Shops confiscating debit cards when declined - who remembers this?

[Confusedandanxiety]

Does anyone remember in the 90s/early 2000s shops wouldn't give your debit card back when it was declined. I think they might have got a reward of £50 or something if they did this.
Is it still a thing?
I understand it happened for fraud reasons, but I vaguely recall me and some other students maxing out our overdrafts and when trying to buy fags and booze the shop assistant saying they had been instructed by the bank to retain the card.

I worked in a shop in the early 2000s and I got £50 for retaining a customer's card twice. Once it came up call for authorisation and I was told to keep the card.

The second time someone was doing dodgy transactions on several tills at the authorisation limit, buying vouchers I think and it flagged up on the third time they did it, a manager was dealing with them by that point but I ended up with the reward.

We were also encouraged to sell store cards with PPI even tho I wasn't even old enough to have one myself when I first started!!

This happened to my DH in the 90s.
We did a big shop at a big supermarket on a Fri night & his debit card was declined. The store manager took my DH's card off him & said it could be any reason the card was declined but he had to take the card off DH.
We found out that it was bloody Barclays fault as they'd accidentally put DH's card on the stolen list but tried to blame the supermarket.
Got a £100 compensation from the bank & a big apology & also a £15 voucher & an no apology from the supermarket (although it wasn't the shop's fault)
DH changed banks after that.

I remember that, although in the store I managed in the early 90s we didn’t take debit cards for some reason but I had to do random checks on cheque guarantee cards by calling the bank and earned a few £50 rewards that way.

I loved using those card imprinters, as soon as I saw that pic upthread, the noise came back to me.

Also remember going to a restaurant in 2006 & the card readers were down so out came the slidey thing when it came for us to pay.

Happened to me - entirely the cashiers error as she was too busy talking to a co-worker and she keyed the card details in wrongly (swipe machine was not swiping!). A supervisor checked a till print out and denied that it was the cashiers fault. I don't think they were impressed at me insisting that if they were going to retain my card - because the bank had sent a code to them - then they needed to destroy it in front of me! But I knew what my balance was (healthy) and was concerned that the card could fall into the wrong hands.

The bank's transaction records and the shop's till records - when the manager checked properly - backed up my version of events. Moreover the bank said they had not asked for the card to be retained!! The shop gave me £50 of vouchers in compensation. I wonder if that was intended to be the cashiers "reward". I spent that money pretty quickly and never went near that shop again!!

I worked in a shop then. The till prompt said phone bank for authorisation, or if it was over a certain amount we phoned anyway. You were sometimes told to retain the card, cut it up and send back to the bank, you then got £25 which was quite a lot in those days!

I worked in s bank and we got £50 fir retaining stolen cards. I got 2 stolen cards presented while serving in a single day on the tills. £100 was a lot of money in the late 80's.

Thanks everyone for sharing your recollections! It definitely was 'a thing' back then!
I worked in McDonald's as a student in the 90s and in those days they didn't take card payments but I do remember having to write the cheque guarantee card number on the back of cheques!

I only started working in retail in 2009 but I remember a couple of times where we had to "call for authorisation". I thought it was really odd but my manager, who was much older, took it in stride - interesting that it used to be so normal!

Once when our tills were down we used the machine and carbon paper and it was very satisfying.

You're supposed to retain any counterfeit notes but the one time someone tried to pay me with a counterfeit note no way was I going to not give it back to him when he asked! Especially as you don't even get any reward for doing so.

I worked in Next in the mid to late 90's and remember having to phone for authorisation if the customers goods came up to more £50 and wanted to pay using a cheque. Had to write the authorisation number on the back of the cheque along with the long number on the cheque guarantee card 🙄

For reasons I'm not going to go into I had an American Express and a Diner's club card at age 16.

I also looked younger than 16.

Every time I used wither card the shop assistant would get a gleam in their eye and go off to phone the number.

