You're correct I wasn't clear.
The first, and most important thing, was that the cashier looked at the signature (on the card) while examining the customer signature. This had to be done each and every time with one exception - if it was a repeat customer. The organization was a moderately high-end fashion company (below Prada but above Macy's).
Rarely did the clerk ASK for ID as that was off-putting to our clientelle. The data, that I saw, indicated that outright fraud (as opposed to serial returning or "borrowing") took place on charges above $1000.00. Therefore on 1000.00 charges the cashier had to write down the ID on a piece of paper. (Hence my job to remove paper.)