I see this as a first step towards making customers responsible for bad charges. In Europe, where signatures have been deprecated for years, there are strong consumer protection laws that protect card users. We have few such laws in the US, and the signature requirement provided some protection for customers who wanted to dispute a charge. (Not theoretical, this helped me once.)
While I agree with many above that the signature has become a bit of an anachronism, I don’t like it going away before more legislation is in place to keep liability for error off the card user.
I had to fax something twice recently. Once was to the US ticket office of an int’l airline (they wouldn’t take a credit card over the phone and I was unwilling to email it). Now I can’t remember what the 2nd one was, but I do remember getting snarky when they asked if I had access to one, even thought I did, I said something to the effect of “I’m having trouble finding one, it’s not 2003 anymore.”
Because it’s Totally More Secure to ensure that the data spend at least part of their life travelling unencrypted and in a well known format over the notoriously-well-tapped phone network?
That one would be a lot more adorable if it weren’t so inconvenient.
It’s nice to hear you’ve never had a problem. The POS terminals routinely complain “CHIP MALFUNCTION” with my card, which means you have to insert your card and let it fail two more times, and then the system will let you use the magstripe instead. I’ve replaced the card a couple times, but it makes no difference. The chip works only 40-50% of the time.
There was also the time the Starbucks barista swiped the magstripe through the reader on their register which caused the chip to leave the card and go flying across the store. Fortunately we were able to find it. Looking closely at the replacement card, it seems obvious that they chips and the cards are not securely mated to each other. It seems to be a friction fit, without any adhesive. The slightest bending of the card will pop the chip right out. Indeed, I’ve found a couple chips in parking lots outside big box stores.
Routinely replacing the cards before they expire must be increasing the costs.
Not at all. The chip is secured against copying, and is what makes the card secure from skimmers and cloners. PIN only protects your card from use by the mugger in the event it is physically stolen.
If they aren’t reading the chips on the cards, they’re out of PCI DDS compliance and at risk of being 100% liable for fraud on any cards they’ve taken, regardless of who in their payment chain might get breached.
Email isn’t secure, but then neither is a phone call. In most offices these days, phone service is actually VOIP. Those phone calls and faxes are going passing through your ISPs servers.
Email can be secured relatively easily, faxes cannot.
It’s almost a guarantee the fax is received and sent directly into an application
I think you meant to say *cloud service" rather than application. Most places are not (and should not be) operating their own publicly visible server. Those cloud services probably send a pdf of the fax by email to the recipient.
Your bank must be cheaping out, I’ve never even heard of the chip falling out of the card before.
Oddly I just found that although I can’t seem to find stock of a particular model of HP printer, there’s loads of stock for the version which also includes a fax. I’m not sure if that’s because the non-fax version is sought after, or the fax version has more demand and hence more supply.
It seems like you must have inordinately bad luck or your bank must have a terrible credit card supplier… I’ve never had any of these issues on any of my chip cards I’ve had for the past few years.
Beer here is never skunky, there are two breweries within walking distance (technically three, but I don’t want to walk that far), it’s always fresh! Also, you know you can drink while curling, right?
I’m spending more than $25 at these places every time, and some stores never require signatures and others do. The ones that require signatures might waive them for purchases below that threshold, I dunno, but certainly some stores only require inserting a card and nothing else.
Last time someone required me to fax them something, I didn’t even have a landline. I had to find a Kinko’s. But that was a while ago.
I tried to fax a legislator earlier this year when he voted wrong on a bill. Traditionally, legislators pay attention to communications from their constituents in the following order (most to least): (1) Telegram. (2) Fax. (3) Snail mail. (4) Phone call. (5) Email, not from web form. (6) Email from web form. Telegram of course no longer exists (I expect personal messenger might do as well). 2 and 3 might be switched in some cases, especially if you use mail with signature required. I think (5) and (6) are mainly just ignored.
My senator had a fax number listed for his office, so I tried that, but it didn’t work. I resorted to two telephone calls: one complaining about his vote, and one telling them to either fix the fax or take it off the listing.
Yeah, I bet. I’ve not signed for a card transaction in over a decade. Even using PINs these days feels archaic now that contactless payments on cards/devices is more-or-less ubiquitous.
UK here, last thing I signed was a tenancy agreement maybe 5 years ago. (My more recent tenancy was by legally-identical electronic signature). I’ve not signed for a card transaction in at least a decade. In my head, it’s something my father’s generation did using those machines that made a carbon copy of your card - not much different to a cheque.
Does the US still use cheques as much as it seem from the media? I suppose I could request a chequebook from my bank but I’ve never tried.
