Even if that’s true, if you’ve had your card for any length of time the odds that your signature still matches closely is pretty low. My signature at 40-something doesn’t look all that much like it did at 22 when I received my first card, AND I still have that account.
We’ve had other threads on this. Several posters said the credit-card company preferred the cardholder writing “Ask for ID” in the signature box on the back. My companies have never said this though, and Thailand is Fraud Central.
Credit cards do sometimes issue you a PIN, I think it’s only used for cash advances from ATMs (at wonderfully exorbitant interest rates). Normally when you use a debit/credit card as debit it requires your PIN, when you use it as credit it requires a signature.
I always chose credit when using mine, for two reasons:
[ul]
[li]If I chose debit at a POS merchant register it’s the same as using it to make a withdrawal at a foreign ATM, I get charged a $2-$4 service fee every time.[/li][li]If I chose credit I not only don’t get charged this fee I also accrue ‘points’ towards a reward program (Plenti) which I don’t get using it as a debit card.[/li][/ul]
nm
Are you in the United States? Have you applied for a credit card since 1980?
Most people apply by simply checking a box on a computer screen that says “I agree to the terms and conditions.” Or, the Luddites call a toll-free number. Yes, an occasional person will wander off the street into a bank lobby or send back the form from a mail solicitation and sign an application, but that is hardly the norm. Look at the next credit card solicitaion you get in the mail. It might include a paper form for you to fill out if you must, but most likely it will urge you to go online or call to apply.
Next, Visa and Mastercard do not get involved in such things. They do not have a copy of your signature. They do not even know who you are. They simply facilitate transactions between the issuer (the cardholder’s bank) and the acquirer (the merchant’s bank). It is entirely up to the issuer to determine if a transaction is valid and to initiate a chargeback. If the issuer initiates a chargeback, it will be routed through the Visa or Mastercard network back to the acquirer who then deals with the merchant.
Things may work differently outside the United States.
If by the “CC company” you mean Visa USA or Mastercard International or you mean the bank that issued your Visa or Mastercard card, they do not get a copy of your charge slips or electronic signature. Back when credit cards had raised numbers on them that a merchant then ran through a machine that impressed the numbers on a triple copy carbon-paper charge slip, the merchant’s bank used to get a copy of the charge slip, but not any more.
The merchant keeps the charge slip or electronic copy. The merchant’s bank can request that the merchant produce the signed copy (if required) if there is some sort of a question about the transaction. And, yes, this is as much of a pain to the merchant as it sounds.
Neither your bank, nor Mastercard, nor Visa have a copy of all of the charge slips you’ve ever signed.
Most credit card companies - if not all - now are able to send you a notification every time you use the card. I get notifications on my iPhone for all of my cards whenever it is used, within a few seconds of the transaction.
This worked out well for me recently. I also keep track of my dad’s credit card, and his was fraudulently used for two online transaction a couple of months ago. I was able to contact his bank within an hour of the transactions going through, and they removed the charges immediately and issued him a new card. If I hadn’t had the notification set, it probably would have been a while before I checked his statement, and there likely would have been more fraudulent charges.
And how does that help? The question is whether the signature on the back of the card matches the signature on the receipt. Neither are likely to match the signature on an old application.
Though you may be correct in what is done. I don’t think it demonstrates anything to do that, but I don’t think anyone signature is reproducible over time.
My merchant gateway allows me to charge with card number and zip. I don’t think the expiration date even has to be correct, unless I have the security code then it might use those in conjunction. But if I don’t send the security code, and I have the right zip, it goes through. It just takes a larger cut of the transaction afterwards. It behooves me as a merchant to have all the info so I get the lowest rate possible but it’s not required.
It /is/ a long time: the whole transaction is actually completed and approved using the chip on the card, while you wait. It’s not like the swipe system, where the swipe simply check your card ID, and the rest of the transaction completed without the card.
And even the swipe-and-pin system (the broken first system that came before chip-and-pin) takes longer than cash: putting in the PIN takes a while too.
And it does slow things down compared to cash – or it would, it the minimum-wage kids could deal with cash at speed – but in most cases it’s only the customers that have to wait a little longer – the store still has the same number of cashiers, because you can’t have fractional cashiers anyway.
You have obviously never been behind the pensioner who, only after watching every item like a hawk as it gets scanned, opens her bag and takes out her purse. She then produces a bundle of coupons, half of which are out of date/she hasn’t bought the item. That done, she checks the amount owing and carefully counts out the notes, followed by some change.