[The jet-black, featureless Coin card, which has no hologram, logo, signature or other visible verification, "trains people to ignore cards that 'don't look right,' making it far simpler for other thieves to pass off Marriott hotel cards as valid credit cards," Wisniewski said.]
Although I do agree that this just sounds like a bad idea for far too many reasons to go into. I did find this amusing. .
Rarely does any clerk look at my card, ID or anything else. Most of the time the card reader is set out for the customer to use and the clerk doesn't even touch the card. Even on the rare occasion I hand a clerk the card. They don't look at the name on the card, my ID or anything else they just swipe it and hand it back. Perhaps one in a hundred uses does a clerk look at the name on my card and ask to see my ID.
Heck more and more stores are putting in self checkout. With one clerk watching over 4, 8 or more lanes. There is no verifying identity with that system.