I often use the self-checkout at the supermarket, and usually pay by credit card. When I do, I use the electronic signature pad. I don’t know about other people, but for me what I manage to scrawl on the pad looks NOTHING like my signature. Writing on a hard plastic surface with a plastic stylus at an uncomfortable angle usually results in something that looks more like the Dow Jones Average than a human signature.
So what’s the use? I don’t think that my signature is being checked against previous signatures, since what I manage to scrawl can vary widely yet I’ve never been rejected. If I wanted to dispute a charge, they could never match that signature to my real signature. Is it just a holdover from the rapidly-disappearing days of paper receipts?
It’s stupid. It does nothing. It offers no one any real protection. I think it’s just to give the masses a false sense of security.
I like to make anything and everything EXCEPT my signature on those machines. Sometimes I draw smilies or mean faces. Sometimes I make vulgar or obscene doodles. Sometimes I print someone else’s name. Sometimes I write a nice little message like “Piss Off” or “No on is checking my signature!”. Ive done it all…
I agree with you. I do have three comments, though:
Let’s say you did start disputing charges. You’d probably get away with it a few times before they’d either tell you to knock it off, or just cancel your card, or have you arrested.
The amount of money we’re talking about here is probably less than (or at least close to) $100. Not enough to stress about for the supermarket.
If someone did try to match your signature to the DJIA you scrawled on the pad, I bet the prosecutor in a subsequent trial could find an expert to say that he used 512-bit regression analysis to determine that there is a 99.972% correlation between the curvature of the top third of the second “e” in your regular signature and in the digital copy provided by the store, proving you were the one who signed.
How about this? I once completely forgot to sign. I don’t typically sign until the total appears on the screen and I’ve checked that it matches my mental sum. I had this brain fart and immediately hit “OK” because in my head I was thinking, “Ok – that’s the total I was expecting!” The second I hit it, I realized what I’d done.
I thought I’d get an error message or that my bank would notify me or something. When nothing happened, it was definitely a wake-up call and an end to my profound naivety in that area. :smack:
We have some USB signature pads in the office right now (and they cost a freak’n fortune, I tell you what.). Our clients want their managers to use these to sign off on their work orders after they’re completed. It offers even less security in our application than for public sales (the managers already have to log in to perform operations anyhow), but the client is going to pay for the hardware and software integration, so we’re happy to give them signature pads.
