Why small retail stores ask for ID with a credit card while big don't
Because large stores do not pay their cashiers enough that the companies can dock the employees' pay if they allow a bad credit card to go through.  So most cashiers at large stores won't take the extra effort to check the card properly.  As a result, large stores come up with other ways to handle potential credit card fraud.  For example, they calculate a certain amount of fraud as expected and include it in their price calculations.  Or they can use cameras to catch fraudsters.   At small stores, there is a much higher chance that the cashier is either the owner or a relative of the owner.  And even those who are unrelated tend to be hired by the owner directly.  The owners do have their pay docked if a bad credit card is accepted, as their pay is the profit from the business.  So they tend to create protocols that, at least in their mind, reduce the chance of taking a bad credit card.  The cashier is often the only employee in the store to check anything.   Another issue is that small stores have a harder time getting approved to accept credit cards.  The companies that process the credit cards can take back their machine if there is a lot of fraud.  So the companies can require more from small stores than they can from big stores.  Those companies can't stop processing cards for Safeway, because they need Safeway as much if not more than Safeway needs them.  So the processors have more leverage to make small stores do what they want.  And small stores can feasibly fire (non-owner) cashiers who do not comply.   Owners of course can't be fired.  But they are far more vulnerable to business losses.  So it is really important to an owner to keep the credit card machine.  And it is pretty important to avoid losses, as it is their money directly.   Relatives of owners may be safe from firing, but they are not safe from family retaliation like taking away television privileges.  And they may also think of the effect of business losses on the family.   Large stores can fire cashiers, but they are chronically understaffed and almost none of their cashiers will consistently follow a strict protocol.  Since fraudsters only need to succeed once, an inconsistent application is almost as bad as no application.  They might charge the cashiers for fraud, but then they would have to pay the cashiers more than minimum wage specifically for that reason (e.g. a $50 a month bonus for no fraud).  For many of them, it's cheaper to risk the fraud.   And large stores can't mix owners and relatives of owners into the mix.  It's hard to say who owns Safeway.  And even if you could, the relationship between one fraud transaction and the dividend paid on one share of stock is tiny.  It would take thousands of shares to get up to a penny. Probably because large chains can absorb the loss from fraud better than small stores do.  Thus, small stores want to ensure that the person holding the card is the same as the name on the card.
Competition, or actually lack of competition, mostly due to a demand curve that has minimal change due to price. You would buy the equivalent, cheaper option if it was available, but the store has little interest in offering multiple, competing options that would drive their same store revenue down. And the competing stores (Grocery, Department, Drug, Card) have similar overhead costs (floor space, lights, personnel). Most carry the cards for incremental revenue, and observe little advantage to lower price for a card (customers seldom buy more cards due to a lower price). Thus they mark the price to what (most) customers are willing to pay. You may choose to shop the various stores and find the one that has a (slightly) better pricing for cards, and then stop at that store when you want to buy a card. But many cards are sold as an incremental purchase as part of a larger shopping trip (convenience), as the customer combines trips (reduce the time spent shopping, albeit not reducing the money spent). Merchants are only supposed to verify the presence of a signature, which signifies that the card owner has accepted the terms and conditions of the card / account. It was never really intended to be used to authenticate the card holder, nor is it used as such in practice. "As others have stated, credit (signature required) is processed through their respective networks (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express). A ""debit"" card tied to your checking account, still go through the same credit network even though the funds are guaranteed from your checking rather than a free loan 30-60 days which has the potential to be unpaid. This type of debit card purchase may be eligible for a lower processing rate for less risk. Debit cards can also be processed through the debit network (PIN required, no signature). This is typically a straight fee such as $0.35.  Fees vary, but let me give you a simple comparison: Say you are at the supermarket and buy $50 worth of groceries with a debit card with Visa logo. You are asked ""credit"" or ""debit"": At my supermarket, this is why I am given the option to enter my PIN first. If I want to pay by credit, I have to tap Cancel to process via credit signature." Cash-back also lets the store turn hard currency into an electronic transfer or check, which reduces the hassle/risk of hauling bagfulls of cash to the bank. (The smaller stores I've spoken to have called this out as a major advantage of plastic over either cash or checks. I'm assuming that the problem scales with number and size of transactions.) "At least in the US, one reason could be the ""liability shift"" that encourages adoption of chipped and contactless cards by shifting the fraud liability to the party that caused the transaction to not use chip-and-PIN / contactless payment: either the merchant (by not having a new compatible terminal) or the card issuer (by not providing the customer with a compatible card). This means the issuers will try to replace old, magnetic-only cards as soon as possible once adoption of the liability shift is certain. http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/bulletin-us-participation-liability-shift-080911.pdf" My understanding it that the signature requirement is at the retailer's discretion. If the merchant decides to require a signature it protects them against fraudulent charge-back claims, but increases their administrative costs. In some situations it just isn't practical for a retailer to require a signature. Consider for example mail-order or online purchases, which I've never had to sign a credit card slip for. Per their merchant agreements, Visa and MasterCard say that the signature on the back of the card is the proper way to identify the card holder.  If a card is not signed, the merchant is supposed to check your ID and make you sign the card before accepting it for payment.  