[thechat] The Credit Card Prank

[Martin Burns]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 03:37 PM, Bob Haroche wrote:

> Madhu Menon wrote:
>> So my question was, how crazy
>> would I have to make my signature before someone would actually
> notice?
>
>
> In truth, American banks, and presumably their credit card divisions,
> simply don't verfy signatures at all. Instead they hold a certain
> amount of money in reserve to pay off legal claims brought by people
> whose cards or checks were fraudulently processed/cashed. They've made
> the business decision that it's less expensive to pay off claims than
> to hire personnel to verify signatures.

Presumably retailers are the same, as failing to check the sig means 
that they have all the liability.

The fix is of course Chip and Pin... UK rollout is just starting:
http://www.chipandpin.co.uk
while other countries are already there.

Cheers
Martin