underage. At best, they could be fined heavily, would probably lose their jobs, and would then have a record they'd have to reveal to other prospective employers. And law enforcement love to play this little game where they find the one guy or woman out of a thousand who is like 12 or something and hit puberty at birth. I've seen people who I would have sworn up and down were in their 30s who were one day shy of 21. (They like the "one day" thing too. Clerks will look at the ID and think, oh, s/he's almost legal and is celebrating.)

I ran a booze shack (my pet name for a liquor store) for about 8 years. Back then, the strips weren't around. The DL in Oklahoma was just a laminated piece of paper that could be faked in your living room with very little effort. I constantly complained to authorities about this because it wasn't the underage person with the fake ID who caught hell. It was me for being fooled by it. Getting caught selling to a minor was a felony then, and it would have cost my liquor license that allowed me to work there, in addition to resulting in a minimum $1500 fine for me personally and possible jail time of 2-5 years. (The store would get another fine.) Selling to someone underage (18-21) was a lesser offense, but not by much.

Somehow I managed never to be fooled to my knowledge, which only means I was never caught in a sting.

The sting probably explains the periodic nature of this. People who work in these stores tend to keep each other informed when they know a sting is in the works.

At one store I worked at we had our own internal "stings" where management would hire kids for an evening to check their own employees. If you failed the test, you were fired on the spot.

(Grrr ... why can I edit something and proof it ten times and still find typos.)

[Mike 03]

8. Excellent answer. Thank you. I'm not worried about it anymore. NT

[Mike 03]

9. Actually, all of your answers reminded me of something: People always tell me I look and dress like

a cop! LOL. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[RoyGBiv]

10. That would do it ...

For younger people who work in these places or anyone who is not very assertive, it can be difficult to challenge someone on their age. Some people never have a problem with it, but others are constantly playing this mental battle with themselves of "is s/he or isn't s/he?" and don't want to be wrong. It is easier, they feel, to be wrong by not issuing the challenge than to issue it and then have a potentially angry customer on their hands. It ends up as a Catch-22.

So, they develop strategies involving sizing people up. Some of them make no sense. I mean, what does a cop, never mind someone working with a cop to pursue a sting, really look like? Employees nonetheless get this notion that they think they know and act on it.

I started working with the public when I was 16, so by the time I was working in places that sold alcohol, I had few issues with it, and I had fewer as I went along. I developed the habit of asking for ID from everyone except the regulars that could never be mistaken for someone else. It actually helped things in many ways to ask for an ID from someone who was obviously a senior citizen. The 22-year-old in the store at the same time would see it and tend to have less of a chip on their should when it was their turn. At the same time, carding an 80 year old woman *every single time* she walked into the store made her all giddy. :) I had come to recognize her as a regular and stopped, but she called me on it, so I started doing it again. It was one of the reasons she came there.

And speaking of chips on shoulders, this is a double-edged sword as well. I'm not saying this about you, just offering a general observation. If you're of age and get hostile with an employee about carding you, all you're really doing is making it harder for that person to card the next person who might be underage and potentially adding to a series of learning experiences that will get that person in trouble. On the other hand, people who do get hostile are most likely *not* of age and become suspect, thus ensuring you get noticed and watched and carding every single time you go anywhere.

Just show the ID and move on. Hell, I *wish* people still asked for my ID.

[SoxFan]

11. Compliance checks

I do some legal work for a couple of nightclubs, and I know that the owners all try to keep each other informed of when the inspectors are out making compliance checks. i have to assume that the Kwik-e-Marts do the same thing. If they know that someone is out doing checks, they will be overcautious.