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

nytimes.com

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

#241

Post by jimnotgym »

skookumchuck wrote: post #196
gregpilling wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>CC company takes fraud seriously.

On behalf of the cardholder they do. When a cardholder complains the card company just reverses the payment to the merchant in a 'chargeback', sometimes months later. Then the merchant has to appeal to get it back. So no the credit card companies don't care about fraud.

I would ask for cash...

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

#242

Post by dx034 »

mrarjen wrote: post #234

Every time I'm in Germany I'm baffled that they use signatures quite often in order to pay... basically copying the signature that's on their cards. It's quite silly as when you'd steal someones card you'd pretty much just be able to use it to pay for things, given you can copy a signature. It's quite the contract with the Netherlands, but then again about 10 or so years ago I wasn't able to identically copy my signa…

In Germany, payments with signature are legally just a direct debit (that's the small contract you sign on the bill, the reason there's so much text on there). If the card was stolen, the merchant takes the risk. The account holder can get the money refunded for a very long time (think 3 months but at least several weeks after the monthly statement).

Most stores have an automatic system where they require pin if a payment has bounced before and in random intervals. But using the direct debit system instead of PIN is so much cheaper that even higher fraud rates don't matter much.

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

#243

Post by jimnotgym »

skookumchuck wrote: post #17

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…

I work for a UK business and we have had a number of queries from our bank because of an unrecognised signature on a cheque written from our account. So some banks in some places di check the signature

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

#244

Post by rollthehard6 »

jimnotgym wrote: post #240

In the UK cards moved to 'chip and pin' in 2006! Fraud in a 'customer present' scenario is very low at our stores. The last fraud in fact was a foreign card that didn't support chip and pin. I can't believe Visa and MasterCard have not made it mandatory world wide... ...except card fraud lossed are recharged to the merchant so perhaps they don't care? Out of interest there is a special exception for disabled people w…

And even earlier in other EU countries I imagine, as I was in Luxembourg in 2001 and used pin to pay in supermnarkets with my UK card.

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

#245

Post by sitepodmatt »

joe_fishfish wrote: post #225
ag56 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places in the UK now have an "optional" service fee of 12% on the bill.

This is much more common in London than in the rest of the country. Thankfully.

Agreed, very much a London thing. Given it's optional at least you can tell them (or a manager) in the UK to take off if service is crap. In Asia, in places where the service charge is added then the service charge is rarely if ever removed, you can be screaming blue at them due to a chain inexcusable lazy fuck ups and they still wont budge on the service charge - loss of face, lack staff empowerment, 'till say no' etc...

The addition of sales tax and service charge is more a frustration than tipping to me, tis why I hate restaurants in Asia that are ++ (10% SC + 7% tax). I'd like to ask them a) under what circumstances do I not have to pay the tax? b) if service is crap are you going to remove the service charge, the answer basically point to everyone pays it. I prefer wysiwyg pricing and tipping for the real extra mile. Also note service charge is rarely distributed fairly to staff that are serving you.

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

#246

Post by TulliusCicero »

Waterluvian wrote: post #131

The only time I ever sign for credit card stuff is when I visit the US. When it comes to banking it feels like the US is always chasing Canada who is always chasing Europe.

On the other hand, a large number of merchants in Germany still don't accept credit cards. Many are even cash-only. Run across them all the time in Munich, whereas not accepting credit cards was rare in the bay area, even at stands at farmer's markets, or at food trucks.

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

#247

Post by Double_a_92 »

Digital-Citizen wrote: post #220
sleet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that cheques are still used. I'm 36 and I've never issued a cheque, I think I was issued a cheque book with my first account but never used it.

Some banks allow customers to send cheques/checks printed by the bank, even on a schedule. This makes it easy for the bank customer to routinely pay predictable bills or send someone money on a schedule without having to go through the hassle of setting up direct deposit to their bank account (which is needlessly difficult even transferring money across two customers of the same bank, or across two banks in the same…

That seems like a overly complicated workaround. The solution is to make the electronic banking work properly! Seriously how can that be?

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

#248

Post by Double_a_92 »

sitepodmatt wrote: post #190
valleyer wrote: post #186

Earlier 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..

> When paying by card you can still stick a few pounds or dollars in the sleeve.

That would seem cheesy af to me. Like "Here have some money you poor thing!"

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

#249

Post by gambiting »

alkonaut wrote: post #233
gambiting wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a business owner - nope, handing receipts should be mandatory by law with heavy fines for not doing so(as it is where I'm from - Poland). I've had so many employees stealing by just not registering the order and pocketing the money - but fortunately, the law that requires that a receipt is produced fixed most of that.

Whether you give the receipt to the customer doesn't really matter for that? The reason business here have to offer a receipt (but the customer can reject it) is because the customer is supposed to be certain that the transaction is taxed. Typical small businesses with easily hidden turnover (such as restaurants) some times register only e.g. 1/2 purchases, thereby dodging a lot of the taxes. Having to offer a receip…

It does, because the tax office very frequently sends undercover inspectors to buy something in your shop, and if they don't get the receipt they will fine you huge sums of money. My employees certainly have it drilled into them that any customer could be an inspector and they have to offer the receipt to everyone.

And yes, of course - the tax office inspectors are doing this to make sure that taxes are paid on each sale - but it has the added benefit of making sure that the money for each sale is actually going in my register, not in the pocket of my employee.

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

#250

Post by saurik »

Cerium wrote: post #170
post_break wrote: post #141

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.

On the other side, many of the machines I use don't even change the text at all: it just keeps saying "leave card inserted" and the cashier tells me "just remove your card... it's long done".
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