See ID

[pne]

This morning, I was buying loratidine tablets at a chemist's where I don't usually go; I asked whether I could pay by EC card and they say yes, if I produced photo ID.

I had heard of this practice from customers_suck (often in the context of customers writing "see ID" in the signature line of their credit card and being indignant when asked to produce said ID), but hadn't encountered it in Germany yet.

Still, why not? I showed her my passport; she compared the names, then the signatures, between the EC card and the passport. I don't think she looked at the passport photo though or compared the signature on the receipt with the one on the card.

Comments

[eilanhp.livejournal.com]

When I was working in a supermarket I had to do thia and write the adress of the customer down when s/he paid by EC card for something over 50€.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this would have been a bit more difficult, since I'm not German and my British passport doesn't have an address.

I assume you copied the address off the Personalausweis?

What did you do if someone used a passport instead? Just take down what they tell you and believe them? Refuse the sale? Ask for a Meldebescheinigung?

(I do have a Meldebestätigung I carry around with me, but it's only a little slip I filled out when I moved into my current place which has a stamp by the local Einwohneramt. It's not proof I still live there, though.)

[eilanhp.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I have no idea. I only had to write down an adress like once a day, but I guess if the person used a passport or anything else I could have just let it slide. Noone checked it, it was just an additional safety.

Meldebestätigung would be fine, I guess. There has never been an accident where we needed the adress. And I only worked there for a month so noone expected me to know things, I could have just asked my boss :) Easy way out...

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

You carry your passport around with you? Is this some national requirement in Germany or what? My passport never leaves the drawer it's in!

[pne.livejournal.com]

Is this some national requirement in Germany or what?

I'm not exactly sure; different people say different things as to whether Germans have to carry their ID card on them.

There is some law or other, but whether it requires you to have ID on you or only to produce it in reasonable time seems to be unclear, as are the consequences in practice of not having it on you even if that should not be not explicitly required by the law.

(Whether this even applies to non-Germans is a completely different matter.)

But yes, I typically carry my passport around with me.