I know I know–this is well trod in GQ. I didn’t want to revivify some zombie thread, so real quick–
Do you have to sign your real name? If you don’t, then dispute the charge, does favor fall in your direction?
My research has yielded this link. They claim a signature vaguely resembling the one the CC company has on file verifies the merchant’s security responsibility and the refund would fall on the bank.
It also claims no-signature transactions, like at gas stations or online leave little recourse for the merchant if the customer disputes the charges.
I used to sign whatever. It was mainly because the electronic sig machines didn’t translate what I signed anyway. I started signing with a C____. That was accepted. Then I started drawing pictures. That was accepted. I signed in print wrong names. Accepted. I wondered if it even matters. This person has this unconfirmed anecdote.
As of now, it seems to me if I had disputed one of those charges signed by fake names or drawings, the signature would contradict the security protocol of the merchant and I could hypothetically have the charges dropped.
Is this the case?
(disclaimer: I no longer live a life on Credit, and have literally no credit cards. This is not an idea I want to perpetrate, just something I was curious about).
I never could sign my name correctly on this friggin’ machines. So I just put my first initial, last initial and a squiggly line. Have never been called on it.
Sorry I can’t answer your question but I’ve always wondered about the whole sign/don’t sign thing too.
Loved your anecdote. Certainly sounds like it could be true.
i don’t disagree with any of that, but there is a real set of policies in place. and for the most part, my data provides the following: up until around $50, few merchants require or even care about sigs. this is because any dispute put in by a customer up to this amount is worth less to just pay off than fight.
things over this amount become “large” purchases: suddenly, signatures become a lot more often required. This is because the write-off/effort ratio starts to become less clear. the items i am asking about required signatures–which i often never signed in true. i am wondering on actual protocol if i had disputed something i (or even anyone who also tried to use my card) had falsely signed for.
oh and fwiw: i remember asking this before and the answer being something like “the words of the signature are inconsequential; signing “x” on a contract makes the contract binding to you of whom the contract was made.” something about in the olden times some people didn’t know how to sign their name (i’m looking at you, Shakespeare.).
Anecdotal, I have a friend whose elderly mother got taken in by a scammer with a plan very similar to this. The CC company waived the disputed charges, but canceled the card. The second time the scammer tried it, the CC company canceled the woman’s account entirely.
The answer seems to be, maybe you could get away with it for one billing cycle, but you can’t keep using a card after you claim someone else is using it.
Most locations like gas stations, stores, etc. now have video cameras recording the transactions taking place there. So, for example, in a gas station, the video would show your car (with the license plate), will show you inserting your credit card, and will show you filling your car with gas. Plenty of evidence that the gas station owner could use against you.
In actuality, they would probably never bother to gather all this evidence and take you to court over a small purchase – it just wouldn’t be worth the effort & expense of doing so.
But as others have said, it would be recorded by the CC company and if it happened again the card would be cancelled.
In the UK at least, cheques for less than 3000 GBP are not checked at all unless there is a dispute. The only way you could profit from this is by scamming someone who doesn’t check their statements.
Considering the proliferation of security cameras in most businesses these days, even if the signature signed doesn’t match the signature on the back of your card, how do you plan to dispute to the merchant why you are the one in the video signing away?
Not only this, but using a different name is generally inconsequential to the validity of a contract. The Common Law rule, inherited by most English-speaking jurisdictions, is that a person’s name is simply a description of the person, not a concise measurement that must be given exactly or that has complex requirements to change. So if your birth certificate says “Herbert Fitzgerald Jones MacElroy-Witherspoon VII” but people call you “Harry J Roy” and you, in turn, use that name when introducing yourself and signing contracts, then, for legal purposes, you are Harry J Roy.
Yes, it’s somewhat difficult to actually get people to start calling you a different name and a bit more difficult to get the DMV to issue you a driver’s license with a different name, but those are practical problems.
In theory, intent is everything (or nearly everything) in contracts. The words of the contract and the signatures on the contract are simply evidence of what was actually agreed to. If you can prove that the other party made that squiggle, generally no technical “fault” in that squiggle will let them get out of the obligation they agreed to. Otherwise, people would be intentionally adding irregularities to their signatures so that they could conveniently get out of obligations that they regret. “Oopsie, looks like I didn’t cross the ‘t’ in my name on that form. That cable TV contract isn’t valid, and I don’t have to pay the cancellation fee!” Obviously, society can’t allow people to do this.
I regularly take credit card numbers over the phone for purchases in excess of $1K and never have a signature. I’m not in the accounting department, but from what I understand, if it comes to a dispute, what the whole thing centers on is proof of delivery and documentation. If I can prove the goods were delivered to you, then you pay for it, unless you can prove that you returned them.
Your signature will matter if you dispute a signature-based transaction. If you have a history of keeping a recognizable, consistent signature, and dispute a transaction with a signature that doesn’t match, that matters. Your signature might be routinely scanned in the verification process before transactions are paid. My bank does this (for checks at least, not sure about POS) but your bank most likely doesn’t.
Update: I asked the boss. For my bank, POS signature transactions will NOT send your signature the bank with the transaction. The signature can be retrieved if you dispute something, but the bank won’t have access to it before then. So obviously it’s not scanned to verify/authorize the transaction. (It probably won’t be scanned or read when it comes to your checks either: most banks pay checks regardless of signature. They don’t even look at them unless in a dispute or when cash paying an on-us check.)
Around here the rule of thumb is that I am responsible for any and all transactions up to till the point I report the card stolen / lost.
So if I haven’t reported the card as missing, there’s going to be a difficult time disputing the transaction - regardless of the signature.
The bank has in place procedures to detect fraud - such as SMS notification of large transactions, billing pattern analysis etc etc.
We did have a situation of a card being stolen, and unathorised transactions made - the bank informed us before the end of the billing cycle as it was caught by a clerk at the retailer.