The effort to drag TP is in part because of my own professional and personal experience with credit card data security. Prior to the introduction of Chip and Pin technology in Canada, I routinely had debates with store clerks, customer service managers, corporate fraud departments, CFOs, etc. At the time I was hocking PCISS data security consulting services. My professional and personal problem was anyone who took the low tech uninformed view that asking for a second form ID was better (least costly, more effective) than trusting new cyber security technologies. This is a long way of saying that if a clerk asked to see my drivers license when I paid by credit card, my response was to request the store manager and refuse to produce the second form of ID.

At the corporate level, I was involved in one BC Office of the Privacy Commissioner inquiry as to whether the Okanagan Avis/Budget franchise could photocopy and require both the drivers license and credit card for purposes of performing the credit card verification.

In all theses corporate and personal instances, I found the vast number of credit card verifications are initiated by customer service clerks and cashiers thinking they are doing a service for the customer or protecting the company's assets. Also in all instances where there was a large company, the corporate office did not sanction the clerks actions and there was no corporate policy to conduct credit card verifications. However small companies and NPOs did subscribe to the unofficial processes.

So yes, perhaps my own personal and professional experiences are colouring the view of the subject incident.