Last year, a male colleague was able to use a KCTV5 reporter's credit card with her picture on it to make purchases at several stores throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area.

This year, he went back to the stores with Surae Chinn's credit card, and again, he was able to make purchases at Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Macy's and Best Buy.

He was finally stopped at Circuit City, not because the store checked her card, but because her bank put a temporary hold on her card because of the volume of purchases made with it that day.

By then, her colleague had already made off with $700 worth of purchases.

Detective Dennis Reaser is a financial crimes expert with the Overland Park Police Department. He said retailers have no incentive to check and ask for identification because the banks are the ones who pick up the losses, not the stores.

The retailers didn't want to talk on camera about why someone else who clearly wasn't Chinn and didn't look like Chinn was able to use her card, but some did issue the following statements.

BEST BUY:

"We have processes in place to make sure that we do business in a way that’s in the best interest of our customers and efficient for the company. To help ensure a secure and streamlined shopping experience for our customers, the credit card verification processes we follow are consistent with the operating rules and regulations of the credit card issuers. As you know, signatures can be easily copied and false identification can be created. That’s why we primarily use a technology incorporated by the credit card issuers as the means of combating credit card fraud in our stores. Credit cards contain a security feature embedded in the card's magnetic stripe that gives protection against credit card fraud. The feature is transmitted to the credit card company during the electronic authorization process and validated by the issuing bank. Best Buy, along with other large retailers, is choosing to use this technology as its primary means of combating credit card fraud.

It’s also important to understand that Visa and MasterCard state in their regulations that a retailer cannot decline a sale due to a customer being unable to produce identification. Their regulations also indicate that credit cards with “See ID” or “Ask for ID” in the signature panel are not valid. However, credit card companies realize some customers do this and will allow us to check ID in this case. If this is how a customer who presents an unsigned credit card chooses to "sign" their card, we will accept it along with a valid ID."

MACY’S:

"Macy's makes the shopping experience as easy as possible. We feel we accept credit cards with the appropriate level of loss prevention. In most cases, we do not ask identity proof, consistent with most other merchants and with what major credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard advise. Normally, customers are asked to self-swipe their cards. If there are no electronic warnings that a card is not acceptable, it is processed. In some stores, a sales associate will look at the signature if they swipe the card themselves."

BARNES & NOBLE:

"It was a mistake. Had our cashier verified the signature, this would not have happened."