Mastercard

[contango]

I don't think I've ever seen them check a signature in US. Normally it's just a case of signing and leaving on the table for the waitbot to collect. After they've first wandered off with your card for a while. It's hilariously insecure. I think every fraud issue I've had with my cards has originated in the US.

I find it remarkable how many people don't even sign their cards. When I get offered an unsigned card I ask for ID but always think that if someone stole the card they could sign it themselves and then use it with carefree abandon.

US cards may be routinely chipped now (my Fleet Bank one isn't, mind) but I don't think anyone told them about PINs, so it's evidently being introduced by stealth, probably to avoid accusations of Global World Government collusion.

Most of the cards I see over here have chips, although a few still don't. My US-based credit card is soon to be replaced with one that features chip and contactless.

[hellymedic]

I can't hold a pen and so don't sign my cards. Never had a problem.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Also, if you do sign a card and it gets stolen, the thief can then copy your signature on whatever might need signing.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The US still doesn't have chip and pin, of course.

I beg to differ.  Any new card I've been issued in the last year has been chip - and - magnetic stripe.
Many merchants have "no chip yet" signs on their combination readers.

While it's pushed out here as a security thing, I do wonder how it improves security.  With 2 or 3 cards regularly used in our household, we are issued replacement ones about every 6 months because some merchant's database of charge records has been hacked yet again, and several gazillion accounts compromised.  Seems to happen more from on-line purchases than from in-store ones.  And, yes, we've been through one round of chip-equipped cards being reissued.

Personally, I prefer swiping cards.  Much faster.

Even if a some hacker gets all the charge records, that doesn't compromise the security of using your chip and pin card. It just compromises security of using card for online purchases, and not even then if they use the '3D' system where the purchase is verified by your bank.

The insecure payments are the ones where you just hand over card details over a phone - I had to do that with a taxi firm 3 times last week, makes my hackles rise. Truly wish that it became a thing of the past.

Given it's the capitalist centre of the world (often it seems anyway) the US's approach to payments seems often a bit pants.

All the times I used my card, they had pretty much handed it back before I'd signed not even checking they matched. When I worked in retail pre chip and pin we had it drummed into us to check the signatures match. The pin is supposed to remove the randomness of checking the sig as the computer does the check and tells the vendor yes or no.

Over here the banks insist on 3d secure for online processing to ensure the card details are held by the owner.

For such a modern country they are behind the times dramactically in terms of transaction security, I guess a lot of folks just use cash.

And no contactless, fer gods sake.

Not every online purchase uses 3D Secure and in some cases where they do use it, you don't have to do anything. Sometimes you need put in a password or part thereof, sometimes not. So I'm not sure what it does when it doesn't check the password. It is in any case only another password, which the owner can forget, write down, tell someone deliberately or let slip accidentally, or a thief can crack.

[hellymedic]

The 3D Secure transactions that don't ask for my password seem to be for things delivered to my home or for hotel bookings, where they check your card on arrival.

[Hot Flatus]

As somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve, and impresses upon us how the rich should give to the poor, I think you know what you should do with this excess £500 that you didnt even realise you had.

There are plenty of people who need it more than you. You wont even miss it, because you didnt even know you had it.

Im sure youll do the right thing.

[davelodwig]

The US still doesn't have chip and pin, of course.

I beg to differ.  Any new card I've been issued in the last year has been chip - and - magnetic stripe.
Many merchants have "no chip yet" signs on their combination readers.

While it's pushed out here as a security thing, I do wonder how it improves security.  With 2 or 3 cards regularly used in our household, we are issued replacement ones about every 6 months because some merchant's database of charge records has been hacked yet again, and several gazillion accounts compromised.  Seems to happen more from on-line purchases than from in-store ones.  And, yes, we've been through one round of chip-equipped cards being reissued.

Personally, I prefer swiping cards.  Much faster.

Even if a some hacker gets all the charge records, that doesn't compromise the security of using your chip and pin card. It just compromises security of using card for online purchases, and not even then if they use the '3D' system where the purchase is verified by your bank.

