A Funny Thing About Credit Card Signatures

The Set-up

If you are wondering where a bit of humor can be found in the credit card world, you should look no further than the signature box of a touch sensitive input device. This is the piece of equipment that is attached to the monstrous stylus with the little cable where you are required to legibly sign your name for your credit card purchase.

After wondering to myself how this input device could be capable of comparing my signature to the one on my card, I decided to do a search to see if there really was a way the signature panel that I electronically sign was able to compare my signature to the one on my card. What I thought was an serious inquiry turned out to be a lesson in humor.

The Delivery

Instead of finding a long technical explanation of how the electronic signature is validated I instead found many people who wondered the same thing. Now while I will not recommend trying what I have discovered, it definitely causes you to think twice about the effectiveness of these devices. As it turns out many people have sought to see how far they could exploit this process before they ran into a problem.

They all start innocently enough - an extra dash to their name or a variation on spelling, just to see if anything happens. As it turns out they have no problems whatsoever. Such as human nature dictates, if at first you don't succeed try again. So subsequent signatures by these individuals eventually turned into names of famous people being signed for the credit card purchase.

At this point, most reasonable people would expect a problem. However, humorously, and albeit unfortunately, there is not.

It appears that almost anything signed within that box is acceptable. Whether it is your actual name or a short bored little doodle, either one is likely to complete your credit card transaction. Of course, I don't recommend you do this unless you want to get in a heapload of trouble if you get caught.

Now while this may be amusing (after all, who doesn't want to sign their name as a famous rock or movie star?) there is a bit of a moral here to learn as well...

You and only you can be the one that responsible for the safety of your credit card, so guard it like your life (or at least your sanity) depends on it!