Wow. That's really surprising.
I haven't had to sign for a purchase in years. In fact the last time I did it, the idea of a squiggle being any kind of verification felt dodgy.
I can't read the rest of the article but they mention the duopoly of Visa and MasterCard (and I guess Amex is the only other issuer?) causing a stagnation.
Is that changing?
I feel so uneasy using my card when eating out in America vs Europe.
(everyone signing for card payments did also seemed weird at the time as, while there was no contactless back then, we'd been 100% chip-and-pin in Europe for some time, but I think that was a more well-known oddity of the US)
Is there actually any (pre-)authorization going on? My impression is as long as they have your card number, they can charge you whenever they want, the only deterrence being not committing fraud. Once I dined at a local restaurant (in the U.S.) and only realized I forgot to bring my wallet after the meal. I wrote down my credit card number and that was it.
For those who don’t know, in the US it works like this: a paper receipt is brought, which you write a tip amount on in pen and then sign. The total is then manually entered into the computer later on. Absolutely medieval technology.
It varies significantly depending on which European country you are talking about (we have massive social variations across our 30 or so countries), and then on factors within each country, down to the policy of specific pubs/restaurants and pub/restaurant chains.
In the UK, I've seen at least two specific cases (I don't eat out very much, even before the pandemic). These are: the waiter hands you a device where you can enter a tip as an amount or just click through to the final payment, OR the waiter themselves enters the final amount - without a tip - and then just hands you the device to press 'OK'. They will add a tip if you ask them in time. I haven't signed a card receipt for years.
Went into a gas station, bought an age restricted item. Was not ID’d. I end up having to replace my debit card multiple times per year sometimes because of fraudulent charges, etc. and can never keep track of my PIN. So I ask the cashier to process it as credit. He suddenly started asking for ID and wanted to record it. I’m guessing it was some sort of anti fraud measure but it was somewhat awkward.
Diners Club is also a thing.
My understanding is it's pretty tough to compete with the big guys in this market because you need to build out a huge network of vendors who accept your card for it to be useful to customers.