Signing the Back of Your Credit Card

Consumers have mixed messages regarding whether they should sign the back of the card for protection purposes. We used to be told that signing the back of the card was essential and imperative in order to protect against credit card theft, but then credit card theft was still not stopped. This began the circulation of information informing consumers that they should not sign the back of their cards. By not signing the back of their credit card the personnel in the store is then supposed to ask to see the card holders ID. There is a fallacy in this thought as well as in signing the back of your credit card with your signature.

First if you don’t sign the back of your card and it gets lost the fraudster can put any signature they want on the card. Most personnel in a store will not even look at the back of your card to see if it is signed or make a big deal out of asking for your ID. So this will not work. If you sign the back of your card then the thief will have your signature. They can try to duplicate this a hundred times over on credit slips, cheques, and other papers they might need to sign. You are basically giving them the information they need. Even your signature is not a hundred percent the same every time you sign something.

What you do instead of leaving the card strip blank or signing it is place the words “Ask for Picture ID.” Your signature is not on the card, nor have you left it blank and you have made the card valid because you have signed it in a matter of speaking. The credit card transaction may be a little longer, but well worth the protection it offers you.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.