A Beach police supervisor said the number of credit-card fraud cases reported in his city could be cut in half if retailers verified the identities of card users.

Sgt. Dave Roughton of the Economic Crimes unit says his seven-person squad is straining under 1,100 cases reported so far this year. He said more money is stolen in one month through credit-card fraud that is lost in an entire year to armed robbers.

“I cannot think of any merchants that require their cashiers or their customer-service agents to ask for ID,” he said.

The result is fraud totaling as much as $50,000 per month sent to Beach detectives to investigate.

“Most of the time, we’re chasing ghosts.”

To see how many retailers required identification, I took a co-worker’s credit card, with permission, on a two-hour spending spree.

At Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Home Depot, I made purchases without showing any identification. A clerk at Best Buy was the only one to ask for ID, but when I said I didn’t have any, he still rang up a $300 LCD television.

Other stores that did not require ID included Radio Shack, Olive Garden and Wawa. Beach police said, and at least one merchant confirmed, that some credit-card companies do not want merchants to check ID, and doing so is a violation of the credit-card agreement.

A spokeswoman for Best Buy told Your NewsChannel 3 banks are better at catching fraud than cashiers. She also said she believed our undercover investigation was a crime, or at least an unethical act, and ended the conversation.

Roughton said stores like Best Buy do such a large volume of legitimate credit-card sales that they are not interested in beefing up security at the cash register.

“They’re more concerned with a customer-friendly atmosphere and customer service,” he said. “And as part of doing business, they will write off any losses along the way.”