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Comment by coderaptor | Hacker News Reader

Most payment gateways provide no name-based authorization - a fake name will work just fine.

Kind of like electronic signatures at stores. You can draw a cat face at one place and a penis in another. Never really understood the point of them.

Same with paper signatures. A signature isn't supposed to rigidly identify you, it is supposed to provide evidence that you signed the document / agreed to the contract. It's a subtle distinction.

Having signatures match is just one straightforward kind of evidence that you agreed to the contract.

Yea, but they reduce to saying that someone was present and agreed to the contract. I've ordered things online, don't receive them, and the courier tells me it was delivered and signed for. I don't know who agreed. Nobody is going to investigate the curves on the signature.

I am curious though which biometrics will eventually replace the signature, especially with so many transactions online where I can spend thousands of dollars without signing anything.

Then why the farce of matching your signature with the signature on the back of the credit card? Or if you don't sign the credit card, asking for an ID? It always makes me laugh when the high school student making minimum wage checks my signature. Do they all need to be certified signature experts before getting a job as a cashier?

Do people still check the signature? I haven't had one on any of my cards for at least five years nor do I sign receipts with my name; nobody has ever questioned me or asked for ID.

Alive and well in my home town, admittedly outside of the city.

Me neither - in 10 years, only one girl in a mall validated my sig with the one on the card. It was in a huge outlet "village".

Cashiers are not supposed to check that the signatures match, they are supposed to check that the card is signed. A credit card is not a valid form of payment unless it is signed on the back. "See ID" is not a valid signature BTW. Cashiers who see that are supposed to direct the cardholder to actually sign the card before charging it.

Strange, I believe I tried that after receiving a bunch of gift cards for Christmas -- I even tried entering in the exact title that's below the CC number on the card, but had no luck.

That's a different issue, namely address verification. You can sometimes log-in to the issuers site or call and give an address (can be fake, just needs to be something you remember) and then use that address on whatever online form you're trying to use. It will pass AVS and you're good to go.

http://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/prepaid/gift-cards... http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/gift_card_faq.htm...

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