Every time you make a credit card purchase, they're supposed to match your signature against the one on the back of your card. Nobody seems to check anymore, so I tried to see how far I could push it...
Sadly, with the rise of chip-and-PIN, such a scam would be more challenging in the UK now.
A couple of weeks ago the card reader at my local Sainsbury's bounced my debit card for no apparent reason. The checkout girl asked me to sign an authorisation, then checked the signature with the one on the back of the card. Unfortunately, having signed in stress and haste, I had not fully underlined my signature in the usual way on the final stroke of the signature and she refused to accept it. Luckily I had my photo ID driving licence on me which agreed with the debit card, and she let me complete the purchase. I suppose I ought to be glad she did check, but it does show how fraught an attempt to check identity is, even with a "real" signature!
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