On Sun, 10 Jun 2012, Joe Greco wrote:
One of the design goals of the V/MC system is that a cardholder is not supposed to need anything other than their card and the ability to sign.
This seems to be different across the world. Here in Sweden, they don't really look at your signature on the card, they look at the name on the card, name on the ID and the signature of the ID (which is pretty much required if you don't have PIN).
The comparison of the signature provided to the card signature is supposed to be one of the primary ways to validate a cardholder, but of course these days, most vendors are lazy and don't.
I've seen people verify the signature in France and in some asian countries. I don't travel much these days, so I don't know the situation in other countries.
then they should require it, but they cannot require it by default for all transactions they process.
That and a "minimum charge" are among the two most common merchant violations I see.
For MasterCard violations, report them!
Is that policy worldwide or just for the US? -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se