Much different then. In our stores the Credit Auth is transmitted through the POS system directly to the Auth service. Most big chains are connected to a corp network through a dedicated T1 line. From there the transmission gets sent to the card company.
I used to work for one of the big retailers and i can assure you that all this information is stored. Every transaction for about 15 years is stored on the companies back end servers. If you used a card to buy something I could search that card number and find every single transaction that the card was involved with. It is a matter of convience. If you return something they can simply return it without having to have your card. They could also make a new charge but that is against company policy.
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Much different then. In our stores the Credit Auth is transmitted through the POS system directly to the Auth service. Most big chains are connected to a corp network through a dedicated T1 line. From there the transmission gets sent to the card company.
I used to work for one of the big retailers and i can assure you that all this information is stored. Every transaction for about 15 years is stored on the companies back end servers. If you used a card to buy something I could search that card number and find every single transaction that the card was involved with. It is a matter of convience. If you return something they can simply return it without having to have your card. They could also make a new charge but that is against company policy.