
Have you ever wondered what happens if you get a new credit card and as so many of us do, you forget to sign the back of it?
A few days ago I went to the grocery store for my weekly shop, and after all the items I had bought had been scanned and bagged, I handed over my credit card to the cashier, who processed it, and then handed me the receipt to sign.
When she went to check the signature, she noticed that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card.
She told me that she was not allowed to complete the transaction, unless the back of the credit card was signed.
When I asked why, the cashier explained that it was necessary to compare the signature on the credit card with the signature I just signed on the receipt.
So, I asked her to hand the card back to me, which she did, and I signed the credit card in front of her.
The cashier then carefully compared that signature to the one I signed on the receipt.
Well would you believe it, somehow the signatures myseriously matched!
Of course, here in the UK these days, you don’t have to sign the receipt, as all credit cards have a chip and pin. As long as you enter the correct pin number, the card is accepted.
It’s a lot easier than having to sign a receipt, and from my experience living in the USA, most times I used my credit card, the signature was never checked anyway.
Image used under a Collective Commons License from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Credit_card_logos_(2015-12-1816-27-350044).jpg