"Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, like airport security checks. So my question was, how crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice?"Believe me: it's pretty crazy. Feel free to leave a comment if you either a) try something like this or b) you're the bloke with the dreads and you want to say hello.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Signatures: they're a bit rubbish, aren't they?
I was in WH Smith in Huddersfield yesterday buying MacFormat with a debit card when I noticed they don't do Chip & Pin yet. I shrugged, signed the slip and noticed I'd not so much produced my signature as parodied it. Rather self-consciously I blathered on about how "my signature changes all the time" to the be-dreaded guy imprisoned next to the till. and then I mentioned this old favourite of mine: The Great Credit Card Prank.
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After being the imprisoned-behind-the-till guy for a number of years I can quite frankly say that unless you ACT suspiciously (especially by joking your signature doesn't look like it should), people don't give a crap. So far as they're concerned, as long as the tills accept it and it isn't blocked by the bank, then it's fine.
This goes so far as I once questioned someone's signature just beacuse it didn't look anything like the one on the card. I then got a subtle bollocking by my deputy manager for harassing customers when we needed sales.
End of the day, banks offer a certain amount of protection to their customers in regards to credit card / bank card fraud. Why should the people accepting them care when they can just accept the sale and let the banks take the flack/expense? As long as the shops can produce an audit trail then they're fine and dandy.
Their is NO reward to a shop for refusing a sale on the basis of a dodgy signature.
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