Credit Card Debt Management

Do you sign the back of your credit cards? There are varying schools of thought on this, the latest being a Small Life Blog post explaining why you should sign the back.

Apparently, a recent Money magazine article claimed that the practice of shopper identification verification by merchants is forbidden by Visa, MasterCard and Discover, and strongly forbidden by American Express. A credit card with a signature on the back is identification enough, the companies say. Therefore, while shoppers may hear a request to provide photo ID at the cash register, they are under no obligation to provide it and the merchant cannot retaliate by stopping the transaction.

This bit of information was verified by Small Life Blog with a quick check of the actual credit card companies’ web sites. What’s their rationale? Protection against identity theft: a cashier may get your credit card number, security code, and expiration date, but when you add in the address and zip code that appears on your driver’s license, they can do major damage.

It’s an interesting perspective, but what are the odds a merchant is going to be able to gather and memorize or write down all this information in the split second they see it? The print is so small on driver’s licenses that they probably can’t even see it anyway, or you can just hold it out for them and cover the address with your thumb. You might also use another form of identification, like a gym membership card.

Indeed, it seems to me like this is the least secure of all strategies. I subscribe more to the ideas expressed in the lifehacker blog — do not sign the back of your credit card, but instead write “Check Photo ID” in the little white space. The likelihood that a credit card thief could wind up with your credit card in their possession and try to use it fraudulently seems much greater than the likelihood that a merchant is going to record all your personal data off your credit card and photo ID. I only subscribe to this belief because I’ve seen it in action during a high school stint as a retail sales clerk, when a savvy cashier interrupted a credit card thief’s shopping spree. Frankly, I appreciate it when cashiers ask for my photo ID and have no problem with providing it. Though it may take a little more time to show your photo ID, it could really protect you long-term.