28-year-old says a bouncer denied their real ID, then asked them to prove their age using their phone settings

A 28-year-old Reddit user says they were turned away from a bar after a bouncer claimed their real ID was fake. The incident was shared in a post on r/mildlyinfuriating by user Thin_Pomegranate_879.

According to the post, the bouncer inspected the user’s identification card and told them the birthday on it was not correct. The user says they are 28 years old and married.

The bouncer reportedly did not stop at questioning the ID. The Reddit post states that he also asked the user to prove their age by showing personal information from the Apple ID settings on their phone.

Bar’s rejection of ID contradicts the user’s account of state’s scanning option

The Reddit post directly quotes the bouncer’s statement about the identification card. The user wrote that the bouncer said, “that is not your birthday” and that he thought the ID was fake. The poster later responded to a comment in the thread, saying, “That’s part of the mildly infuriating bit, you can scan IDs in my state!” This suggests the bar had the option to verify the ID electronically but reportedly did not use it, according to the poster’s account.

The poster also raised a separate point about phone-based age verification. In another reply, they wrote, “Also, you can make your Apple ID whatever name and age you want, so trusting my phone and not my ID is crazy.” For the 28-year-old, the issue was staff judgment, but the problem of denied entry for other reasons, like a woman’s son at Walmart, also surfaces. 

The post drew a large number of comments, with many users sharing their own experiences related to fake IDs, bouncers, and age verification checks at bars and stores. Several commenters pointed out that many bars now use devices that scan the barcode on the back of a driver’s license to confirm it is valid, and questioned why the bouncer chose not to use this option. 

One comment read, “Most of the bars where I live have a thing that reads the barcode on the back of your DL which also confirms it’s real. I do love the idea that he thinks you’d use a fake ID, but wouldn’t lie about your age on your phone.”

Other commenters explained how these scanning systems typically work. One person wrote that a scan usually just confirms whether someone is old enough to buy alcohol or cigarettes, without showing extra personal details, noting, “Just like a cashier scans yours license for cigarettes or alcohol- it gives the user a yes or no on age to buy.” 

Another added that scans can pull whatever information is printed or coded on the ID, but that many bar scanners are only set up to show a simple valid or invalid result for speed. Disputes over phone use in bars can escalate, as when a patron claimed his Fourth Amendment rights allowed him to curse at staff. 

Some commenters also discussed the reliability of ID scanning technology itself, recalling that fake IDs sold years ago were sometimes made to pass barcode scans, raising questions about whether scanning alone fully prevents the use of fake identification.

A similar incident was also shared on the same subreddit by a different Reddit user, Puzzled_Dress9590, who said they were denied service at a liquor store on their 21st birthday. That user said they had renewed their license a few days before turning 21 and received a vertical-format ID, which typically signals someone is under 21 in many U.S. states

According to that post, the clerk said, “you’re not 21 yet,” and when asked to scan the ID, replied, “there’s no point i know you’re underage. please leave or i will have the police called.” 

Both posts describe situations where the original poster says they had valid identification but were denied entry or service based on the staff member’s judgment rather than a scan or further verification.