Tom Achtenberg wrote:

> Then there are all the people who do telephone or internet purchases and pay at the pump for gas.  No signature on any of those transactions so a signed card cannot be a requirement of the merchant agreement.  I've even had many in person purchases lately that did not require me to sign the charge slip.
> 
Telephone and internet sales are (in my case) specifically covered in my 
merchant agreement. I would assume there would be some agreement that 
gas stations have regarding at the pump sales - which are extremly 
convenient. My Novus (Discover Card) agreement states that I need to 
require two forms of ID if your card isn't signed and one of those must 
be a photo ID and I have to tell you to sign it (the card) immediately.
Most cards have Valid Signature printed somewhere near the signature 
box. Some even have language that states the card is not valid unless 
signed and per my merchant agreement I can't take an invalid card...
catch 22.

Some other not quite by-the-rules things that merchants do:
Require a minimum charge- not allowed in any merchant agreement that I 
have seen. Visa MasterCard and Discover can all terminate your agreement.
Multiple slips for the same sale. My agreement states that each sale 
will be on one slip. Visa will probably not hold this against Best Buy 
if they truly split the sale as was suggested earlier, but they could.

As far as merchants not checking the signature box against the card... 
all you have to do is tell your credit card issuer that you dispute the 
charge and they will ask the merchant for the slip with your signature 
validating the sale. If the merchant can't come up with it (or something 
along the lines of your signature is already on file) then the card 
issuer will back charge the merchant.

Bottom line (I will restate my earlier point) is that the clerks, sales 
people etc. probably have no idea what is in the Merchant Agreement 
which leads to behavior as you have described: no signature check and 
Check ID being accepted. Truthfully, I would probably just check the ID 
as requested, perhaps noting that the card is not technically valid per 
my agreement (although that might get me into other trouble ;))
I think you would agree that this is probably just another one of those 
times when all the rules aren't followed. As long as no-one protests 
(out of the merchant, the customer, or the card processor) it is 
unlikely that some would even know they were breaking their contract. 
The first time that merchant gets a Charge Back due to lax procedures, 
the rules will change.


At any rate, this is probably long in the tooth for the list. I would be 
more than happy to continue this discussion off list if you choose. If 
not I will consider that we each have different points of view with 
reality being in there somewhere. Your experience with signatures and 
card use are most likely the closer to the real world than the Agreement 
that I have.

Patrick