It feels very odd going to the US where you have to sign with a pen when paying by card (rather than chip-n-pin).
The fun part is that that signature doesn't seem to do anything. It used to be that occasionally the cashier would check it against the signature on the back of the card (years ago), but now they never do that. They seem to have stopped asking to see my ID in the last few months as well... so now I can just swipe my card (or presumably someone else's card that I "found") and draw a smiley face on the signature pad, and that's it.
Recently, an engineer I work with (I work for Simple) asked if we could add an image of the signature to transaction metadata in our web and mobile applications. I thought it was a neat idea, so I started asking around, but was dismayed when I found out that the whereabouts of electronic signatures was completely unclear.
Can any network or point-of-sales people tell me if the signature is being transmitted? Stored? Analyzed?
The signed reciepts are stored; and in case of a chargeback or transaction dispute the merchant has to provide them. Only then they are analyzed, but in practice it doesn't matter, any scrawl is considered as good as another.
The only case where I have seen signature analysis being actually useful was a case where the customer was attempting to defraud the bank/merchant - claimed a stolen card but actually bought the stuff himself. But that is very rare compared to real stolen or skimmed cards, where signatures are pretty much useless in fraud prevention or shifting liability to someone else.
Comments
It feels very odd going to the US where you have to sign with a pen when paying by card (rather than chip-n-pin).
The fun part is that that signature doesn't seem to do anything. It used to be that occasionally the cashier would check it against the signature on the back of the card (years ago), but now they never do that. They seem to have stopped asking to see my ID in the last few months as well... so now I can just swipe my card (or presumably someone else's card that I "found") and draw a smiley face on the signature pad, and that's it.
Totally.
Recently, an engineer I work with (I work for Simple) asked if we could add an image of the signature to transaction metadata in our web and mobile applications. I thought it was a neat idea, so I started asking around, but was dismayed when I found out that the whereabouts of electronic signatures was completely unclear.
Can any network or point-of-sales people tell me if the signature is being transmitted? Stored? Analyzed?
The signed reciepts are stored; and in case of a chargeback or transaction dispute the merchant has to provide them. Only then they are analyzed, but in practice it doesn't matter, any scrawl is considered as good as another. The only case where I have seen signature analysis being actually useful was a case where the customer was attempting to defraud the bank/merchant - claimed a stolen card but actually bought the stuff himself. But that is very rare compared to real stolen or skimmed cards, where signatures are pretty much useless in fraud prevention or shifting liability to someone else.
Reminded me of: http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/