To Sign or Not to Sign: Why Your Signature Has Become Obsolete
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Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, October 15th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. In the era of swiping and tapping, your signature has become virtually meaningless. But the rules for putting your name on the dotted line aren't always clear.
Sometimes you're signing, sometimes you're not. So some businesses have more updated point of sale systems. You might be used to seeing those toast or square pads where you can make your purchase on. In those types of things, businesses can actually choose to not have the signature portion as part of the transaction.
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter Oyen Adedoyan after the break.
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For centuries, someone's signature was like a final official stamp on things like contracts and documents. But your signature may now be obsolete. Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter Oyen Adedoyin joins me. Oyen, when did signatures become meaningless?
Well, signatures, at least in the day-to-day sense for things like shopping at the grocery store or buying a drink, are not as relevant today. And they haven't been relevant at least in the last couple decades, actually. Once upon a time, merchants used to have to collect your card information manually and imprint those numbers onto a piece of carbon paper when you made a transaction.
I'm old enough to remember that.
Oh, you remember that? Well, yeah, they used to use these devices called knuckle busters, I think. Do you remember those?
Oh, with the bar that you ran across the carbon paper back and forth.
Why are signatures still being collected at restaurants and stores when payments are electronic?
Exactly. And the signature in that case was really important because we didn't have an electronic way to authorize that transaction. And so when someone would sign it, you were also supposed to look to make sure that that signature matched the signature on file for that account. Today, A merchant can easily swipe a card or accept a tap to pay, and that goes to the bank immediately, and that charge can be authorized.
But the signature was proof that someone agreed to a purchase. How are the merchants working around that?
In 2018, the major payment networks, including Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express announced that merchants no longer needed to collect signatures when it came to purchases. They even encouraged individual consumers that they didn't have to sign the back of their cards anymore. That's because technology has advanced so much when it comes to payments. There are chips that are embedded in our credit cards and debit cards that secure those transactions. And there are pin codes now associated with the purchase. So whenever a customer buys something, they can press a three or four digit code that also secures that transaction. All of these advancements are making the signature essentially obsolete.
And yet many people insist on signing almost everything. Is that just a habit that's hard to break?
Exactly. It's one of those weird things that's lingered around for years, and people are so used to doing it that old habits die hard. Even for some merchants, they don't have to include the signature line.
Are there rules for when a signature is required and when isn't?
That's what makes it so confusing, right? Sometimes you're signing, sometimes you're not. And the interesting thing here is that it really depends a lot on technology. So some businesses have more updated point of sale systems, right? You might be used to seeing those toast or square pads where you can make your purchase on in those types of things.
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