It's really not that hard to use these prepaid reloadable products, and there is a HUGE legitimate market for them, which is why we are constantly seeing new ones. They're not making money off MSers who load and unload, which is why we get shutdown.

I did not just walk away. I did get the beans I bought and I'm going to try one more time with a different cashier just to see if it's the cashier or the store manager. Not going to let this one down just yet.

#1. for the signature thing. Every time I sign my signature on the touchpad, it's just a swiggly line. A few time, the pen thing doesn't work, I had to use my fingernail. The CVS cashier didn't care.

#2. for the serve load with CC. I went to my local CVS, and asked the cashier to load my Serve card. She said,"hhm..this is the first time I am doing this, not sure how to do it". I said,"Press the reload button, swipe card, enter amount...." I had to learn this method because another cashier didn't know how to do it, and I didn't know how to do it.

No, there are two different things going on here. CVS requires the ID as a condition of buying $1k+ of prepaids. That doesn't matter whether you are paying cash or credit. They can require this for that specific purpose, and you as a customer can decide whether or not you want to provide that and continue to do business with them.

Also, might not be in your state, but in a number of states it is against state law to require additional ID when paying with a credit card. And, in others such as CA, it is illegal to record any personal information relating to a credit card transaction (though not to visually confirm an ID): http://law.onecle.com/california/civil/1747.08.html

In addition, an employee looking at my ID exposes ME to fraud, as the employee could easily memorize all of my pertinent personal details and credit card numbers. With a little online research, I am quite sure this person could then steal my identity. The store is trying to prevent fraud, but I am trying to do the same. The store's methods of preventing fraud are not in my interest, and in fact conflict directly with my interest. And as well, someone stealing my identity and committing fraud is very important to Visa/MC/particularly Amex, as by law I won't be the one footing the bill for that fraud. But that money has to come from somewhere.

I'd prefer not to give my id at CVS, but it seems the only way I can make larger purchases of prepaids. I know the cashier scans the license, but I am not certain how much information is retained from the scan. Furthermore, I would think any information that was scanned would not be accessible by the cashier after the transaction. CVS would be opening themselves up to massive liability if they exposed all their customers identification/credit card information to just any employee who may want to steal it. Therefore, I would hope they restrict access to this information to very few people (its probably only accessible by a back office).

I have seen a older lady in front of me at grocery store check out line, paid $4.95 to buy a $25 master card. Then she used another master card to pay for her 10ish items of groceries. I am quite dumbfounded. I mean, if she is giving the $25 MC as a gift, why not just write a check? Or give plain old $25 cash?

More than a doz times seeing folks in front of me at CVS paying fees to load $200 or below amount to a reloadable cards.

I dont know whether these people are truly math challenge or completely lack of common sense, but these people do exist and the fee generated obviously is not insignificant. Else we would not see so many competing products on the market these days!

Complete opposite experiences in my area.

The better the neighborhood, the more availability of the VRs and the nicer the CVS employees' attitudes. Go up to Coral Springs and Parkland you would find all the VRs you need and the CVS employees are as nice as they can be. Go down to the ghetto neighborhoods in Lauderlake, State Road 7 and such, you will find a complete different picture.

Kind of a data point, hoping nothing comes from it: I was buying some beans today and the cashier that is there 90+% of the time that I go there scanned the first bean and then messed up because something popped up on the screen that she had never seen before and was just automatically going through the process of loading my beans (apologies for the long sentence). She said it was some prompt that she had never seen before. No idea what it said, or what it was. Anyone else had this experience? I've been purchasing beans at this cvs for months, and this cashier knows what she's doing.

Yes, happened to me yesterday. Something popped up on the screen, the cashier asked the other cashier if she had seen that message before. She said she hadn't, and they both shrugged their shoulders and continued with the transaction.

The prompt is asking the cashier whether the customer is standing in front of them. It's been added to cut down on phone scams where someone calls in pretending to be from corporate and tells the cashier to activate VRs or other reload products and read the numbers.

Edit: User's question answered already!

Does anyone know the official rule from CVS concerning using cc's to pay for VR's? I've had great luck locally for a year and a half now. Tonight, the local manager said that it has never been the policy and was very surprised when I told my recent experiences, even in her own store.

Yes there have been numerous prior posts about this subject with the same thing happening to others.

Rather than evidence of a new policy, I think this is yet more evidence of a very old human tendency to assume that however s/he personally does things today is not only how s/he've ALWAYS done things, but how EVERYONE ELSE does them too.

just picked up another 4k in beans about 30 minutes ago (1030pm est) no problems as normal.... even dealt with the store manager this time, my 5th time using him out of the many many times