When you go to buy something to a shop and use a credit card, generally you provide all the necessary details to make a transaction, and the transaction is made without a good signature checks. Hence the idea how to hoard bank card data.

Not a good idea, perhapts that's one of the reasons why in Japan people still mainly use cash and avoid credit cards.
-- Inyuki, Jan 09 2010

Is this true? I heard in some places there is a surcharge on paper currency, making it more thrifty to use a card.
-- ShaneSezWhat, Jan 09 2010


I don't understand. Are you suggesting that we should revert to signature checks instead of chip-and-pin?

Or are you suggesting that tills (do you mean card readers?) should be adapted to download the magnetic stripe data so that shop owners can defraud customers?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 09 2010


Anybody can take a credit transaction simply by establishing a merchant banking account with the major credit transactors (visa etc.). Then, if not blessed with digital equipment, they may take what is called an "imprint" of the card signed by the cardholder. At this point the imprint may be manually input into a machine or deposited directly at the bank as a check is. This anachronistic approach is due to the fact that credit cards are the direct descendants of account cards which were metal plates with your account information on them that retailers could use to print checks for you. This is also why the information on a credit card is embossed. So, in conclusion: Whatever your idea is, it is nothing new.
-- WcW, Jan 09 2010



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