You No Longer Need to Sign Credit Card Receipts
If you used your credit card today or yesterday, you may have noticed that you no longer have to spend the extra 10 seconds illegally signing receipts.
Starting this month, major credit card issuers including Visa, American Express , Mastercard, and Discover will no longer require a signature when purchasing anything.
We have been working on this since the companies started issuing cards with EMV chips, but until then we were in no hurry. CreditCards.com notes that the US is lagging behind many other countries in adopting this payment standard. This is done in order to speed up and simplify the checkout process.
It is also a reflection that requiring signatures is no longer the best way to combat fraud. “Our anti-fraud capabilities have expanded so signatures are no longer needed,” said Jaromir Divilek, American Express executive vice president of global networking, in a press release .
“It’s worth noting how little protection the signatures actually provided. How often does the seller check the signature for compliance? “This was stated by ValuePenguin credit card expert Robert Harrow in an interview with Mic . “These chips are quite complex, they are encrypted, and they make it much more difficult to scan credit cards through skimmers.”
The proliferation of contactless payment systems (including Apple Pay) around the world is also a factor.
Here’s what to keep in mind now.
New types of fraud on the horizon
Scammers are a hardworking group and sooner or later they will learn how to hack new security measures.
According to CreditCards.com , which includes what are called “gaskets” in which fraudsters “secretly insert an ebb , paper thin, card-sized gasket containing an embedded microchip and flash memory in a” submersible “and wait slot.” It can then collect the EMV information of your credit or debit card.
Protect yourself with Tap-and-Go contactless rather than swiping or inserting a card, or using something like Apple or Samsung Pay, which is much safer than other types of payments.
Also, if possible, contact the cashier (instead of using an ATM) and “do not proceed with the transaction if your card encounters resistance when inserted”. The machine could have been hacked.
Use credit instead of debit
As long as you pay your card every month, try using credit instead of debit for better fraud protection. In the case of a loan, money does not “go away” until you pay the bill and you have more time to report fraudulent transactions if this happens. With a debit card, it takes longer to get money back after it has already been spent.
This includes connecting a credit card to your virtual wallet, not a debit card.
And set up text alerts and other notifications when your cards are in use. EMV cards are more secure than old cards and signatures, but you still want to be proactive with your financial security.