What's the liability on a stolen Laser card?

[Sarah]

Be careful entering your pin number into the bank links. My friend used her card on Monday and this morning she recieved a notice from her bank saying that her card had been scanned at the bank link so they were sending her out a new one and cancelled her old one. Just to let you know!!

 

[bacchus]

Yes - And they, the retailer will be liable for not checking that the signatures dont match. It's their responsiblity to do this.
This would be crazy. By not signing you are saying to the thief 'if you cant match my signature just sign here and it will always match'. In this case you will be liable for any loss as has been pointed out by a later poster.

elcato,
you quoted me out of context... i wrote

I have never signed at the back of any of my cards. This is the most ridiculous thing one can do . Why? by signing, you actually say to the potential thief "here is my card and here is how to use it. Happy shopping".
All my cards are written "Refer to ID" at the back. Downside, you always need to carry an ID with you...

so, there is no blank space for the thief to put his "signature".

 

[elcato]

Oh fair enough. Didn't think this could be done ? But seeing as your card doesn't have your picture on it all it does is make the thief actually get a fake ID and sign it himself. I still think a signature in front of someone would be harder to forge every transaction rather than just get fake ID. Ask any of the Junior cert students do they have any fake ID and they'll have plenty of them.

 

[bacchus]

Oh fair enough. Didn't think this could be done ? But seeing as your card doesn't have your picture on it all it does is make the thief actually get a fake ID and sign it himself. I still think a signature in front of someone would be harder to forge every transaction rather than just get fake ID. Ask any of the Junior cert students do they have any fake ID and they'll have plenty of them.

yop, but i would think that a lot of petty thiefs are opportunist and play against the clock... they will try to use the card as soon as it has been stolen and before the owner reports it to the bank, so that leave them very little time (few hours?) for forging an ID.
I think we all agree that relying on a simple signature is a very weak security system, and hopefully the PIN system will make thieves's life harder, and your card more secure....
The next step after PIN will be to have finger or eye recognition system... i am sure it will happen one day..

 

[elcato]

they will try to use the card as soon as it has been stolen and before the owner reports it to the bank, so that leave them very little time (few hours?) for forging an ID.

Agreed and agreed.