Thu 11 Mar 2010
So during my lunch break I head over to Lowe’s to buy some gardening tools and I’m now wondering if Lowe’s is hiring people for the Post Office because of the horrible service. I have about $60 worth of tools and am at the quick self check out nearly completing my transaction when the attendant comes up to me and says she needs to see my ID. I say, “sure” and reach into my wallet, open it up and my drivers license is gone. At this point I’m not sure where it is but I’m guessing my wife or kids “borrowed” it for some reason so I tell the Lowe’s employee that I don’t seem to have it. She gets into a panic and doesn’t know what to do, “I’ll have to check with my supervisor.” So she leaves for a few minutes and comes back with someone (guessing it’s the supervisor). “Sorry sir, it’s policy that we need to see id.”
I tell the lady that I don’t have my ID but my Corporate Badge is hanging from my belt (with my name AND picture on it) but says the store policy is to see drivers license. I say, “Oh well, it’s not my loss it’s yours” and I walk out.
Frustrated, I head over to Costco to buy a compact flash card for my digital camera for my upcoming vacation trip. I pickup the placard for the item I want and head over the checkout. It dawns on me that I still don’t have my drivers license but I can’t remember if Costco checks or not so I proceed. She scans my credit card, charges the items then asks for my ID! I tell her that I don’t have it with me and she says, “do you have anything with your picture on it?”
I show her my corporate badge with my name, employer, and picture on it and she says, “that’s good enough.”
Now I understand fraud at retail outlets is pretty bad but to apply blanket policies without thinking the process through is pretty stupid. I guess it is possible that a ring of fraudsters are dressing up like executives and heading over to retail outlets like Lowes and loading up on $60 in garden tools with stolen credit cards to make out like bandits but the premise of the story is fairly implausible. The difference between the brain dead Lowe’s employees with poor training and the Genius Costco employees is fairly obvious in this example. Perhaps the Costco employee violated a policy but I am more inclined to believe that she is allowed to make a judgment call and made the determination that someone dressing up in a business attire, heading to the shop during lunch hours for a single item wasn’t out to rip the company off.
I also know how these policies get implemented because I’ve sat in board rooms with idiot Vice Presidents of Risk Management and their like where they come up with these inane blanket policies that irritate and drive customers away. This is how it goes:
CEO: “We’re losing revenue to fraud, we need to do something about it!”
VP Risk: “I got a brilliant idea, we’ll make mandatory ID checks on all credit card purchases, that should do the trick!”
CEO: “Ok, it’s your call if you think that will help!”
And here’s the reality:
CEO: “We’re losing revenue to upset customers walking away from our stupid and inane policies!”
VP Risk: “Yeah but fraud is down….”
The absolute biggest irony here is that the Lowe’s clerk asked if I had a DEBIT card to pay for the purchases! I can only surmise that if I were a thief and using a stolen debit card (along with the pin) that the loss would be on the customer not on Lowe’s because that’s the only way I can imagine this policy allows for presumably stolen debit card customers walk away with merchandise while the opposite is true for credit cards.
So the moral of the story is Lowe’s is now on my shitlist/blacklist of company’s I won’t do business with for a while and I only went there because it was nearby the office. I’ll stop at Home Depot this evening and pick up the items there. By the way, Home Depot always asks for ID too but I’ve been there so often the workers actually recognize me when I walk in and they don’t ask anymore. The Home Depot I visit clearly doesn’t have brain dead employees either.