The insecure payments are the ones where you just hand over card details over a phone - I had to do that with a taxi firm 3 times last week, makes my hackles rise. Truly wish that it became a thing of the past.

Given it's the capitalist centre of the world (often it seems anyway) the US's approach to payments seems often a bit pants.

All the times I used my card, they had pretty much handed it back before I'd signed not even checking they matched. When I worked in retail pre chip and pin we had it drummed into us to check the signatures match. The pin is supposed to remove the randomness of checking the sig as the computer does the check and tells the vendor yes or no.

Over here the banks insist on 3d secure for online processing to ensure the card details are held by the owner.

For such a modern country they are behind the times dramactically in terms of transaction security, I guess a lot of folks just use cash.

And no contactless, fer gods sake.

Not every online purchase uses 3D Secure and in some cases where they do use it, you don't have to do anything. Sometimes you need put in a password or part thereof, sometimes not. So I'm not sure what it does when it doesn't check the password. It is in any case only another password, which the owner can forget, write down, tell someone deliberately or let slip accidentally, or a thief can crack.

According to my Barclays Merchant Banking Documentation, 3d secure is an optional component, however if you don't have it switched on and fraud occurs it's your fault. Given it's in an frame and supplied by the processor I suspect there is some woo at the banks end that decides if they need to verify your card.

D.

[MacB]

As somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve, and impresses upon us how the rich should give to the poor, I think you know what you should do with this excess £500 that you didnt even realise you had.

There are plenty of people who need it more than you. You wont even miss it, because you didnt even know you had it.

Im sure youll do the right thing.

Tricky isn't it, deciding which of the two insults you prefer:-

Option 1 - Wow keeps the money so you can call him a hypocrite, satisfying but kind of been done to death and lacks any real meat to it.

Option 2 - Wow donates the money and you get to call him a mug and explain, in excruciating detail, just how little his gesture matters. This is far more satisfying as you get the double whammy of goading someone into something that you can then mock them for.

[Hot Flatus]

The thing about principles is you have to actually live by them, otherwise it is all just a lot of vain hot air. Words are cheap. In fact they are free. But then I'm thinking you probably know this.

[Jaded]

I'm not sure where the 'just how little his gesture matters' appears from. It's only a gesture if he makes it so.

He gets money he didn't expect.
He donates to a good cause.
He doesn't tell anyone about either action. No one will call him a mug because no one knows what has happened.

Or he spends it on malt whisky and expects others to deal with the good causes.

[MacB]

The thing about principles is you have to actually live by them, otherwise it is all just a lot of vain hot air. Words are cheap. In fact they are free. But then I'm thinking you probably know this.

True but I actually think the principles have to be installed at a societal level

[Hot Flatus]

By whom.

There are plenty of people preaching, but not so many doing. Without action, principles mean nothing .

[Jaded]

The thing about principles is you have to actually live by them, otherwise it is all just a lot of vain hot air. Words are cheap. In fact they are free. But then I'm thinking you probably know this.

True but I actually think the principles have to be installed at a societal level

Largely the principles are there.

Individuals can decide to adopt them or to point the fingers at someone else (usually a government), saying "It's their fault I don't do principles".

[Hot Flatus]

This is about integrity. Integrity is about what you do when nobody is watching.

Principles? Meh. They are like opinions and arseholes. Everyone has got one.

[Oscar's dad]

This is about integrity. Integrity is about what you do when nobody is watching

I like that.

[Cudzoziemiec]

This thread has got me earwormed Talking Heads' Puzzling Evidence. There must be other songs referencing Mastercard (but probably none that Wow's choir would sing!)

[contango]

Also, if you do sign a card and it gets stolen, the thief can then copy your signature on whatever might need signing.

That's still a slower process than if you didn't sign the card at all and all they need to do is sign whatever they want on the back and then anything else they sign is pretty likely to match. If the name of the signature doesn't match the name on the card the chances are they'd still get away with it.