Kerfluffle at CVS yesterday

[conuly]

Their system is not really set up to accept passport cards as identification. This has not previously been a problem because most of their cashiers know the workaround, and even if I bump into one who doesn't, they can usually ask somebody else.

(Apparently the workaround is to enter it like a driver's license, and now I know!)

Yesterday I hit the bad luck jackpot. Several irritated minutes later, wherein we all barely refrained from snapping at each other (do not blame me, irritated pharmacists, blame your shitty computer interface!) we resolved it. But ugh, ugh, ugh.

Do you think it's a CVS-in-particular interface or something general that's shipped out to everybody? I want to know where to direct my complaints for the best chance of getting results. Honestly, if the workaround "enter it as a driver's license" works then it should be trivial to have that slot say "driver's license or passport card".

Comments

[adafrog]

Very annoying.

[elainegrey]

Good to know. While i have a DL, it's not a "real ID." I have a passport card for that.

[calimac]

When an instruction says "photo ID," it usually means "driving license." They're not equipped to handle other photo IDs. Once when applying for privileges at a university library, I presented them with my faculty ID card from another nearby university. The reaction was such as to suggest nobody had ever done that before.

(On the other hand, when I was closing out various accounts after my mother's death, the reaction was often such as to suggest that none of their customers had ever died before, which I found improbable and said so.)

[conuly]

The reaction was such as to suggest nobody had ever done that before.

This is never the truth. Seriously, never.

[calimac]

I rather thought that the case: thus my use of the word "suggest" and the other example of acting as if no customers had ever died before.

[silveradept]

I have not used passports as an identifier for anyone where I needed to type the serial of the identification, but I'll bet your problem is more general than CVS. Might still start there with the complaint and then see if you can figure out who created their POS POS and complain at them.

[readerjane]

I’m betting that retail CVS interface was designed in-house, years ago, and added to like cyborg Frankenstein over the years so that further changes are so tough to implement that it takes a huge priority boost to get anything done.

Call their centralized customer service and complain (not the store itself; nobody listens to the staff). Get a case number you can refer to. Do you have your Rx coverage through an employer? If you do, then lodge a complaint with your HR / benefits department and ask them to follow up with that case number. Nothing drives change like an unhappy customer, *when* that customer is a big client with the power to switch their business to a competitor.

[conuly]

I’m betting that retail CVS interface was designed in-house, years ago, and added to like cyborg Frankenstein over the years so that further changes are so tough to implement that it takes a huge priority boost to get anything done.

A post-it on the computer screen would solve the problem almost as well.

[sathari]

...I am sooo late to this post, but I just want to give drive-by love to passport cards as general-purpose ID; I have been using mine any time I have to prove I'm me ever since I got one a decade ago. (It's SO NICE not to have to show my physical address to anyone who wants to look over my shoulder every time I just want to prove I'm me. SO SO NICE.)

[conuly]

:)

I got mine because I didn't *have* a physical ID and, for some reason, it's a lot easier to get a passport if you don't have a valid photo ID than a state ID.

There was no way of getting the points of identification for a state ID, most of which require an ID to get. For a passport, I gathered up every speck of documentation I could find (for me, my social security card and birth certificate, three old school IDs, and my passport from when I was 5), everything photocopied front and back, and then dragged my mother in to the post office to act as a qualifying witness. Any citizen with an ID who has known you 5 years can do that job. They sign an affidavit and that's that.