This is why it “works” and people continue to pass on incorrect advice over and over again. Even when a cashier knows better, it isn’t worth it to fight ignorance (unless you absolutely know your manager will have your back). The advice to not sign the card is up there with not swimming for one hour after eating.
ETA: sbunny8, see post 7. It even included links to the agreement. 
Ah, this old discussion. I have always thought the SDMB’s fascination with it is bizarre and inexplicable, because in thousands of transactions over 10+ years I have never, ever had any merchant so much as glance at the back of any of my credit cards. Every once in a blue moon someone asks for ID, but they don’t look at the back first. And even then, they’re just as likely to half-ass actually comparing the name on the ID to the name on the card - like just glancing at it and seeing that, ah yes, I do in fact possess some type of identification which may or may not match is enough - probably just because their employer instructed them to ask and at that point they’ve fulfilled their obligation. But nobody ever checks the back.
No doubt the reality of paying with CC is different than mandated practices. However, should a shopper find that elusive merchant who follows the rules, that shopper should know that the merchant is in the right if the shopper is the type to leave a card unsigned or just put in “See ID”.
I can’t remember the last time a merchant even had the chance to look at my credit card. For non-online payments I just insert it in the reader, enter my PIN, wait for the OK, and put it back in my wallet. I sign it anyway.
This question from 1999 needs to be updated for 2015+ About 95% of the time I simply swipe the little box or insert in the gas pump so signing the back or writing to show picture ID is not relevant. And the other 5% where I still have to hand it to the clerk only about 5% of the time does the clerk check the back or ask to see ID especially if the purchase is under 100.00.
If you are going to recycle questions you should make sure they are up to date other wise I love this column.
This site is kind of weird. As pointed out by Melbourne above, there was a newer column (a staff report from 2008) with advice much closer to the current consensus, but for whatever reason the creaky out-of-date original Cecil article got trotted out. And here we are.
TPTB: I strongly recommend you recycle the 2008 article so as to be appropriate for the current millennium. :dubious:
PIN transactions are debit transactions, not credit transactions. They operate under different rules.
Actually, the rules about asking for ID and signed cards are exactly the same for all VISA card customers, regardless of whether it’s credit or debit. There are some other minor differences about minimum purchase, for example, but the signature/ID issues are the same.
FWIW, About 3x per week, I go to the local grocery store to pick up a few items, go through the U-Scan lane, swipe my credit card and the electronic voice says “Please take your bags and don’t forget your receipt”. No human ever even sees my credit card (and yes, it’s credit, not debit). The machine doesn’t even ask for my signature because it’s less than some dollar amount; I think the limit is $40.
I think that there are chip and pin cards in Europe that are credit cards, but operate just as Bookkeeper described. I’m happy to be corrected on that, of course.
I do know that Europe and some other parts of the world are more advanced than the US on that front.
Notice where Bookkeeper lives. Up here our credit cards use PINs. The only time I sign anything for a credit card purchase is when the vendor is using old equipment. I do sign the back of my credit cards, but that’s pretty much irrelevant since there is nothing to compare and the vendor rarely even touches my card.
Also, the Washington State Ferry system will not accept credit cards for payment if they are not signed.
In Europe, credit card transactions also require a PIN. In fact, it’s one of the criticisms about the change over in the U.S. is that we won’t go with PIN like in Europe. We’ll use what’s called “Chip and Signature” rather than “Chip and PIN”.
In the U.S., the credit card issuers rather eliminate friction that slows down credit card transactions than eliminate all potential fraud. They’ve decided they can hold down the type of fraud that occurs at the register enough to make it simply the cost of doing business. It’s why the U.S. didn’t use the more modern technology that you see in Europe. Our credit cards use the same technology that they used in the 1980s when the magnetic tape strip was first added.
The main concern of fraud here is hackers breaking into databases and stealing millions of credit cards at once. Even then, the major expense isn’t the fraud, but the cost of issuing new credit cards. The Target hack was a wakeup call to the industry. Chip cards will generate a unique credit card number with each transaction, so if a thief gets the virtual credit card number, it does them little good since it can’t be used again.
Here in England nearly all the credit and debit cards are chip and PIN. Occasionally an American tourist pays in the shop I work in and I get to see their cards. They’re laughably insecure. America must be a very nice haven for credit card thieves …!
Strangely, however, debit and credit transactions seem to be somewhat interchangeable.
From time to time, I will tender a sale with a debit card, and the clerk will ring it up as a credit card (no PIN required), and it appears on the receipt as a credit card transaction. I’ve asked the clerk sometimes, how does that work? And they say it gets converted to a debit transaction “somewhere in the system”. 
Even though I never had to give a PIN! Somehow, somewhere, it all gets worked out right.
