Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 20, 2024

And later someone else sees the receipt with “Annoying Guy” written on it and says, “Oh, was Rat here?”

The FBI hands out special pens to bars and restaurants. The pens contain a hidden camera, fingerprint reader, and DNA collector.

The only real reason for the signature is to validate the tip. If you don’t sign it, they can still charge you the base cost.

I googled this. It feels like I remember signing a credit card receipt years ago. It says Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover dropped the requirement in 2018

“And just make a mark here where it says ‘I am not a robot’.”

What I wonder about is when they want you to sign on an electronic pad, but they don’t have a pen for the pad. They just tell me to use my finger. It never looks anything like my signature with a pen.

Hubby sent a check to his aunt and signed it Santa Claus. Her bank cashed it.

Sign? That’s all rather last century, dear chap! Over here in Olde England I just touch my card to the reader for any purchase up to £100 ($125). Above that I have to insert my card and enter a PIN. I haven’t written a cheque this millennium either…

Rats FULL name- You Dirty Rat

Checking out at the store and the cashier said: It’s over $100 so we need your signature. So pleas draw a smiley face or whatever you want on the pad.

Funny that we still call them cashiers when they rarely deal with cash. ;-)

When you have to sign (which is not so often – like it used to be), it’s amazing – actually sad what they will accept as a signature. If a scribble is good enough, what’s the point?

It sure is.

The pharmacist pointed to the electronic pad and said “please sign there.”

So, I signed “There”

I was asked to leave…

I use a credit card to buy batteries. That way, they come charged.

No, there is no central authority somewhere checking signatures on receipts to see if they match your handwriting. It is a remnant of the 20th century. I usually just draw a little cat face on there.

Pause for a moment and reflect on how we got civilization at all. Every improvement we see, every convenience we take for granted, every bit of knowledge we all benefit from, started with somebody asking “Why?”.

Wondering when was the last time a potential thief was using a stolen credit card & when they were asked to sign suddenly panicked…. “OH NOEZ! Curses! Foiled again!”

That describes Rat perfectly.

I agree with Pig. Rat can be very annoying.

Now you are most commonly asked if you even want a receipt. Unless the card reader has a charge amount confirmation screen I am now in the habit of requesting a printed receipt so I can verify the final charges before leaving the establishment. I welcome “signing” the printed receipt. If I am incorrectly charged, it’s on me….literally.

Whatever. It isn’t Rat’s credit card, anyway.

Definitely with Pig on this one.

While I agree with the comments, we used to have a small business. When a charge was contested by the customer we had to supply a copy of the signed receipt or the card company would find against us and refund their money. BTW: It was always that the customer forgot their purchase with us, the card company eventually cleared the transaction.

Be sure to press hard. You are making 5 copies! Oh, and if you used a credit card for gas, they wanted you to put your license plate number under your signature.

Yep, sign it as “Uncooperative Rat.”

I just finished my Winter Concert yesterday! It went great!

In the early days we placed the credit card on a special carbon paper and ran a roller over the card to imprint the info on the paper, then the customer signed that paper and received the carbon copy. Look how far we’ve come, just use your phone now.

Or sign on an digital screen that is illegible

Lots of places , you just have to tap the card.

About a month ago I asked a merchant how long they have to hold onto those receipts we all had to sign to prove that the signatures were valid. He admitted it was a couple of months, then they could throw them out. I think most businesses would rather not bother with signatures if they didn’t have to, either.

Dr office and hospitals are great places to catch diseases

I volunteer as a poll worker. Voters must sign twice, once on paper, and once on a tablet. The tablet also stores their historical signature, which I compare to the ones they just did. I can attest that people really do sign in clearly recognizable ways, even when it’s just a scribble!

NEENER NEENER NEENER! Does this bother you? I’m not touching you. [singing] A million bottles of coke on the wall, a million bottles of coke! Take one down, pass it around, 999,999 bottles of coke on the wall. 999,999 bottles of coke on the wall…

I’ve been signing everything as Mickey Mouse since around 2000 just to see if anything will happen…so far Nothing.

When I do this, I keep the pen if I like its artwork.

It doesn’t matter really. Once your card is scanned, or tapped. or whatever, your money is gone, signed or not.

I’m patiently waiting for them to just read my thoughts

On the back of my CC signature line, I printed CHECK ID. I can count on one hand the times they did…

X marks the jerk.

I recall a story similar to this from back in the day. It was about how a young cashier was completing a credit card transaction for a customer. She noticed that the customer had not signed the back of his card, which was necessary for validating the identity of the customer. Pointing this out to the customer, she watched as he signed it. She then compared that signature to the one on the credit receipt he had just signed. She was satisfied once she confirmed that they matched.

How will people sign in the future when we don’t teach cursive anymore?

Instead of “guy”, change to “a$$hole”

If it comes to a dispute the bank can compare the signage they have in their papers and prove that it’s always „annoying guy“.

Another reason for higher prices! Thieves steal your card, or card info, make purchases, you dispute- reimbursed – seller reimbursed, CC companies lose. So they have insurance to cover losses – those premiums go to fees, sellers pay higher fee to accept the card, raise costs to cover fee, CC users pay more for the privilege of using the card.

Haven’t signed one of those in 20 years. Who still does? Is it a US thing?

Just be glad they’re not making full use of modern technology. Otherwise we’d be routinely wasting half an hour trying to get a cantankerous machine to recognize a fingerprint or facial scan.