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

nytimes.com

261–270 of 541 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you still live with your parents or rent from a slum lord who only takes cash? Most landlords seem to only take cash or checks, it's really only the national apartment companies that take online payments.

Australia, pretty much everyone accepts BPay which is an online direct payment system or direct bank to bank transfers. These both take < 3 business days

Even waiting one day is pretty poor when it comes to funds transfer times, let alone three!

It's a significant burden on commerce, businesses, and individuals to be without their funds for that long. And a big win for greedy banks who boost their balance sheets and profits by holding all those "in transit" funds.

In the UK, the "Faster" payment system, introduced about 10 years ago, means that the vast majority of bank-to-bank funds transfers are completed instantly.

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

#262

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…

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.

Sound design in Asia in general is amazing. I remember the sound when the metro arrives in Taiwan (both Taipei and Kaohsiung)being both really fun and effective at informing you. What really impressed me is how even the garbage trucks sing a little lullaby when they pick up the garbage at night.

It is sad we don't pay as much attention to this in Europe and America and usually just go for loud beeps. Sounds can be functional and pleasant at the same time.

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

#263
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all intents your checking account is a locker full of money that’s unlocked for the taking. The check is nothing more than an archaic means of conveying your “locker number” to someone else’s bank. I highly recommend keeping your checking account balance as low as you can, and either disable overdraft protection on it or point the overdraft protection to a credit account. The other info on the check isn’t meaning…

Where do you put your non-investment money then?

Don't have non-investment money? Investment accounts can hold treasury bills and short to intermediate term bonds and bond mutual funds. Your checking account just needs to hold enough money to pay a month's worth of bills or so.

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

#264

so what happened to chip+signature? now it’s chip only? i guess physical theft isn’t a thing they care much about anymore.

The signature being wrong doesn't actually make the card unusable, and there's statutory liability limits based on reporting the card missing/stolen. There's virtually zero difference for the issuer between chip+signature and chip-only.

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

#265
post #211
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, all in-person card transactions above the $100 PayWave/PayPass limit require PINs. Fraud cause from in-person transactions is very low and hence our merchant fees are also very low. 10-20¢ for debit transactions and approx. 1.2% for credit transactions.

If even that. You're usually hard-pressed to find people who charge a transaction fee (that is, not built into the price of the goods/service). I can think of a handful I encounter with any level of semi-regularity.

I was talking about the underlying merchant fees. In the US, it’s not unusual to pay 3% on cars transactions and I can’t help think that a large part of that is to deal with fraud.

After all, Australian banks are some of the most profitable per customer in the world.

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

#266
post #9
post #4

It would be nice if they would start requiring a PIN.

The kind of fraud prevented by a PIN enabled chip card is supposedly pretty rare. What would be more useful is a standard for browser attached chip card readers to bring the anti-fraud protections of a chip card to everyday Internet transactions.

The European payment industry is adopting secure customer authentication in the form of 3DS2.1.

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

#267
post #58

There’s something missing from this article. When you sign a receipt, you’re not just providing a sample of your signature for comparison against the one on the card. You are signing a document, usually saying that ‘I agree to comply with the terms of the cardholder agreement’ If this is no longer necessary, the card issuers must have determined that they have other legal agreements which cover purchases, and that th…

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.

> Where does it say on the receipt

Obviously on the front with all the other printed text.

If your question is whether it actually does say it, I just pulled the most recent receipt out of my wallet, and this is what is printed right above the blank for my signature: "I agree to pay the above total amount according to the card issuer agreement."

I checked two other receipts from different businesses and they say the same thing.

It might or might not be legally binding or necessary, whether it's there is pretty clear. It is. At least where I live (US), it is.

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

#268

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…

In the UK nearly every Contactless transaction just does a single beep on success, and something else for a failure.

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You weren't taught to write it as "Four-hundred and 23/100", and then "$400.23" in the little box?

I meant $400 23/100 in the little box on the right.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's DocuSign, they actually let you pick your own font from a list, so you can claim it's "your" handwriting because you chose it. And it's been a while, but I think they let you mouse a signature and initials if you don't like any of the fonts. The funny thing is that for the last few years, I've been trying to make my own handwriting resemble an italic serif font as much as possible, so I actually do write like…

>I never sign anything the same way twice, and my signature is always just a random scribble. Is that legal? o.O

It is, but it means parent will lose any contractual dispute ever on the signature proof part.

Here is how it goes in a dispute. You have A saying B signed a contract, and B saying he didn't. It's A's job to prove he did first, and he indicate there is a signature on there, and it's B's. So now it's B's turn, and he needs to show it isn't his (if he does, then A become accused a making a false, and will need to prove he didn't).

To do that, B needs to prove that he usually signs a different way, so he provides other signatures everywhere to show it. Since parent signs differently everywhere, he cannot show that he has a regular signature that doesn't match the one on paper. In fact, it shows that any scribble CAN be his signature as long as there is one, and thus the court will tend to assume the one on the contract is his.

So parent's strategy is terrible, and you really shouldn't be playing that game, because it doesn't catch you until it really does.

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