Did you ever wonder why on the back of almost all of your credit cards and debit cards it says, "Not Valid Until Signed"?
I already know the answer, but let's play along.
To find an answer, I decided to browse through both the Visa and Mastercard web pages to see what they had to say on the matter. Short and sweet, what it all boils down to is that by signing the back of the card, you are accepting the Terms of Agreement by which that monetary device was issued to you. That's it.
They give some babble that it actually protects you from identity theft and that anyone could use the card. Wow, that seems pretty scary, huh? Actually, it made me laugh. Why? It says that if the card isn't signed, have someone present a photo ID and have them sign the card, then compare all three signatures.
Well, it's not that hard to make a fake ID these days...at least one that will fly by nearly any retail clerk during the Christmas rush. Honestly, how many times has your credit and/or debit card been verified for the signature? To give you a humorous example, check out [a href="vny!://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/"]this web page[/a] for a very funny read.
Do you honestly want to know the real world reason why you must sign your credit and debit cards before they are valid?
Short and simple, you provide any thief a "base" of what your signature actually looks like and when those charges start racking up, it makes it all that much harder for you to disprove that you actually made those purchases.
Here's what happens. You sign your card. You lose your card. You discover the said card lost 24 hours later and call to have it cancelled. In the meantime, someone went out and bought a nice $300 leather jacket, 10 CDs, dinner at TGIF, and filled up their car with gas (notice nowadays all you have to do is to slide it in and you've got your gas?).
Now, someone has to pay for those items. Is it going to be the credit issuer? Hey, why should they? They've got a reasonable copy of your signature on the receipts so you must have bought them and are not telling the truth. Is the retailer? Nope, they verified the signature, plus in the case of fraud, it's the credit issuer that ends up footing the bill.
Have you ever had to get your way out of some fraudulent charges or know someone who has?
You'll have better luck threading a gnat's butt shut with some Cat 5 cable.
Plain and simple, it's nothing more than an attempt to save a few pennies on the part of the credit issuer. Ever hear of that "new technology" over five years ago where they could put a person's photo on the credit/debit card itself? Now why don't you think that the credit issuers do that more often? Certainly, it's not a matter of cost as we all know that the cost would get passed on to us, the consumers, anyway. The only ones I know that do it today is Bank of America and that's because I had to specifically ask for it.
Of course, a few businesses won't take the card unless it is signed simply to protect themselves and I certainly don't blame them. The US Postal Service, for one, and the Indiana BMV for another. So how do I get around that? I drive by an ATM on my way and pay with legal tender cash.
So what's my best advice for you folks this holiday season?
Don't sign your credit and/or debit cards or if you feel that you must do something, then write on the back "See Photo ID". Still not technically within the Terms of Agreement with the credit issuer, but hey, if they want to nit-pick, tell them to cancel your account and you'll look for another credit card somewhere else. Also, take anything in your wallet that has your signature on it, such as a driver's license or a firearm's card, and carry them in a different pocket. This way, your wallet with all of your credit cards in them doesn't have a signature available for the thieves to use (this has also led to some check scams, too).
If anyone works for loss prevention for any of the major credit issuers, please feel free to chime in and tell us why it is absolutely essential that the card holder must sign the card before it is valid. Arguments such as "agreeing to the terms of the agreement" and "for your security" will ring on hollow ears as that myth has been exposed.
From [a href="vny!://forums.pcapex.com/pcapex_daily_disturbance/93693-for_your_security.html"]vny!://forums.pcapex.com/pcapex_daily_disturbance/93693-for_your_security.html[/a]