MC has apparently given up on signatures as an identifying requirement on transactions, as of April 2018. Given that most people’s signatures are scrawls, few merchants actually compare the written signature to the sig field on the back of the card, and because an increasing number of transactions are online (no signature) or use a PIN (debit), MC says the impact on security and fraud prevention will be minimal.
I dunno. It still seems to me that something should be required beyond “Yes, I am absolutely authorized to use this card because, see, I am handing it to you from my own hand.” In theory, that would be a PIN for all cards, but the banking and credit card agencies in the US have rejected that solution because, they seem to believe, Americans are too stupid to do what folk in other countries manage to do.
On the other hand, if both the credit card agency and the merchants are happy with this change, then clearly they know something I don’t.
We’ll see if Visa, Discover, AmEx, etc., follow MC’s lead here. Presumably they will.
MasterCard Ending Signature Requirements
For as long as we can remember, paying with a credit card required you to sign your name on the dotted line. While this system has changed over the years — mandating your John Hancock only for purc…
I think another part of it is that so many PoS systems these days have electronic sign-offs where you have to use a stylus on a touchscreen which insures that any resemblance to something not done by a drunk 5-year-old on meth is guaranteed.
Never mind stylus. Most of the time now I’m signing with my finger. It’s getting remarkably legible.
But yes, our failure to adopt chip and pin was ridiculous.
Well, one the things they look at, is all those transactions are insured in the 'First Place' & most times a Claim is made against a Merchant; the Relationship between the Card Holder & Merchant, is tarnished until the End of the Investigation.
That brings a lot of Awareness, which Prevents many Future Occurences.
+Les Jenkins I am always amazed by the different levels of quality in PoS touchscreens for signatures. Some do very well; others look like a rendering by a drunken etch-a-sketch artist.
+Kee Hinckley I still cannot sign legibly with a finger. The only advantage it has over using a stylus is that too many PoS screens are not well designed for left-handers.
Hmmmm. I wonder if the cost of signable PoS screens is a contributing driver for this change of policy.
+Restorer of Credit Yyyes, but given that the retail merchants seem to be in favor of this (in order to make check-outs quicker), they must think the increased risk is worth it.
Yes I'm left handle but i can use both because my grand mother she attached my hand on my back.
Because VISA and MasterCard don’t eat the fraus losses. My credit union is seeing dramatic increases in fraud losses and it will eventually impact the members.
@Deborah – Yup. They pass on the losses in the forms of fees to merchant / bank subscribers, who then pass on the costs to all their users / members. Profit is privatized, loss is socialized.
What's really worth it to a Merchant, is Business & much less, the few who
are affected are much less than the Mega Returns.
Some commentary which spells out why this is doable: if there's fraud, most consumers won't detect it, and even if they do, the credit card companies push the charge to the merchants, who simply raise their prices to make up for it. So we all pay for the "convenience" of not having to sign a credit slip and being too lazy to memorize a new PIN.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LaurenWeinstein/posts/gFeicN4qqd6
Hmmm. The one time when signing a slip always happens it as restaurants where tipping occurs. Will one simply get the credit slip, assign a tip and a new total … and not have to sign? That feels weird.
The 20th century called, they want their banking practices back.
Seriously, how do you lot get on when you visit the UK?
“put your PIN in, sir”
“I don’t have a PIN, where do I sign?”
“You don’t, do you want to do contactless?”
“Um…”
For many small purchases I just put my card on the machine. Or my phone if I want. In London you can use your card as an Oysters card, and as long as you tap in and out, always with the same card, your total cost is capped. No need for ‘exact change only’
@LH – Yeah, that sounds like a very civilized way of doing it. Unfortunately, Americans are deemed too stupid/lazy to be willing to deal with such complexities as four-digit PINs and the like.
That article has a link on how to write a cheque. How quaint.
@LH – Check-writing is still a thing here in the States. Person-to-person transactions still largely work that way, even though there are, in theory, multiple other ways it can/should work.
I see cheques twice a year when I get one from my mum for Christmas/Birthday. I send money online via my banks website.
When I tell people Americans don’t do PIN they don’t believe me. Buying drinks in Weather spoons would blow your minds. Tills are touch screen with individual items listed, and that connects to the card machine, which I tap my card on. The days when I worked in a bar of adding as I went are long gone.
@LH – When I was on business in Scotland a few years ago, the idea that the waiter would just being a card-chip-reader to the table for charges (if one, sigh, had a PIN), rather than handing off our card for them to run it off at some out-of-sight station, was mindblowing.
Hold on. Don’t you have pins for ATMs? (Known in UK as cash points or colloquially ‘hole in the wall’ machines)
@LH – We do, in fact, have PINs on ATMs and for debit cards in general. But not for credit cards because credit card companies want people to have multiple credit cards, and having multiple PINs (or a structure, and the security issues, for coordinating them) would complicate that. Or it would make American consumers sad. Or something. So, apparently, we’ve decided to socialize the cost of that.