On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Anne & Lynn Wheeler <l...@garlic.com>wrote:
> t...@harminc.net (Tony Harminc) writes: > > I'm not sure why this offends you so much. How would it help anything > > if the cashier checked your signature? Such checking is highly > > unreliable, and contributes much less to authentication than does the > > data they already know about the transaction. > > at one point, a large merchant looked at automatically discarding all > signed receipts ... since they found that even if they automatically > settled all disputes in the favor of the customer ... those dispute > costs were still less than what they were paying (even in electronic > from) to retain all the signed receipts. The idea was abandoned when > somebody asked what might happen if the public found out that the > merchant was no longer retaining the signed receipts. > Every state has laws regarding the retention of data related to the conduct of business. The amount of time is typically 3 to 7 years. No keeping the receipts (or copies thereof) could create legal problems as well. > > for the most part ... merchant associations don't like the idea of > clerks having to be involved in the authentication process ... partly > because they have little or no training ... partly because they have > little or no authority ... and partly because clerks tend to already > have more than enough to deal with. > > in general, merchants also don't like signature debit ... since the > interchange fees (merchant discount fees, the subtracted from the total > for actual paying to the merchant) are much higher > > there have been various disputes about the whole signature debit > operation ... latest is: > > Best Buy Cuts off Visa Contactless with Little Risk to Sales > http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2418 > > above mentions problem with it being signature debit interchange > fees. somewhat older article ... > > Study: Signature Debit Fraud Runs 15 Times Higher Than on PIN Debit > http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=738 > > part of the interchange fee is supposedly related to fraud level of the > corresponding kind of transaction ... and there can be more than an > order-of-magnitude difference (in interchange fee) between the > transactions with lowest fraud and transactions with highest fraud. > > Past merchant class action lawsuit (sometimes referred to as the > "Wal-Mart" case) over the high cost of signature debit cards: > > MasterCard Puts the 13-Year-Old Wal-Mart Case in the Rear-View Mirror > http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2256 > > -- > 40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since > Mar1970 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO > Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
