Credit Cards Blog

Good afternoon my loyal readers. Once again it is time for a flawless blog from yours truly. However, today is a very special day for all of you. The occasion is.....(drum roll)..... I am in a great mood. I ate a lunch that was fit for a king, its nice and sunny out, and tonight I am going to see Bruno. Soooo, I thought today I would spare you of the usual boring life lessons about credit cards. Although my lessons are very important, I think today we all deserve a break. Today, sit back relax and enjoy.

As I was doing my usual research, I came across a story that caught my eye. It was titled, "The Credit Card Prank." Naturally, as today's topic is credit cards, I was drawn to it. This story tells the tale of a man with a very simple question. "How crazy would I have to make my credit card receipt signature before someone would actually notice?" I thought this was a brilliant question. I recently have been asking myself a few similar questions, like what is the purpose of signing your receipt? Is it just to make you feel more secure? The main question that this article aimed to address is, does anyone really check the signature? I was very curious to see if a few of my questions would be answered by this story.

To warn everyone up front, the article I read was much more entertaining because each one of the authors original receipts were posted within the article. This means that each signature was visible to readers, which caused me to laugh out loud numerous times.

To start off, the authors normal signature is not what you would call "good penmanship." However, he admits this numerous time throughout the article. His first deviant signature went the way of artistic flavor. It was still his name, just an artistic way of writing it. The next signature was what you would call massive scribbling. The following receipt signature was a rectangular grid, the length of the signature line. Needless to say, no one saw his "signature" as a problem.

After he got away with this, things began to get a little crazy. His next credit card purchase was signed with just an X on the line. He was prepared with an elaborate story about a motorcycle crash to back up his signature but it was not needed. The following purchase was signed with a stick figure, some grass, and a tiny little flower that closely resembled a picture from a kindergarten arts and crafts session. He then started to get creative and found his name written in hieroglyphics on the Internet. Without hesitation, he signed his salon receipt with a sketched drawing of a snake, a bird, and a caterpillar. Hey, at least it was his own name.....

To cap this all off, he began to resort to tactics that would almost definitely get him caught. The next meal receipt he signed Mariah Carey on the signature line in very girly handwriting. This is where I lost it and began to laugh out loud. Next was Beethoven followed closely behind by Zeus and "Check ID" brought up the caboose. Is someone checking this? Anyone? Hello???? In his final attempt to see if credit card receipt signatures were monitored, he printed in legible handwriting, "I stole this card."

I'm sure at this point none of you are surprised by the fact that nothing was ever done about these "signatures." I guess we all are aware now that a signature after a credit card purchase is literally pointless. Sooo, next time you grab the pen to sign away another credit charge, have a little fun with it!