Checking Credit Card Signatures at work

nikolaitr

OK I work in a big shop on the till.

Thanks to the advent of PIN numbers on most cards I know longer have to check peoples signatures to be correct. But sometimes the cards usually don't have a PIN facility so I have to let the person sign. Soemtimes the signatures ar epretty questionable but because the people look decent I let them away with it.

For example an old man, probably in his mid 80's signed nothing like what is on the back of the card but I let him go, presuming he was hardly a fraudster. Well unlikely anyways.

If I want to query their card, I would have to call a manager and with them being busy and the lines being huge, it slows things down a great deal.

So what does everyone think, should I stop evry transaction when the signature doesnt sync up?? I know myself my signatures are often not similiar at all. What do you guys think?

Vinnie69

nikolaitr wrote:

OK I work in a big shop on the till.

Thanks to the advent of PIN numbers on most cards I know longer have to check peoples signatures to be correct. But sometimes the cards usually don't have a PIN facility so I have to let the person sign. Soemtimes the signatures ar epretty questionable but because the people look decent I let them away with it.

For example an old man, probably in his mid 80's signed nothing like what is on the back of the card but I let him go, presuming he was hardly a fraudster. Well unlikely anyways.

If I want to query their card, I would have to call a manager and with them being busy and the lines being huge, it slows things down a great deal.

So what does everyone think, should I stop evry transaction when the signature doesnt sync up?? I know myself my signatures are often not similiar at all. What do you guys think?

Pack the shelves instead!!

nikolaitr

Yeah thanks for the advice pal.....real great...

Trying to get your posts upor something?

fightin irish

Just keep doing it the way your doing it. Then if ever there was a case of fraud or whatever, Then the you can revert to checking all and sundry.

IMO any decent manager worth thier salt will tell you this. Otherwisw your gonna have a heap of pissed off customers and a very tired manager:)

Kintarō Hattori

I work in retail too myself. You can't query every sig. You just have to use your own good judgement. Generally you'll know when something doesn't add up completely.

Vinnie69

Sorry sorry only teasing ! I wish there was an easy for your problem but there ain't.Try and get your manager to make a decision on what the firms policy is and if he says that must query every card you are doubtiful about, do so. As regards no sig on back I would refuse it. If any one can apply for a card then they are capable of siging it (no matter what age they are)

the Shades

I wouldn't worry about it, I've used my card plenty of times and couldn't tell you how many people either gave it back to me before I signed or didn't even look at the signatures to see if they compare.

Bottle_of_Smoke

It's such a poor security measure no employee should be expected to operate it effectively.

If they're actually a fraudster they'd put it in the effort in to imitate the signature accurately.

Hester

I also work in retail. My manager dosen't give a sh1t so depending on how lazy I'm feeling I may ask a customer for ID if the sigs don't match up. I work in the airport and people have their passports handy so this isn't a problem. It probably would be in another environment because many people might not have ID on them.

I get a lot of American customers who haven't signed their cards and then some who have written "Check ID" on the signature line. I'll always ask for ID if they've done that.

Civilian_Target

lol! Yeah, same. Was buying shoes a couple of weeks ago and after I'd signed the receipt and gave her the card and slip she said "Erm, sir, you have to sign the back of your card as well"

...

Dave!

Just ask the manager what you should do in those circumstances!

dermot_sheehan

http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/

Rb

I was working in a big clothing store until recently, and whenever I was on the tills I'd never bother checking the signatures.I never dealt with anyone dodgy looking though,so that probably influenced my decision regarding checking the signatures or not.

The only time I'd check a signature was when a customer wanted the chip&pin overridden for some reason.

cyrusdvirus

Check the last 4 digits on the card against the last 4 on the printed slip. If its a cloned card these will probably be different. If the card is C&P enabled and the customer wants to bypass be a bit more vigilant but usually the 4 for 4 and sig check should be sufficent, & they don't take too much time, seconds at most.

Bottle_of_Smoke

gabhain7 wrote:

http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/

This is brilliant i advise everyone to read. Thank you!

Pythia

I used to only check sigs if the custoer looked dodgy. Never queried them though. Also used to check money under the UV checker if the customer was buying something very expensive (>€300) or paying with a €100 note or bigger.
Our problem was generally the customer was giving us fraudulent details for their account rather than dodgy payments.

nikolaitr

Well you know if you check the people who look shifty, I'm sure they'll claim some sort of discrimination. Actually had that one already.

ThrownAway

Well I know anyway that my writing changes all the time. My writing depends on my mood... I'd be one of those questionable people

BuffyBot

What do you guys think?

I think you should get a blog. Why should we care?

Dudess

My experience of working in retail was that customers would get really pissed off and take it personally if you queried their signature, so I just didn't bother.

spanner

was in spain the other day, went to use my credit card and they checked my ID, which they do for every traxn, and I told this is much better. In spain everybody is legally required to carry ID. Would that be Idea here

I work in credit card service and chip and pin is definately not preventing fraud

pbsuxok1znja4r

Meh, I have people sign for cards all the time where I work. I don't bother even looking in the first place. Not my problem.