although don't be surprised if they ask for id for the credit card.
I went into my at&t store and said I want an iphone.
He said ok what plan are you interested in.
I say prepaid.
Guy says you can't do iphone prepaid.
I say yes you can.
His co worker says yes you can.
He hands me a phone, I pay for it, and walk out laughing.
Activate at home via itunes.
I never sign my credit cards. I write PLEASE ASK FOR ID in the signature space. Most of the time they never even look tho. But that way if I do lose it or it is stolen maybe I have a littel breathing room before I cancel the card.
I always ask and people are always surprised. Once I had a man get angry when I asked for his ID even though he wrote "SEE ID" on the back of his card. Why would you write it there if you don't want people to ask for your ID? It's also kind of awkward when people don't HAVE identification on them...
But yes, writing that on your credit cards is always a good idea because some people do check. (Sorry, this was a totally off-topic reply for an iPhone forum.)
I hate to be a pendantic wanker, but as a card accepting merchant who actually follows the rules (and gets yelled at by many a fine customer in the process) I have to verge a little further along the off topic road...
Writing "SEE ID" is actually not acceptable according to Visa/Mastercard and a Merchant should demand that you sign the card in front of them before they process the transaction. Of course you are free not to sign the card, but then the merchant should not accept it.
The reason is that signing the card indicates acceptance of the cardmember agreement, and without doing so you and the card issuer have never really formed a contract. Look on the back of your Visa/MC and it will say "Not Valid Unless Signed" which means signed not "See ID".
The tricky part of this is that if you write SEE ID and your card is ever stolen, and Visa finds out that you wrote SEE ID instead of signing it, they could refuse to cancel fradulent charges due to your failure to sign the card. Or even worse, from my perspective, they could hold the merchants accountable for the fraudlent charges since they accepted an invalid card.
See the following links for more details...
http://usa.visa.com/merchants/risk_management/card_present.html (go to the very bottom of this page)
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6787955
/RANT
I hate to be a pendantic wanker...
Writing "SEE ID" is actually not acceptable according to Visa/Mastercard
I hate to be a pendantic wanker, but as a card accepting merchant who actually follows the rules (and gets yelled at by many a fine customer in the process) I have to verge a little further along the off topic road...
Writing "SEE ID" is actually not acceptable according to Visa/Mastercard and a Merchant should demand that you sign the card in front of them before they process the transaction. Of course you are free not to sign the card, but then the merchant should not accept it.
The reason is that signing the card indicates acceptance of the cardmember agreement, and without doing so you and the card issuer have never really formed a contract. Look on the back of your Visa/MC and it will say "Not Valid Unless Signed" which means signed not "See ID".
The tricky part of this is that if you write SEE ID and your card is ever stolen, and Visa finds out that you wrote SEE ID instead of signing it, they could refuse to cancel fradulent charges due to your failure to sign the card. Or even worse, from my perspective, they could hold the merchants accountable for the fraudlent charges since they accepted an invalid card.
See the following links for more details...
http://usa.visa.com/merchants/risk_management/card_present.html (go to the very bottom of this page)
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6787955
/RANT
they can ask you for ID even if its signed. Back when I was in retail, everyone thought that signed card=no id needed. Its really up to the retailer.
Well I heard you can't buy an iPhone with cash and you can't buy it with a foreign credit card.
This sucks for me, because i want to buy one when i go back to the states...and I only have foreign cards...guess i'll just use a friends credit card...there is always a way.