According to a Lifehacker article, beginning this month you don’t have to sign those receipts at the end of dinner anymore. The major credit card issuers (Visa, AMEX, Mastercard etc) will no longer require signatures when buying something. Arguably, the United States has been behind the rest of the world in adopting this policy even after the emergence of EMV chip cards. I never understood the point of a chip if you had to sign anyway. I suppose it saves me the energy of swiping and also reduces the wear on credit cards’ magnetic strips?
Personally, I’ve never once seen anyone check signatures at checkout in the United States, though it has occurred once or twice in Europe. I’ll admit that at times I even forget to sign the back of the card on some of my credit cards. According to experts in the field, contact less payment systems such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay, have really pushed the industry to make this transition in order to both speed up the check out process and stay competitive with those payment choices.
It’s a sad day when I don’t get to hand out my autograph anymore, but it was always an indecipherable scribble anyway 🙂
