Signing credit cards
 

What exactly is the point of signing a credit card? Maybe it worked 20 years ago, but these days with self checkouts and pay at the pump gas, half the time you don't even show the card to another person.

My favorite are the cashiers like the one I encountered today at the post office: those who demand that you sign your card in front of them. My card is relatively new, but the back is already rubbed out to the point that ink won't stick to it. The woman still demanded that I sign it, so I put a few half hearted squiggles on it. I then sign the receipt, and she tries to compare the signature on the receipt with the one on the credit card, both of which I just signed right in front of her. She never checked my ID (which would have been the logical thing to do if she was trying to stop fraud).

Anyway, what's the point? Many people's signatures look like squiggles anyway, so it would be easy enough to forge them on the spot. Most people's cards get rubbed out after a year or so, so they can't hold a signature. I'd say the majority of places these days make you sign on a screen/touchpad, which often doesn't resemble your signature at all. So what's the point of having a signature on the back of a credit card?

The signature at the back of the credit card? Most likely the result of path dependence and inertia. Especially with RFID cards these days.

The situation that you described, of a cashier asking you to sign an unsigned card and the charge slip, and then studiously compared the two, happened to me twice before. When I pointed out that of course the signatures would match, the clerk would only mutter about rules being rules. I chalked that up to Singapore's educational and political system creating worker drones incapable of thinking outside the box. I am glad to be proven wrong - that this sort of thing happens in the United States as well.

As for signing the charge slips, that's so the bank has some sort of evidence if someone would dispute any charges.

Here in Canadaland, if you pay with a credit card, you actually [99% of the time] have to hand your card to the cashier and theyswipe it, and hold on to it until the transaction completes, whether it's gone through or failed. I guess that gives them time to peek at the signature, or something? If you pay with a debit card [which I understand is totally different here than in the US] you swipe your card yourself, but you also have to enter a PIN at the debit machine at the cash.

Have you ever tried to copy someone else's signature? It's not exactly easy to do quickly and accurately. And as you're writing it won't look natural, so that's part of what they look for too, not just the end result matching.

Anyway, yeah. We have credit cards with chips and pin numbers up here. When I'm in the States it's funny how behind all retailers are in adopting security measures for the card. I haven't bought something with my credit card in Canada and not required a PIN in something like 2 or 3 years, now.

If I recall correctly, 'chip and PIN' systems aren't that costly (compared to dealing with fraud, anyways)... which begs the question: if retailers/card companies/et cetera are sooo concerned about fraud, why hasn't there been a push for their adoption as standard here? Based solely on this not being the case, an observer might be forgiven for believing all the hue and cry about credit card fraud being nothing more than hot air and posturing.

I usually put "see ID" on the back.

Isn't it almost trivially easy to "steal" your credit card via a RIFD scanner these days? A coworker went to Europe for vacation, and her cc was ripped off while she was in the airport. Luckily she found out almost immediately and minimized the damage.

This is why we have RFID shielding wallets.

Who has time to buy a $4 wallet?!

I wonder if I need one of those wallets. Somebody bought a Playstation 3 with my card just last week, although I never lost it.

I had that card number for years. And I JUST memorized it like a month ago. BULLSHIT!

I don't have those newfangled RFID cards, but I thought you had to enter some kind of a PIN to authorize the transaction. Don't tell me the banks are saying, buy an RFID shielded wallet (or pouch) for your credit cards.

It's the same here if you use a debit card. The only difference is CCs tend to offer better perks and buyer protection than debit cards do.

I've had it once or twice where the clerk tells me I need to sign my card so I they can verify the signatures, and I always thought it was silly. A while back I started doing what shorty does, and that's write "See ID" on the back since your drivers license will generally have a copy of your signature printed on it.

Also, every time this topic comes up I have to link this: The Credit Card Prank

Forcing a signature on the back of a CC is so a clerk can match your signature to the one being signed on the receipt. This only works if you're doing credit, since debit uses a PIN. It also only works if the signature is embedded onto the card, as a self signature tends to rub off pretty easily.

"See ID" doesn't work for Oregonians like it does for RacinReavers, because the Oregon drivers license doesn't have a signature. However, it can prove who you are.

I rarely give my card to people, and when I do, I generally don't get any grief about it. On a side note, we in Oregon have people pump our gas :X

I have "Ask for ID" on my bank cards, but they've been used so much that it's since worn off. Most vendors check for the signature anyways.

More in response to people asking to see ID, see you sign the receipt, whatever: I prefer someone to pay extra attention for a whopping three fucking seconds instead of them not caring and having my shit stolen. While it may take an extra 3 seconds of your time for them to double-check, it always lends me peace of mind.

Because I'm a geek, I once signed a receipt "The Doctor". They clerk didn't even get it.

she didn't care that the signatures didn't match, either

I don't think requiring the signature is for your protection. It's for the vendor's protection. If the signature on the proof of purchase matches the signature on your card, the vendor is reliably certain that the charge is authorized. In the event of a dispute, the vendor has to point to the signature as proof of your authorization of the charge. For trivial amounts, I'm sure no one cares. For substantial amounts, I think you'll find that more care is taken.

Requiring a person to sign their card and then sign a receipt could be simply to fit a transaction into a vetted security process such that the vendor need only say they performed the transaction according to their documented procedure and be covered.

Exactly this. In addition, most merchant agreements explicitly forbid requiring identification from the cardholder as a condition of accepting the card.

Sidestepping how stupid it is that merchants are forbidden for asking for ID (and the occasional story from Consumerist from customers outraged that Wal-Mart dares to ask for ID), why don't credit card companies put their customers pictures on the card itself? My credit union does that, and most of the time I hand it to the cashier and they say, "Yep, that's you!". Seems like a simple and more effective way of preventing fraud than a signature.

Credit Card companies rarely deal with customers directly, its usually via snail mail or online. Banks and Credit Unions usually deal with customers directly, so they can get the picture on the card.

True enough, but my bank (M&T) doesn't have pictures on their cards. That's the debit card I use on a daily basis (as a credit card, since I have to pay if I enter a PIN number).

I also have mine with a "SEE ID" on the back. Then again, mine has a chip on it.

This. It makes me laugh every time an American comes to one of our restaurants with a card with no chip in and we can't take payment off them. Especially given that in this country we're now moving towards blanket adoption of contactless credit card systems where you don't even have to get your card out of your wallet. You so slow America.