John's Journal

The Credit Card Prank, Part V

Nobody checks credit card signatures anymore. So I recently decided to try an experiment: how wacky could I make my signature before someone would call me on it? And, more importantly, could I draw out the joke for an entire week's worth of columns?

Here's my regular signature, which looks like it was drawn by an epileptic ferret:

Having tried every wacky signature I could think up, next I went to the ZUG audience for suggestions. Many folks said they wrote "PLEASE CHECK ID" on the back of their credit cards, but what if I tried writing that on the credit card receipt itself?

See, it's the line at the end that fooled the supermarket clerk into thinking it was a signature. You put the line at the end, you can forge anything.

ZUG reader Jellytot said:

I signed a credit card receipt "Mickey Mouse" in Disneyland once because I was fed up with not having the signature checked. I never paid for the item. I still don't know what happened, it just never showed up on my statement.

I signed this bookstore purchase "Porky Pig," but I did have to pay for it. So maybe that trick only works in Disneyland.

Finally, ZUG reader Chouggy suggested:

Try signing the slip as: I stole this card.

I'm thinking of changing my name to "I Stole This Card." It's got a nice ring to it, and boy, wouldn't my mom be confused when I sent her a Mother's Day card?

So there you have it. Nobody cares how you sign your credit card receipts, so go nuts, everybody. Just don't sign my name. When MasterCard finally reads this, I'm going to be in enough trouble as it is.

Thursday, May 09, 2002

The Credit Card Prank, Part IV

Nobody checks credit card signatures anymore, and yet we still have to sign every time we charge something. So as an experiment, I've been trying to see how wacky I can make my signature before someone will call me on it.

Here's my regular signature, which looks like it was drawn by a weasel on crack:

So far, I had tried altering my signature in a number of ways, but what if I didn't even sign my own name? First, I lobbed a slow ball:

The waitress at the restaurant didn't say anything, probably because I am mistaken for Mariah Carey all the time. Except for the goatee and the back hair, we are like twins.

Next I decided to try:

The composer or the dog; you decide. I cheated on this one, leaving it on the table and high-tailing it out of there. I expected a phone call from someone, maybe Beethoven's Hollywood agent, but once again I discovered that no one cared. Except, possibly, Lassie, who could use the publicity.

Drunk with power, I signed this on my next grocery shopping trip:

I think that's a somewhat effiminate signature for the leader of the gods, but I was in a hurry. The kid at the Trader Joe's looked strangely at the receipt, then back up at me, as if to say, "Are you really him?" I trucked out of there before he could ask, and in my haste to escape, nearly ran over an eight year-old standing in the doorway. I apologized, which was a dead giveaway, since the real Zeus would have just fried the kid with lightning. I'm such a fake Zeus.

Tomorrow: your suggestions!

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

The Credit Card Prank, Part III

This week, I've been complaining about still having to sign for credit card transactions when no one checks the signature. As an experiment, I've been trying to see how wacky I can make my signature before someone will call me on it.

Here's my regular signature, which looks like it was drawn by an unusually talented chicken:

Next I tried the old standby, "X." I was kind of nervous about this one, and had a long story prepared about how I had recently been involved in a motorcycle accident, and during my sixteen months in traction had only been able to sign with an X, a signature which grew on me. At the last minute, I chickened out and added an additional squiggly. I don't know why I was concerned; I was just buying a beer at Jillian's.

Signing X, incidentally, is not a bad idea -- it's quick and easy, and if someone wants you to "sign on the X," it's already signed.

Then just last night, I took a suggestion from ZUG reader Nutbutter, and tried signing with a stick figure. Before the server came back to my table, though, I decided it looked too lonely, so I tried drawing a little landscape. I forgot that I have the artistic ability of a piece of toast. (That thing that looks like a penis is supposed to be a flower.)

Finally, I know of no law that says your signature has to be in your own alphabet. So I found a website which converted my name to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Although "John Hargrave" was too long to remember, "John" was just snake, bird, caterpillar:

The counter clerk at the salon was busy with a phone call, and didn't notice. On my way out the door, I realized it would have been funnier if I had signed it "Ra." Which got me to thinking: what if I didn't even sign with my own name? The results will surprise you: tomorrow!

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

The Credit Card Prank, Part II

After my rant yesterday about why we still have to sign credit card receipts when no one checks the signatures, ZUG reader Fronzel Neekburm shared this anecdote:

I don't sign my credit cards. Once I went to check into a hotel and the girl checked the back of the card and said it wasn't signed. I signed it there in front of her, and she checked it with the register receipt I also signed in front of her. THANK GOD THEY MATCHED!

For the past few weeks, I have been seeing how wacky I can make my signature before someone will pay attention. As I pointed out yesterday, my signature already looks like that of a homeless clown:

So first, I decided to get a little artistic.

Then I decided to get wicked artistic.

You have no idea how strange it is to have the teenage counter clerk at Bertucci's watching you scribble fiercely on a piece of paper, as if you wished to purge the evil that is your signature. Then I smiled and handed him back his pen.

Next time I bought something that required a signature, I considered just creating a rectangle of solid black. Then I thought a grid might be weirder:

Only the most Matrix-obsessed fanboy would actually use a grid for his signature, but the chick at the Cheesecake Factory didn't look twice. I mean, I didn't even have on a trenchcoat.

What if I went the other way? How minimal would my signature have to be before someone would notice? The answer: tomorrow!

Monday, May 06, 2002

In my lifetime, I have made nearly 15,000 credit card transactions. I purchase almost everything on plastic, paying off my bill at the end of each month to avoid fees. (For credit card companies, the worst kind of customer is a financially responsible customer.)

I am willing to completely sacrifice my privacy, as well as make myself easily trackable should I ever commit a murder and need to go underground, by using my credit card. What bugs me about credit card transactions is the signing. Who checks the signature? Nobody checks the signature. In the 15,000 transactions I've made, I was only questioned on the signature once, and that was because I was in fact using someone else's card illegally (in college, I sometimes used my father's card to buy gas). The cashier asked to see my driver's license, and when the signature on that matched the signature on the receipt, she approved it, which makes no sense. But what was she going to do, call the Signature Police? (In Italy, they're called the Signatori.) Face it: cashiers wouldn't know what to do with a fraudulent signature.

Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, like airport security checks. Here's proof: in some places (including, ironically, the airport), they don't even make you sign anymore, as shown on the receipt at right. When my wife's credit cards were stolen a few weeks ago, a story I wrote about here, it took about 20 minutes to resolve, and the credit card companies reimbursed us for everything. Kids, if you're going to steal, then steal credit cards, because the only people who get hurt are the credit card companies ... and they probably deserve it anyway.

So the idea for this week's prank was how crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice? Here is the actual signature on my credit card:

You can see that I already have the signature of a monkey on crack. Here is the way it looks when I don't have to sign in a space one-quarter of an inch high:

I am an arteest, and my signature must reflect that. But how arteestic can I get before someone will notice? Tune in tomorrow for the shocking results.