This is great, since there were certain stores that would require my signature when I was using Apple Pay but not when I used a credit card. Completely negated the convenience benefit of contactless payment.
Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
191–200 of 541 posts
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in NZ we don't sign for credit card transactions - I can't remember the last time I had to sign. Instead you insert your card into the reader and use your PIN to verify the transaction. And if the card reader has contactless payments (PayWave, PayPass, etc) then you don't even need your PIN for transactions less than $80.
Are you sure those are credit card (e.g. Master Card) and not debit (e.g. Maestro) transactions? I’ve noticed outside the USA credit cards are used very rarely while debit cards are used very heavily. In the USA, we have to sign at most places for any transaction over $50, but not under.
Australian here. Within Australia, all credit cards are now PIN for almost all transactions (exceptions for stuff like running offline transactions).
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? In my experience Apple Pay is faster than other payment methods. In what way do you see it as slower?
It might be faster if it works. If you try it and it doesn’t work and the cashier tries to help and then you have to go back to using a credit card anyway, it’s slow and people get annoyed. If that reliably didn’t happen, things would be fine. Unfortunately, payment processing in the US (or at least in Maryland where I live) is a mess: - Point-of-sale devices are frequently broken, with post-it notes taped over the c…
As for the POS devices looking identical:
I've worked for a large retailer who has purchased a sizable number of verifone devices (hundreds of thousands). The devices do have NFC-enabled readers in them to support Apple Pay, however, the contract that the retailer has with Verifone specifically says that Apple Pay is disabled: The retailer does not want to pay for the development cost for enabling Apple Pay in their Point of Sales stack.
It's a great add-on for Verifone: A couple of bits get flipped in fipay and in their backend and boom: Apple Pay (as long as the payment processors support it).
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#194It 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.
Ha! Not even that. In the cheque clearing process, about the only thing that ever gets checked (even by automated processes) is the MICR line (account/transit and institution number).
Everything else (EVERYTHING ELSE) is just assumed to match whatever the person entered at the ATM/image capture app/teller window. The bank considers it your problem, as the cheque writer, to catch any issues on your next statement, and then they'll review the image of the cheque (in many jurisdictions now, the physical cheque is destroyed pretty early in the process). You should really never ever give a cheque to someone you don't trust. It's pretty silly, but that's the reality.
Although, fun fact, it's the cursive amount that is the 'official' one if there's a mismatch between that and the digits, since it's much more difficult to subtly adjust that.
Source: work for an institution that processes literally millions of cheques (I'm not in that area, but yeah).
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#195Can 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…
Visit Japan and you’ll hear ATMs play a little tune as they hand you money. The sound design everywhere you go is amazingly and thoughtful. America can be way too brutalist.
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Landlords only want cashier's checks if they don't trust you. If they don't trust you, they're less likely to rent to you. So requiring cashier's checks is uncommon, barring some extenuating circumstance like you've previously written a bad check or been late.
As a landlord, I always request cash or cashiers check for move in money. I don't want you living there for 3 months for free while I fight your bad check through the court system to get you evicted. It may sound shocking, but some people will do this. Source: me, landlord since 2001.
Cashier's checks are frequently fraudulent. You've been lucky if they worked for you.
I use a credit card much more often these days, because the CC company takes fraud seriously. The banks don't. At least my bank did not.
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#197Actually, doing away with the signature seems a bit odd, given all the machine learning flying around. An electronic signature that records the speed strokes in the signature are made, as well as the final result, is probably a really good way of identifying the purchaser. Of course then a lot of the smaller merchants would have to upgrade their 90's era dial-up credit card processing.
Indeed. Chip & PIN system at least in Europe has been a way to shift the abuse risk to the customer away from the banks. It's a lot easier to contest a signature than prove that you haven't been careless with protecting your PIN.
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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..
That's true (and an admirable practice for the reasons you specify), but at that point it's no longer a matter of "here's a $50, keep the change".
I and many people I know carry cash infrequently because of the ubiquity of credit card acceptance.
Anyway, none of this is to disagree with you, but just to point out that your example might be less common in the U.S. than you think.
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#199I've been using a big smiley face or stickfigure for years now.
Always gets a smile out of the people accepting it.
Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S
#200This is great, since there were certain stores that would require my signature when I was using Apple Pay but not when I used a credit card. Completely negated the convenience benefit of contactless payment.
That is actually very funny. Silicon Valley material.