I can absolutely have my mother read the account number, expiration date and verification numbers off her credit card to me over the phone so I can place an online order for her. (and I’ve done it). That’s not what the verification numbers are meant to prevent. They are meant to prevent me from using your card number that I found on a statement in your trash or on a bill I took out of the mailbox , etc
Right, but all that is irrelevant to credit card signatures. Which would, if actually used, prevent your mom from buying something with your card. But you know, minimum wage teenagers don’t check, and couldn’t prevent fraud anyway because they aren’t handwriting experts. They’d stop more legitimate purchases than fraudulent ones, and that is why they don’t do it.
I have never read any credit card signature rules and regulations, as I’m confident neither have most people I’ve handed my card to. When presented with a card stating “check ID”, sometimes the person asks to see my ID. This is only to show that the card says bobot, and so does my ID. In the rare occurrance of someone not named bobot stealing and presenting my card, I have added a thin and flimsy layer of protection, but a layer it can be. In writing “check ID” I am not requesting that my signatures be compared. Just the names printed on both cards. Compare those. Same? Not?
Thin and flimsy and maybe unnecessary, and now I find out mybe even in violation of rules and regulations. But too bad, it has never hurt anyone, and I am proud owner of a thin and flimsy layer of protection.
It is all kind of silly anyway, because when using it for a purchase over the phone or internet only me and my dog know if it is signed or not.
The credit card companies in America purposely did not enable that requirement, opting to keep a signed signature. It makes no sense because the security vulnerabilities that are supposed to be fixed with a chipped card remain.
No idea. I surmise when people steal CC numbers they are reading the card electronically in order to do as many as they can as fast as possible. The extra numbers are not embedded within the scan process but on the physical card and it would take too long to manually transcribe them (or it’s not possible when the card details are obtained automatically with a skimmer).
It doesn’t matter if the clerks are trained graphologists or not. The issue is having a signature or not. A lot of us have basically scrawls for signatures anyway.
If you are going to argue that you shouldn’t write your signature on a card you have to come up with a positive reason for doing so. People miss this key point. The “It hasn’t hurt me so far.” point is not at all an argument for not doing it.
A college I once worked at was forced by the local government to build a parking deck they didn’t need. They got rid of a few spaces around my building, I came in late, and I like to walk so I was one of the few people who used it.
After a while I noticed something: I was looking behind me before backing out when leaving. And there was never anyone there. So I started keeping track. For the remaining several years there, I could have backed out each time without looking and not hit anything.
Is this an argument for backing out without looking? Of course not! Not in the least. Doesn’t help, might hurt. And looking while backing out has a potential upside.
The no signature people are using the same flawed argument.
Give me one positive reason to sign my card. Your own argument works against you. There isn’t one. That’s the point.
Let’s say you’re using your unsigned MasterCard“. Everything is going fine.
Then, one day, it has been stolen out of your wallet and charges had been fraudulently done. Typically, your credit card protects you from those charges. But then they find out that you were not compliance with your credit card agreement by not signing the card and now you are liable for those charges. Maybe you can get exonerated by suing them, but that’s going to take time and money to do.
Failure to sign the card means you are not in compliance with the contractual agreement you have with the credit card company. Other than whatever protections the law may afford you regardless of whether you signed the card or not, the credit card company can do whatever it wants under the contract you agreed to, including denying you credit (even dinging your rating).
Not signing the card will not protect you from identity theft; it could make it worse.
Sometime, somewhere, some place might not accept the card because it doesn’t have a signature on it. That would be annoying.
Take 5 seconds to sign it and therefore avoid a possible annoying event.
How does anybody know whether or not I signed my card in that scenario? It’s gone. And cashiers don’t check anyway. I’ve had several fraudulent purchases made on my cards over the years, and the credit card company has never held me accountable for one cent of those purchases.
Identity theft occurs online far more often, and signatures are completely irrelevant there.
18 years or so of using unsigned credit cards, and this has never happened to me. I’ll take my chances. 
You’ve been given a decent reason for signing your card. If you want to run the very small risk of being stuck with who-knows-how-much in fraudulent charges because there’s a theoretical chance that your stolen card may be recovered, then nobody is going to hold you down and force you to sign.
For these purposes, signing your card is literally a free insurance policy against an event that is very unlikely, but if it happened, could be financially harmful to you. If you don’t see the value proposition in laying out one-one-thousandth of a penny in ink for an insurance policy against such fraud, then nobody is going to be able to convince you it is worth it.
