This is a totally off the wall question but I thought I would ask it anyway.

Why do credit companies want you to sign the back of your credit card?

I left mine at the food store the other day and I got to thinking. If the wrong person got a hold of it, not only would they have my card but I would have also provided my signature. For the record, I don't sign the backs of my credit cards.

But doesn't that seem a little stupid? Here ... take my credit card and oh by the way, here is how I sign my name. Don't forget to dot the "i's". Is it just me?

Just wondering.

TOMC

Do what I do.  I sign the back of my credit cards with:   'See ID'

I have tried the "Check ID" note on the back of my cards but it seems that only one in maybe ten clerks ask to see my drivers license ... yet that is still probably  better than signing the back of your card.

TOMC

although that is good when they do (I always thank them for asking too.)

The trick is that a theif will see that and think, who needs the risk, and promptly toss the card away.

Plus, they don't have the opportunity to practice your signature.

I am indebted to the lovely Gina Depalma of NYC for this and other great security advice which she kindly forwarded to me some months ago.

Thanks Gina, you're a doll.

Works 4 me !

xo Lisa Butler

It's intended to provide the clerk a valid copy of what the person's signature ought to look like.  It's not a very effective security measure, as few folks bother to sign the card, and even fewer clerks actually bother to check the signature, but that's the reasoning behind it.

Since it's seldom judged to be worth a bank's time to pursue credit card fraud, or worth the retailer's time to try to chase it down, it's one of those things that just gets taken as "cost of doing business".  I used to work in a high-volume retail environment, and we just accepted that with thousands of credit-card transactions in a month, some of them would get charged back as fraudulent.  You make sure that it gets put into the verification system as a stolen card, and that's usually the end of the story.  A lot of the time, the banks don't even issue chargebacks on those transactions if you're a good customer.

If your card gets lost, call your bank and cancel that sucker right away.  Your liability is still very limited, but it's still a good practice to kill the card as soon as you realize it's gone.

That's the ticket. It's always worked for me too. Even when buying picnic items.