Credit card games

I usually forget to sign the back of my credit cards.  Or, with one of my cards — the one I use most frequently — the signature rubs off quickly.  Every now and then the card will be rejected because it doesn’t have my signature on it.  Or they will require ID.

I then offer to sign the card, but they never accept this possibility.  Hrrmph.

Could not a thief have signed a previously unsigned card before using it?  In fact I would expect precisely that behavior from a thief.  Wouldn’t a thief take more care to sign than would a lazy, careless card holder?  Upon seeing the unsigned credit card, their estimate of my honesty should go up not down (well, that’s not quite a stable equilibrium…).

I have wondered why it ever makes sense for cards to be signed.  If you sign a card and it is stolen, can they not forge your signature more rather than less easily?  (Imagine signing into one of those signature-reading machines.)  And if merchants were more rational, maybe the signature would carry no positive value in the first place.

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