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These stories about checking ID remind me of an incident my father told me about that happened to him about 1985 or so.
His 1976 Impala was getting a bit long in the tooth, so he figured it was time for a change. Not having the money for a new car, he decided to look for a used one. At the time I had an uncle who was a mechanic, and he had connections to get my father into a dealer's auction, where off-lease and repossessed cars were wholesaled. (Nowadays these are open to the public, but back then you had to be in the trade to get in.)
One of the rules at these auctions was that anything you won had to be paid for in cash on the barrelhead. No checks, no credit cards, no "Just let me run to the ATM", if you bid on a car you were expected to have enough money in your jeans to cover your bid.
He didn't have that much folding green lying around the house, so he decided to get a cash advance against his credit cards. This was when they still had a grace period on cash advances, so if you paid it back in before the bill got mailed you didn't have to pay interest.
So my father went to the bank. He waited on line, and when he got up to the teller, he laid two credit cards on the counter, and said quietly, "I'd like to take a $2000 cash advance on each of these credit cards." (might have been $3000 each, I can't remember)
The teller looks down at the cards, and says in a loud brassy voice, "That's four thousand dollars, Sir. That's a lot of money! Do you have any identification?"
And all over the bank, he told me, he could see heads turning, people wanting to see who was taking out that much money.
He got pissed off. Pulled two items of ID out of his wallet, slapped them on the counter, and said just as loudly, "Yes! I have my driver's license and my firearms permit!"
And suddenly all these nosey-parkers found something else to look at...
I mean seriously. What kind of idiot announces to the whole world and his dog how much money someone's taking out of the bank? Someone could have heard that and mugged him on the way out.
(Oh, almost forgot. He wound up buying a 1981 Cutlass Supreme.)
His 1976 Impala was getting a bit long in the tooth, so he figured it was time for a change. Not having the money for a new car, he decided to look for a used one. At the time I had an uncle who was a mechanic, and he had connections to get my father into a dealer's auction, where off-lease and repossessed cars were wholesaled. (Nowadays these are open to the public, but back then you had to be in the trade to get in.)
One of the rules at these auctions was that anything you won had to be paid for in cash on the barrelhead. No checks, no credit cards, no "Just let me run to the ATM", if you bid on a car you were expected to have enough money in your jeans to cover your bid.
He didn't have that much folding green lying around the house, so he decided to get a cash advance against his credit cards. This was when they still had a grace period on cash advances, so if you paid it back in before the bill got mailed you didn't have to pay interest.
So my father went to the bank. He waited on line, and when he got up to the teller, he laid two credit cards on the counter, and said quietly, "I'd like to take a $2000 cash advance on each of these credit cards." (might have been $3000 each, I can't remember)
The teller looks down at the cards, and says in a loud brassy voice, "That's four thousand dollars, Sir. That's a lot of money! Do you have any identification?"
And all over the bank, he told me, he could see heads turning, people wanting to see who was taking out that much money.
He got pissed off. Pulled two items of ID out of his wallet, slapped them on the counter, and said just as loudly, "Yes! I have my driver's license and my firearms permit!"
And suddenly all these nosey-parkers found something else to look at...
I mean seriously. What kind of idiot announces to the whole world and his dog how much money someone's taking out of the bank? Someone could have heard that and mugged him on the way out.
(Oh, almost forgot. He wound up buying a 1981 Cutlass Supreme.)
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