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Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

nytimes.com

181–190 of 541 posts

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#181

"Mikiah Westbrooks, the owner of Brix, a wine bar in Detroit, said she worried that skipping signatures will affect her workers' tips." May tips disappear next.

May the expectation of tips disappear next..

Whilst there's no way I'd ever subscribe to current mentality of tipping 10% when unhappy and 15-20% when happy I'm not sure I'd want to remove tipping entirely. It should be exceptional times when one tips, i.e. really got above and beyond - not just doing their job.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#182

"Mikiah Westbrooks, the owner of Brix, a wine bar in Detroit, said she worried that skipping signatures will affect her workers' tips." May tips disappear next.

May the expectation of tips disappear next.. Whilst there's no way I'd ever subscribe to current mentality of tipping 10% when unhappy and 15-20% when happy I'm not sure I'd want to remove tipping entirely. It should be exceptional times when one tips, i.e. really got above and beyond - not just doing their job.

It should absolutely never be expected. I think it’s great to throw some cash when people go above and beyond and it makes sense.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#183
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact. You can theoretically write a USA legal bank check on the back side of a napkin and it will be honored. As you point out, it just needs the correct bank routing number and account number.

Most banks now have clauses allowing them to reject non-standard checks. Too many people writing “pay to the order of” on coconuts and pigs and other non-machine-readable items

Where are these people, in Ripley's Believe It or Not?

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#184

"Mikiah Westbrooks, the owner of Brix, a wine bar in Detroit, said she worried that skipping signatures will affect her workers' tips." May tips disappear next.

Yes can we please get rid of tipping and pay waiters and staff what they should be earning? Build the price into the menu and let the market decide the price. Too expensive? You will lose customers. Too cheap? You will have lines out the door and you know you can increase prices. The rest of the world does not tip (Europe & Asia). Only in North America is this awkward tipping practice still a thing.

Tipping still happens in Europe and SE Asia it's just not silly like North America. In the UK we'd leave a few pounds typically, let's say table bill was 47gbp, you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change if you were happy with the meal and service. But we don't subscribe to the non sense of 10% tip if unhappy, 15-20% if happy, if crap you don't leave a tip or pay service charge.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#185
post #170

Can we also standardize the noise the machine makes when the transaction is a success? You know that sound "ENGHH ENGHH ENGHH" that is somehow a positive sound? It's like an alarm clock sound. Why is it not a positive "Ding!" And some will say well it's to remember your card. Well if that's the case, how about force the POS system not to print the receipt until the card is pulled? Or better yet, why does the card hav…

I'd be happy if the text didn't change until it was done. Many of the machines I encounter change the "Wait, don't remove card" text location three or four times, each time you think it is done.

The problem is the text "Don't remove the card" contains the phrase "remove the card". I wish they just used a positive statement like "Keep card inserted" instead, and then changed to "Remove card".

Just another one of those minor accessibility things that would be dead simple to fix if the people in charge gave a shit about usability.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes can we please get rid of tipping and pay waiters and staff what they should be earning? Build the price into the menu and let the market decide the price. Too expensive? You will lose customers. Too cheap? You will have lines out the door and you know you can increase prices. The rest of the world does not tip (Europe & Asia). Only in North America is this awkward tipping practice still a thing.

Tipping still happens in Europe and SE Asia it's just not silly like North America. In the UK we'd leave a few pounds typically, let's say table bill was 47gbp, you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change if you were happy with the meal and service. But we don't subscribe to the non sense of 10% tip if unhappy, 15-20% if happy, if crap you don't leave a tip or pay service charge.

> you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change

This doesn't make sense in a society (like the US) where many (most?) people pay for dining out with a credit card.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#187
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say on the receipt that I am agreeing to the cardholder agreement? This sounds like the old myth that "if you don't sign the back of your card, you can't be held liable for the debts you incur if you contest it later." This is of course not true.

It depends on the receipt, but many receipts do say that you agree to pay for the purchase in accordance with the cardholder agreement, or some such wording. This has been decreasingly common in recent years, and I don't know the requirements, but it's not gone. You're right about the old myth you cite. The cardholder agreements are usually accepted either by signing the card or by using it.

The wording is highly dependent on the country. I don't think I've seen that in Australia in a long long time, on the rare occasion that I've had to sign rather than use PIN or contactless, but I've been in Asia for the past three weeks and did a lot of signing for my card with wording that sounds like that.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#188

It turns out that a signature on a bank check means nothing. Neither does the payer name on the check. Not the amount in cursive. Nor does the check paper. The only things that are checked are the digits of the amount, and the account number. The rest of the check can be complete garbage, and the check will go through and the bank will pay it. Then the banks will blame you, the account holder. I learned this the hard…

> The only things that are checked are the digits of the amount, and the account number. YMMV. Simple won't let me deposit a check made out to "Me and Wife" in my personal account - I can only deposit it in our joint. They'll permit me to deposit "Me OR Wife".

I had a really negative issue with Simple: a garnishment (wasn't my garnishment -- there's someone with my same first and last name with the same birth date who has a different middle name) that was incorrectly applied to my account. When I presented Simple (and their controlling bank) notification from the garnishing agency that they had garnished the wrong account (and deposited the check from the garnishing state's treasury back into my account), Simple's response was...to garnish my account.

Suffice to say, I went back to my neighborhood bank.

To Simple's credit: Their customer support was beyond fantastic -- they were at the mercy of their controlling bank...who was receiving the garnishment request.

When Simple switched banks last year, I received a check in the mail for $3 and change for the amount that I had left in my account after moving my direct deposits and such over. Just...a massive headache.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#189

It turns out that a signature on a bank check means nothing. Neither does the payer name on the check. Not the amount in cursive. Nor does the check paper. The only things that are checked are the digits of the amount, and the account number. The rest of the check can be complete garbage, and the check will go through and the bank will pay it. Then the banks will blame you, the account holder. I learned this the hard…

Just last November I miswrote a check where the digits and written amount differed, and it was processed for the written amount, which has traditionally been the controlling value.

I was taught to write the number as $400 23/100 One day about 3 years ago, all such checks started coming through as $4.00, and I wound up with late fees and such. Although the bank denied it, it was pretty obvious they'd just changed their OCR software. I now write the checks as $400.23

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tipping still happens in Europe and SE Asia it's just not silly like North America. In the UK we'd leave a few pounds typically, let's say table bill was 47gbp, you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change if you were happy with the meal and service. But we don't subscribe to the non sense of 10% tip if unhappy, 15-20% if happy, if crap you don't leave a tip or pay service charge.

> you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change This doesn't make sense in a society (like the US) where many (most?) people pay for dining out with a credit card.

When paying by card you can still stick a few pounds or dollars in the sleeve. Even when CC receipts had the open Tip: ____ line most times I would zero it and leave a cash tip when a tip was in order, off the books, not % skimming to cover merchant fees etc..
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