Wal-Mart is not allowed by attorneys to show video to customers or in your case, victims. However, the police CAN request the information and Wal-Mart will give them all the photos and videos available. The problem with this is that older Wal-Mart stores may have the old VHS video system. These tapes are usually recorded over after two months. I last used a vhs system about three years ago. Many stores are being switched to digital video when that store remodels. The banks don’t usually want to flag a card for lower amounts of money. They say it costs too much. The police do not have to look at the tape…Wal-Mart will want to do that, but they need a reason to do it before the video documentation still is available. I don’t care what the police say…it is their job to look into this. I agree there are more important crimes…but sooner or later they will have time and need to react.

You are correct, you cannot get a copy of that receipt due to legal reasons. However, you can see this information indirectly. The proper (and legal for retailers) steps are to call the police department in the city where the card went through at. File a complaint against the person that used the card. Wal-Mart will give them all the information needed to catch the person that did it…including any video footage and photos obtained by the camera system. Each store it was attempted and used at will have to do this individually…but they are more than happy to do this. It keeps Wal-Mart tail covered and you will find the information your wanting.

What Jason is saying is that it is against the rules of using the card established by the credit card companies. Wal-Mart is not the problem here, it is the card company that dictates the guidelines for companies to be able to take that card. I appreciate when a company asks to see a card, but I know that many times they simply are not allowed to because of the demands of Visa and Mastercard demanding it not be done!

1. Oklahoma decided NOT to extradite him – too costly!
2. Arizona had not notified Oklahoma that my DL was used to get an Arizona DL, and/or Oklahoma did nothing with that info.
3. The Social Security office used only DL information to issue a duplicate SS card – despite the fact that I had applied for a duplicate less than one year earlier.

Any of these things should have thrown up red flags – but that did not happen. About 9 years ago, I found out that the SS Administration had me down as DEAD. I guess the guy finally died and his widow applied for benefits! Again, I got it straightened out. But what a mess!

After 9/11, some of these problems have been addressed, but I’ll bet that this will still happen to thousands of people. Mistakes and oversights will always get in the way. All of this is preventable with common sense procedures.

However, the fact is just about anyone can buy just about anything with just about any credit card in the US… we live in a “have card, buy stuff” country. Stores such as Walmart could help this issue in the US by simply asking for an ID when credit is being used.

And as many of our UK friends have commented above… we seem to be behind the curve as it relates to things like this.