Check it out, you're invalid.

***Update***

As happens as time passes, practices change. It is now recommended not to sign one's card by many consumer protection agencies. Since this store does not accept cards without ID to back it up, we're in the clear with establishing valid use of the card. It looks like card companies have not yet found the standardized replacement for the increasingly inconvenient strip though things like "Paypass" are becoming increasingly popular. So "See ID" to your little heart's content.

I think debit and credit cards have reached the point of cultural saturation whereupon no one stops to pay much attention to them anymore. It drives me round the bloody bend in the twinkling of an embossed hologram.

Very few people bother to sign the damned things it seems. It's a pretty common occurrence for me to politely ask if they'll sign their card for me while I'm ringing them up should that be their desired method of payment. Granted, a fair portion will sign their card with that one quiet prompting, but not all.

I especially love those people that will scribble "C I D" or "See ID" on their card's signature strip instead of signing. Never mind that the card is printed unambiguously with "card not valid without signature" or variant thereof. I don't care if they have a Drivers License, passport, Official State Administered "My name is ..." tattoo across their forehead and branded by a Notary Public. You see, the card doesn't say it isn't valid without matching ID. It doesn't say anything about identity beyond the one imprinted across the front underneath the card number. Verily it requires a signature. Why pray tell would that matter? Because the card is legal document and contract. You couldn't close a loan scrawling "C I D" at the bottom. You could not give someone power of proxy with a line of "Check ID" on the line at the bottom. Just because it's plastic and pocket-size, credit/debit cards are very much the same type of document.

The other group are those who've worn or scraped off the signature strip to the card surface. Know what? When that strip erodes off, it reveals a band that repeats a very important word; void. In short, that means the card is toast when the strip degrades far enough, regardless of whether the imprinted expiration date has arrived or not. In fact, this is a designed phenomenon. It's intended to keep someone from nicking your cards, erasing your signature, and applying their own version as doing so will destroy the card.

Now call me picky, but I get a bit testy about accepting an invalid card for a purchase. It just seems to gibber and howl about biting me on the ass at some point. Too many places are cavalier about checking the card against ID as it is. It makes no sense to me neither to disregard the other security measures in place nor to trifle with the ToS of very large, wealthy corporations with highly paid, targeted lawyers.

I'm outta here.