Merchants are not allowed the require an ID for paying with a signed card. Of course, store employees rarely know all these things.  Some will gladly accept an unsigned card.  Some will try to make you show your ID. In the United States there are 3 main types of cards. There are organizations that push a credit card with their branding. They aren't a bank so they partner with a bank to offer the card. In the US many colleges and professional sports teams will market a credit card with the team or universities colors and logo. The bank handles the details and the team/university gets a flat fee or a portion of the fees. Many even have annual fees. They market to people who want to show their favorite team colors on their credit card, and are willing to pay extra. Some of these branded cards do come with extra perks: Free shipping, discounts on tickets, being able to buy tickets earlier.  There are 4 other types of cards that have limited usage: What makes it confusing is that large business can actually turn a portion of the corporation into a bank. Walmart has been doing this, and so have casinos. Back when they started, Discover undercut Visa and Amex fees by about a point. This was also true when I worked for a mail-order computer retailer in the '90s: if a customer asked us which credit cards we took, we were told to list Discover first (and AmEx last) because Discover had the lowest merchant charges. Possibly this is no longer true today, but for quite a while it was a significant selling point of the Discover card to merchants, and a reason why many did sign on. (A reason some stores did not sign on was that Discover was owned by Sears, and many businesses that competed with Sears didn't like the idea of sending any of their profits to the competition.) Today, Discover also owns Diners Club and the fees for those cards are higher. The funny thing is that mom &amp; pop type establishments usually prefer cash due to the merchant charges they have to pay to the credit card companies. Some of these are percentage-based &amp; others are fixed like a per-transaction charge. In the long run, accepting 10k USD wouldn't be enough. They would lose more than that in people who don't have a card on them vs accepting both cash and cards. Chip and Pin cards are popular in Europe, however in the US we don't have them.  Visa/MC and Amex can issue chip and pin cards but no merchants or machines are set up here to take them.  Only certain countries in Europe use them and since you could possibly have a US visitor or a non-chip and pin person using your machine or eating at your restaurant they usually allow you to sign or just omit the pin if the card doesn't have a chip. It is definitely less secure, but the entire credit card industry in the US is running right now without it, so I don't think the major credit card companies care too much (they just pass the fraud on to the merchants anyway). So my wife was at work today and got yelled at by both a cop and her managers for simply LOOKING at the card. I don't understand I also work in retail and of course I must see the card to ensure it is a real card, it is a very strict policy that we must have a valid physical card to run any credit/debit transactions. People put skimmers everywhere you use your card and can pick up the info off the strip and put it onto another card and use it without you noticing right away. With the right equipment they can put their name on it or the name on their fake I.d. so the only red flag would be them trying to use several different cards "I thought I'd see if the credit card companies had anything to say about this while trying to get merchants to sign up. I went to visa.com, clicked ""Run Your Business"" in the top nav, then ""Accept Visa Payments"". This page has a ""More benefits of accepting Visa"" link with an overlay (which I can't easily link directly to), which includes these lines: While the average cash transaction is $17, credit card purchases average $70 while debit card purchases average $36.² ² Visa Payment Panel Study (2Q11 to 1Q12 time period); Visa MARS Data: March 2015 – May 2015  That obviously doesn't tell the entire story (I suspect people are more likely to pull out cash when they're just buying a stick of gum, and more more likely to pull out a card when they're buying large electronics), but certainly there is some evidence from the credit card companies themselves that people spend more when using cards, which is one of the aspects they use to convince merchants to accept cards. I think the best evidence that people spend more is that more and more merchants accept cards. Accepting cards comes with some significant costs (though it's important to keep in mind that accepting cash can come with some significant costs as well). I suspect that merchants wouldn't do so unless the increased sales that they get for accepting cards makes up for the fees that they need to pay and the equipment they need to buy to accept them (not to mention the risks of chargebacks and the like)." I'm surprised by all the pro-credit answers here, debit has some definite advantages. Most importantly, when you pay with a credit card, the merchant pays around 3% of the transaction to the credit company. In many states, they are forced to charge you the same amount, and this is frequently toted as ''consumer protection''. But consider what this means for the business: they loose money for every credit transaction, and they're legally forbidden to do anything about it. So you're taking 3% from a business and handing it over to a massive cooperation.  To make matters worse, the buisness is inevitably going to have to raise their prices (albiet by a small amount), so in the end the average consumer has gained nothing. On the other hand, the credit card company wins big, and they use their profits to pay lobbyists and lawyers to keep these rules in place. To put in the worst possible light, it's essentially legal extortion, verging on corruption. As for the fraud protection offered, while it may be true that credit cards will offer a more hassle-free reimbursement (i.e. you just don't have to pay the bill) if your card is stolen, consumer protection laws also extend to debit: in many cases your bank is legally required to cut you a check for all the money you lost. "For the first part of your question; Refer to related question  Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card? The other case of Airport ticket machines, requires the physical presence of card. The assumption is that if you had the card before and after the transaction, it was you who used it for transaction. As the amounts are small its really easy by anyone [merchant, Banks] to write this off. The only way to misuse would be if you lost the card and someone used it. Also these ticket machines would have built in feature where by you cannot buy more than ""X"" tickets for the day. Ensuring max loss on a stolen card is limited to a small amount."