I used to be a bouncer in my college town and you'd be surprised at what lengths kids will go to pass off their fake ID's as real. they'll memorize everything on the ID, including where the city is located - "So Flagstaff, is that North or South of Phoenix? I can never remember?"
I would ask for all the information on the ID if I thought they looked young. Then once the person was confident they had passed my tests, I'd ask them what their area code was when they call home. 9/10 a fake ID holder will fail this test because its not something on the ID, but something they should know without fail.
We didn't have to. We had a slick way to find out without tipping off the ID holder.
It went something like this:
As I'm asking the kid the details on his ID, I make a hand gesture to the waitress that works the rear bar near the door. She would then have the manager call the phone at the front desk where we were. As I was talking to the kid, I would show Bouncer #2 the city and as I was talking to the kid, Bouncer #2 would ask the manager the area code over the phone in a simple coded manner.
The bouncer would give the city and state initials to the manager. So if it was Phoneix, AZ. He would say, "Yeah, its a PH, AZ." The manager would then confirm he had the right city and then relate the area code. After a few months, I had memorized a lot of the shorthand we had for cities so that it only took a few seconds to confirm. Considering most fakes come from the same states and cities, it wasn't a long list to learn.
By the time I got down stalling, the other bouncer would then ask him the question, already knowing the answer.
Knowing some bouncers and bar tenders, they tend to have a dynamic level of skepticism. If you look 25-ish, that sort of slip probably won't deny you entry. If you look 20-ish, it may be more likely.
The difficulty here is that the incentives heavily favor allowing false negatives, and denying false positives. I know that in Virginia, the bar tenders were personally responsible if they served alcohol to anyone underage. And in a college town (where I was for quite some time in grad school), there are loads of underage kids trying to get into the bars, and the authorities would sometimes hire underage kids to test the bars.
Oh yeah, I definitely don't blame them, and I understand the incentive structure. I don't even think that I necessarily disagree with it, given our laws about drinking. It's just an irk :p
I used to be a bouncer in my college town and you'd be surprised at what lengths kids will go to pass off their fake ID's as real. they'll memorize everything on the ID, including where the city is located - "So Flagstaff, is that North or South of Phoenix? I can never remember?"
I would ask for all the information on the ID if I thought they looked young. Then once the person was confident they had passed my tests, I'd ask them what their area code was when they call home. 9/10 a fake ID holder will fail this test because its not something on the ID, but something they should know without fail.