What happens if you don sign a receipt

And by , all four payment networks were no longer requiring signatures. But you may have noticed that you still sometimes have to sign. What's up with that? Although the payment networks have moved away from signatures, individual merchants still have the right to require signatures on any transaction.

Among the reasons they do:. Store security policies. Some merchants require that every transaction over a certain amount be verified by signature, in an attempt to deter fraud.

Technical reasons. Some merchants are still using older technology that requires a signature. In other cases, when a card terminal's EMV reader isn't working, the machine may default to asking the customer to swipe their card's magstripe and sign for the purchase. Business processes. Most U. For these places, maintaining the signature requirement creates an opening for the customer to add a tip for the wait staff.

You give your credit card to the server at a restaurant, and they bring back a slip for you to sign — after you add the tip. Why you had to sign. Advances in technology. These days, consumers who challenge a charge they actually make are unlikely to get very far. Even if the merchant cannot pull up your signature, security video will likely show your purchase.

If your card has a payment chip, you transaction is automatically logged whether you sign or not. Payment chips are projected to become standard in the United States by Both companies allow certain retailers, including grocery stores, to omit the signature for small purchases without being liable for subsequent fraud charges. Reference 3. In a restaurant, the credit card receipt basically only exists so you can add a tip.

Your signature, again, serves as that less-than-iron-clad piece of evidence that you approved of that purchase. Further, the receipt with the added tip functions as a tax record for the tipped employee.

Further, without a written signature, there could potentially be some issues for either the restaurant or yourself if either party claims fraud and needs to be investigated. When four of the largest networks — American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa — announced they would stop requiring signatures, it was both an acknowledgment of reality and a declaration of progress. Yet I am still asked to sign constantly. I have signed for non-medicated cough drops. I have signed for takeout soup.

I have signed for ingredients to make my own soup. So why, if we have all agreed that signing does not successfully confirm my identity, am I still signing all the time? The history of the modern credit card dates back the s. The history of the signature as a means of validating a contract, though — and what is a receipt but a miniature contract? As Talmudic scholar Rabbi Pinchas Allouche explained to Planet Money , the Talmud explicitly specifies that signatures are required to legitimize a contract.

And not only signatures but specifically legible signatures. Consider a marriage contract, which, by Talmudic law, must be signed by the couple as well as by witnesses, who could vouch for the fact that the marriage had taken place. So: sign for your marriage, sign for your latte.

The world is not governed by Talmudic law. But the role of the signature has not changed all that much: it is a mark confirming that you are you, and that your purchase is being made with your consent. And as Planet Money points out, a signature was a pretty effective way to do that, so it became a cultural default, a way of doing business.

It stayed that way through the rise of the personal check which required a signature and the credit card which required a signature : Yes, it is me. Yes, I meant to do that. But the problem with signatures as verification, Planet Money observes, is that they only work if somebody is actually verifying it.

The security is not just for you.