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Comment by stronglikedan | Hacker News Reader

> I think I've had that happen exactly once in my life.

Heck, back when you had to hand over your card for the cashier to swipe it, I'd write "check id" on the card's signature line, and I had maybe three people total ever ask me for my ID.

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> I'd write "check id" on the card's signature line

That's actually a violation of the cardholder agreement, FYI.

So is leaving it blank, but from many years working retail I can attest this is the defacto state of most credit cards. For what it's worth I have "Please verify ID :)" written next to my signature on mine.

A store I worked at rejected any transaction over $1,000 with “See ID”.

Verification better than signature rejected because REASONS.

Brought to you by the same geniuses behind "security by mother's maiden name" and VbV/3dS

Yes - reason being it’s not a signature and chargebacks happened.

This was a long time ago btw.

But only recently - it was common advice in the 90s to try to get people to use photo ID

It was against the agreement then, too (but commonly advised anyway). It is probably against merchant agreements to accept a card that is unsigned as well.

What's the thread model here? You lost your card/it was stolen, but you haven't noticed and canceled it yet? Isn't it more likely that your card data is scraped up in a data breach or something, in which case your card is still in your wallet? Even if it was very recently lost/stolen, you're not liable for illegitimate charges as long as you report them promptly, so wouldn't it be better to just keep track of your cards?

I still do that on all my cards. About once every few months, I run across someone who does actually, check and then I thank them for asking.

I did the same, and it worked maybe 5 times :)

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