As I understand it, some systems will ask “credit or debit?” and if the customer has a debit card they have the option of running it as a debit transaction, in which case a PIN is required and there is no minimum purchase and the merchant pays a much smaller transaction fee, or they can run it as a credit transaction, in which case no PIN is required, a minimum purchase amount may apply, the merchant pays a higher transaction fee, and the customer may get rewards points. From the merchant’s point of view, they much prefer the “debit” choice in that situation. But not all systems do that. The system we use at our store runs every card as a credit transaction regardless of whether it’s a debit card or not. Our system is not set up for PINs at all.
But regardless of whether you select “debit” or “credit”, if the card isn’t signed then the rules say it’s not a valid card and the merchant should (1) Ask for ID (2) Ask the customer to sign the card (3) compare the signatures. But if the card is signed, the merchant can’t insist on seeing your ID anyway.
But, as has been said here many times, the merchants quite often break the rules. Possible reasons include (A) they boss hasn’t read the rules, might not even be aware that the rules exist, (B) the employees haven’t been trained on it, (C) the boss knows what the rules are but cares more about making profit than following the rules.
If a customer wants to buy $200 worth of merchandise and the signature box of their card is filled in “SEE ID”, then technically the merchant is supposed to refuse the card. But what motivation do they have for doing so? All it would do is annoy the customer and lose a sale.
Here in Aus I can use my credit card against my debit account at most retail outlets. I insert the card in the machine, make the right choice, and enter the PIN. I do this if I want to withdraw cash at the supermarket.
If I just wave the card around, the machine automatically uses my credit account for amounts less than ?? $20 ??. For larger amounts I’m requested to enter my PIN or sign. Enough people still sign that it doesn’t bother the check-out clerks.
Since I’m not (by my agreement with the bank) permitted to disclose the PIN, use of the PIN is taken as my consent to the transaction, the same as my signature would be.
That means that pay-wave transactions don’t have the same level of explicit consent, and are treated differently in the agreements. I have less liability for theft.
As a matter of fact, I used my unsigned credit card at the Post Office yesterday, and there was flat-out no problem whatsoever.
Just the other day, though, I used a CC at the USPS, and the clerk actually looked at it—the first time anyone had in several years.
I just wish everyone would get Apple Pay…
Or maybe Americans are more trustworthy!
Credit card fraud via people using fake cards or stolen cards is much less a problem in the United States than in Europe. In the U.S., the credit card issuers have setup a wonderful system of fraud detection. You can ask anyone who has accidentally got caught up in it’s web.
To give you an example how good the fraud detection can be: My son was on a train from New York to my house. As he got off the train, someone grabbed his wallet with his credit cards and ran back on the train. I was still in the station, and was about to call the credit card issuer to let them know. Before I could call – a mere five minutes after his wallet was stolen – the credit card issuer called my son. They detected that someone attempted to buy train tickets at the automated vending machine at the very next station, and it triggered a possible fraud. They had prevented that transaction from going through.
To the credit card issuers, the bit of fraud that occurs at the register is just the cost of doing business. Credit card issuers want credit card transactions to occur as swiftly and painlessly as possible. They encourage stores to include terminals where people swipe their own credit cards because it’s faster for someone to do that themselves rather than hand the card to a clerk, and have the clerk do it.
The credit card issuers have signed contracts with the stores to allow them to not have to take signatures for all transactions. In most supermarkets, any transaction under $50 no longer requires a signature of any kind which speeds up purchases by an average of 20 seconds. I guess those 20 seconds can add up.
The last thing that credit card issuers want is to have people have to enter a PIN whenever they do a transaction. In Europe, you have to wait to enter your PIN. In the U.S., you can swipe your card in even before the first item is rung. In some stores, you can even “sign” (if you have to) before the cashier has finished ringing up your order.
And, customers want fast too. Whenever Visa and Mastercard had attempted to introduce NFC transactions with PINs, customers and stores balked. In the U.S., a customer is not responsible for any fraudulent transaction, and if the store followed the policy of the card issuer, they’re also not responsible. There is no incentive for the customer or the store to want PIN enabled cards.
So, the U.S. simply used the old 1980 magnetic strip technology, and everyone was happy until Christmas season last year when credit card thieves hacked into Target’s computers and stole millions of credit card numbers at once. This hack not only hit Target, but Neiman Marcus too.
The funny thing is that the biggest cost wasn’t the cost of fraud, but the cost of canceling and reissuing new credit cards. Target has settled with Visa. They are paying a mere $10 million to reimburse the issuers for fraudulent purchases, and $67 million for the cost of reissuing new cards. The biggest headache for customers isn’t being held responsible for purchases you didn’t make, but for suddenly having your credit card account canceled during Christmas season, and be unable to buy knick-knacks until you got your new credit card.
So, it’s not at register fraud, but computer hacking that is now driving the issuers to use new chip enabled cards. And, they still won’t use PINs. The U.S. is going for Chip and Signature (except when the credit card issuers decide that signature isn’t necessary). This will be enough to stop the massive hacking fraud, but not slow down customers when they whip out their new chip enabled credit cards.