Actions such as asking for additional proof of identity are rarely, if ever, the actions of the credit card association itself. This is almost always the action of the merchant, which in this case is Joker (or whatever their main company entity is).
However, it is very possible that their acquiring bank and/or the card association is now requiring them to take these steps. These actions are almost always in response to a high chargeback percentage (more than 1% is considered 'high').
A high chargeback rate is usually due to (1) carelessness in reviewing charges on a daily basis; (2) fraudulent charges that are not caught and voided due to (1); and/or (3) careless customer service resulting in customers requesting chargebacks because promissed products/services were not delivered.
Also note that a credit given to you by a merchant is *not* the same as a chargeback. A chargeback always results from the customer asking their issuing bank to initiate a chargeback.
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They said they will not enable my credit card until I send them a copy of my State ID, SSN, & a Utilty bill.
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Other than the copy of the State ID or driver's license, the SSN and Utility bill are rather unorthodox methods of collecting additional information from a card holder. The purpose for collecting this information is to help prove the card presenter is, in fact, the legal card holder. With this in mind, not only can collecting the SSN be illegal in some cases but does nothing to confirm identity. The Utility bill *might* help to confirm the address provided by the presenter but does nothing, in and of itself, to confirm if this is the correct address. The most useful pieces of information are (1) some form of photo ID that contains a signature, and (2) the name of the credit card issuing bank. With this information the merchant can contact the issuing bank and confirm address information and if necessary, compare signatures.
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Rich
[This message has been edited by Rich (edited 09-25-00@11:35 pm)]
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