ETA: is there a “positive reason” not to sign your card?
Well, it only happened once to me, but it was enough of a hassle that I spend 5 seconds signing my card.
The cool thing is now when it DOES happen you will think “That damn manson1972!”
Another unlikely event is that someone steals my credit card and now has an example of my signature to use when signing my name for much more damaging identity theft crimes later. Even if we’re going to base our behavior on extremely unlikely events, I’m still not sure signing the card puts me ahead.
I don’t say to sign the card because of fraud or identity theft or whatever. Just to avoid a hassle. Plus, I think you’ve spent more time on this board explaining why you don’t sign the card then the amount of time you would spend signing it
I’m curious why you wrote “check ID” on your cards in the past. What was the point of that? (I don’t understand the point of it now and still see people doing it)
I have been using credit cards for 40 years. I haven’t signed the back of a credit card in 30 years. The reason is simple. I don’t want anyone to forge my signature. If I lose my card, then the fraudster has to come up with a signature. While I understand he/she could sign the back of the card and therefor make a transaction-the signature won’t look like mine! That is the positive reason. I am more protected because if the CC company ever comes back and says you signed for the purchase, you are responsible-I will be able to point to 40 years of stored signatures to demonstrate that the signature is forged. So, while the CC company may find some minuscule increase in security by requiring signed cards (I doubt that), I definitely increase my security by not signing the card. And yes I understand that CC companies may not save the signatures nor compare them if there is fraud-which to me further lessens the value and reason for the signature. Either the signature is useful in which case I want to make it hard for the fraudster to duplicate my signature, or it is useless and in that case it doesn’t matter whether I sign the card or not.
That is also the reason I try my best to always give a good signature when I sign for a purchase. I am counting on every fraudster following convention and scribbling a line as a signature. Compared to the store of my signatures, it will stand out as unique and provide another way to demonstrate that I didn’t make the purchase.
And yes I understand that signature or no, I am not liable for any fraudulent purchases on my card. Given the unimportance of the signature, I choose to increase my security by not providing fraudster with an example to copy.
Oh, in 40 years of using CC around the US, I have never had a transaction denied because of the lack of a signature. Very occasionally I have been asked for additional proof of identity, but that happens less than once a decade.
Because when I was younger and had less experience with cards, I thought it was safer. It still seems safer to me to verify that the person using my card is actually me than to just assume if someone scribbles something on the back of my card, that’s good enough.
But I’ve recognized the reality by now that nobody really gives a shit who is using my credit card at all. I can easily dispute charges after the fact but nobody is going to stop someone from buying something with my credit card at the time of purchase, unless I’ve already discovered it is missing and canceled the card.
That is an interesting argument-but I do not believe it is true. My signature could have been erased and possibly another put in place. I just tried that-erasing the signature on the back of a CC isn’t hard. And as I read the 1970 credit card act, the federal law does not require me to sign the card (the CC company provides a means of validating the card via another form of identification) so I am protected in any event. I understand the argument, but I believe my avoiding giving a fraudster a good signature to copy is a better argument. Certainly more positive to me. YMMV
The signature was your signature accepting the credit card contract. Just to avoid dealing with dip-- who tried to avoid payment by claiming they never accepted the contract, card companies used to have rules that said that a merchant who accepted an unsigned card was on the hook for the entire amount pluss fees.
Card companies have never been able to penalize the user for not signing the card. And they used to spam out those cards to every mail address they could get.
Fair enough. Like I said, I just sign mine right when I get it to avoid any hassle at some unspecified later time. Not for fraud or whatever, since like you, I’ve noticed the people taking the card don’t really look and/or care.
Is there an example of this ever actually happening even once? That is, that the cardholder (you) dispute the charges, company says ‘no, you signed for these’, you say ‘no I didn’t, compare the signatures’, company compares signatures, then accepts that you didn’t make the charges because the signatures don’t match? It doesn’t make any sense - if the CC thinks you did make the purchases and falsely claim someone else did (which is theft), why wouldn’t they also suspect you of the non-crime of signing a signature that doesn’t look like your usual one?
As far as I know, handwriting analysis of credit card signatures is uses rarely if at all in investigating/prosecuting cases of allegedly unauthorized use.
It doesn’t demonstrate that at all. If they think you’re fraudulently claiming someone else used the card, I’d expect them to expect you to use a signature that doesn’t look like your usual one to support the fraud. It’s not like you’re unable to give a crappy signature when you choose to, and in the situation where you think it protects you the card issuer already thinks you’re a scammer.