Hi,

I'm entering this thread a bit late, I know...

Many CCs have an additional 3 or 4 digit number on the back that the clerks have to enter when they process your purchase. Its on the same strip that holds your signature, or note, so they have the opportunity/need/etc. to see your signature at the same time. I think it's there so that phone/web purchases can't be made with CC numbers stolen from a receipt (as the 3 or 4 digit number won't be there).

I agree with Karsten's post that said CC companies are pretty good at detecting unusual activity. A few months ago I discovered that a Visa Checkcard is not "just like a check". I needed to buy gas and stock up on groceries one evening. It turned out that the groceries came to about $305. I tried my Visa Checkcard (ATM card) that I always use, twice, and each time it was denied. I knew it wasn't a balance problem, so I just wrote it off as a glitch and used a credit card. The next morning I got a call from Discover asking me if I bought gas and groceries the previous night. (My ATM purchase was denied because my bank has a $300/day ATM limit and it apparently applies to the Checkcard even though I wasn't getting cash. Seems like a stupid policy to me.)

As I understand it, the purpose of having a person sign their credit card immediately is primarily so that you'll indicate you accept the terms of the contract. It's the vendor's responsibility to make sure that you're the person who signed the card (as with a paper check). Drew, if you're wanting to have the merchants check your card against a photo ID, wouldn't it be simpler to get a CC with a photo already on it? I know it's available with many of the big national cards.

I've recently had a clerk at PetSmart check my CC against my drivers license - I agree that it's very rare. But checking out of most stores I frequent is slow enough as it is - I'm sure that stores would lose business if they required more checking of IDs for purchases (unless, of course, it was uniform). I don't know how much stores lose from CC fraud compared to "shrinkage" (theft), returns, etc. Perhaps it's not something that most stores regard as a huge problem compared to other losses.

I don't quite understand Karsten's objection to signing with a light pen, loss of control of biomarkers, etc. His photo has been all over the web for years. :-) Written signatures can be scanned. Telephone and web purchases can be made without signatures, etc. And I don't know about him, but my light pen signature hardly looks like my "real" signature (which also varies at tiems) so if it were misused it would be fairly easy to argue that it was invalid. I feel (a little) better about using a light pen than signing a slip.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.