Should You Sign the Back of Your Credit Card?

One of the first things that you are supposed to do after activating a new credit card is to sign the back of the credit card. Surprisingly, a large percentage of people fail to do this. Either they don’t sign the card at all because they think that it doesn’t matter or they choose to write “see ID” on the back of the card because they believe that this will protect them from identity theft. In both cases, the individual is incorrect. It remains fairly important that you sign the back of your credit card despite the fact that a lot of people are choosing not to do so.

There are two things that take place when you choose to sign the back of your credit card. The first is that you may reduce the risk of identity theft because you have placed your correct signature on the credit card. Many people believe that they are protecting themselves by choosing to write “see ID” on the card instead. Their belief is that a merchant will then ask to see ID and will make sure that you are really you based on your photo identification rather than just a random signature on the back of the card.

Some merchants do indeed ask for ID if your card isn’t signed. But did you know that they aren’t actually supposed to do this? Visa and Mastercard both have rules that prevent a merchant from accepting a card that isn’t properly signed. Moreover, they have rules that say that merchants are not required (and sometimes aren’t even allowed) to request additional identification from you. This means that your choice to put the “See ID” signature on the back of your credit card could cause problems for the merchant and isn’t likely to protect you from identity theft in any significant way.

What would be the reason that credit card companies wouldn’t want you to use “See ID” instead of your signature on your credit cards? Well there are a number of reasons but one is because of the second thing that happens when you sign the back of your credit card. This signature confirms that you accept the credit card and that you agree to all of the terms and conditions of the credit card. Of course, you’ve done the same thing on your credit card application but this is another place where that contract gets sealed.

So, is it important to make sure that you sign the back of your credit card? You should definitely make sure that something is there rather than just a blank line because failure to include the signature could increase your risk of identity theft to some degree. And you shouldn’t use “see ID” because of the problems that it creates for the merchant and the fact that you technically aren’t supposed to use a card that says this. So yes, it’s important that you sign the back of your card as soon as you have activated it if you want to make sure that you are using it properly.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Card Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.