The big financial moments in life used to be marked with a flourish of a pen. Buying a house. A car. Breakfast.
Not anymore. Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express dropped the requirement to sign for charges like restaurant checks in 2018. They don’t look at our scribbles to verify identity or stop fraud. Taps, clicks and electronic signatures took over the heavy lifting for many everyday purchases—and many contracts, loan applications and even Social Security forms. The John Hancock was written off as a relic useful mainly to inflate the value of sports memorabilia.
But signatures didn’t die.
We continue to be asked to sign with ink on paper or using fingers on touch screens at many restaurants, bars and other businesses. And people keep signing card receipts out of habit—even when there is no blank space for it—because it feels weird not to, payment networks and retail groups say.
“Traditions have this odd way of sticking around,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores.
American problems. Not experienced this is in well over a decade in the UK an travelling.
A decade? It was the turn of the century old bean
Yes, chip and pin has been the established norm for decades now. Wait until we tell them about the last time most of us wrote a cheque (check)!
I’d never signed a credit or debit card in my life until I travelled to the US last year, and then I only did it because I’d heard stories of places confiscating cards if they weren’t signed. Don’t know how true they are now but I wasn’t risking it.
It would be illegal for a business to confiscate your card
This isn’t talking about signing the back of a card (you should do that if the card requires it but most non-US places don’t) instead it’s talking about how many receipts you need to sign in America… and it’s a mind boggling number.
Fewer by the day, thankfully.
Personally, I look forward to the day when I can pay for everything with my watch. It seems like with national retailers, I have about a 50/50 chance.
I would LOVE it if drive-throughs figured out a way to do that.