I worked for Morrisons during this time. We definitely retained cards. Never saw any £50 though. 🤔We had the slidey thing for when the tills went down, which was often.

Yes I remember that in the 90’s. Student days - I used to write cheques (sometimes in the supermarket I think) when didn’t have any money knowing it would be 3 days before it hit my account. I can’t imagine writing a cheque now. Not sure where my cheque book is actually…

Yes I had to do this once when working in a wine shop, to a woman who looked like she was off her face on drugs. I was quite scared to tell her that I had to keep her card, because she looked like she might attack me. But I REALLY wanted that £50! 🤣

Ohhhhh, as soon as I saw the title I got the ‘TRANSAX, please enter the card number, then press #’ ear worm!

i was a Saturday girl in a luxury goods shop central London.

fraudsters would target me as I was a tiny little thing, I made at least £150 a month.

Never cut cards infront of customers though - always left it behind the security door.

Most fraudsters would run off anyway.

This was in the 90s btw.

God I was good at spotting fraud too. I remember calling off my own back on one set of guys, who ran off.

Manager asked what made me initiate the call.

Me: who spends ££££ in a shop but tells me to hurry because parking meter is running out’ 😒

(Luxury goods, even then if it was food or something I would have left it).

Yes, I accidentally gave an expired debit card to pay once (long before chip and pin , so they took the card to swipe it) and the shop kept it. I had the replacement card in my purse so it was no problem.

I moved to Papua New Guinea in 1997 and they had chip & pin cards in the shops. Previous to that in the UK I'd only ever encountered swipe/chip & sign (and old carbon copy ones) machines.

They also had photocard driving licences, and I'd only ever had a paper one.

All quite impressive were it not for the fact that we'd been queuing for 3hrs to get licences (they took your digital picture and printed the licence there and then) when the power went off and we were told to come back the next day.

We've got juniors at work (in their 20s) to whom I have to explain what a cheque is when I am teaching them how to do bank reconciliations!

One time, my customer was waiting ages while my boss phoned the bank. She finally twigged and ran off, grabbing a load of chocolate bars as she did. I got told off because I didn't stop her leaving (how?) and she stole the chocolate.

At the the time I felt bad for her because she was buying essentials. A few months later the police called asking me to do a line up. I didn't even realise that was an actual thing! Obviously if the police were that interested in her, she was pretty dodgy. I'm still kind of gutted I couldn't in good faith do the line up because I couldn't really remember what she looked like.

I never got any money. I have a feeling that the money always went to the person who phoned the bank which in our case always had to be our manager.

Could you imagine customers accepting you taking their card now?

Not quite the same, but I worked in a petrol station in the 90's and if a customer couldn't pay, I had to confiscate something valuable of theirs till they came back and settled the bill.
I remember one man having to give me his wedding ring.
I'm actually quite ashamed now, but I was young and did as I was told.

Yes, I remember it, because £50 bounty was twice my day's pay, and I got diddled out of it.

I worked at a high-end shop popular among wealthy tourists. One day I served a couple that flicked all our (metaphorical) alarm switches were trying to pay for a large purchase. The phone call was slow to confirm and the customers started throwing their weight about. Crawling prick of a under-manager insisted I authorise the card. Call of course eventually came through to retain it, and the under-manager tried to put the blame on me when the department manager queried it. Fortunately, several other colleagues had been at the till and all backed me up. I was thoroughly pissed off with the prick because not only had he lost me the significant bounty, but I could have been fired because of his dishonesty.

This thread has reminded me of the absolute THRILL of the "keep card" message. My colleague, who worked a lot more hours than me, and who actively relished arguing with customers, was furious when I got two £50 rewards in one weekend and she didn't. 😁

I don't think either of them were fraud and I think I might have rather spoilt their holidays.

But £50!

Yes! I got £50 once - it was some consolation for being screamed at on the shop floor by the woman whose card was being retained.

I guess that was why they gve the reward, to stop pre-minimum wage shop assistants going bugger this and just giving back the card.