ID on Merchandise Return Not a Violation of Song-Beverly
In Absher v. Autozone, Inc., the Second District California Court of Appeal held that a request for personal identification information in connection with a return of merchandise purchased with a credit card does not violate Civil Code §1747.08, otherwise known as the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971, which prohibits a merchant from requesting or requiring personal identification information for a credit card payment.
In Absher, plaintiff used a credit card to purchase a locking gas cap from Autozone and immediately tried to return it after he discovered in the store's parking lot that it was the wrong size for his car. Autozone's cashier swiped plaintiff's credit card and asked him to fill out a form with personal identification information, including his name, address, telephone number and signature. Plaintiff filled out the form, and two weeks later sued Autozone in a class action, alleging that Autozone violated Civil Code §1747.08(a)(3) by utilizing a form with spaces for his personal identification information. The trial court granted Autozone's motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed.
The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that §1747.08(a)(3) does not apply to returns of merchandise purchased with a credit card (as opposed to credit card purchases). The Court rejected plaintiff's argument that §1747.08(a)(3), which references "any credit card transaction," can be read to include returns, since both §§1747.08(a)(1) and (a)(2) apply to credit card purchases ("accepting the credit card as payment.") The Court also noted that §1747.08(a)(3) does not contain any express reference to "an exchange, refund, or return" although a later section, §1747.09(a)(3), does contain such a reference.
Finally, the Court noted that the legislative history of §1747.08(a)(3) revealed that the purpose of the statute was to prevent the misuse of personal identification information (e.g., for marketing purposes) where there was no need for the information to complete the credit card transaction. The Court noted that returns of merchandise are different, since there are legitimate uses (e.g., preventing employee fraud; dealing with damaged return merchandise) of the personal information, other than marketing, that necessitate collecting it to process a return.
