>>I had a checkbook stolen several years ago at the grocery store. I knew it was gone when I couldn't pay for the groceries. I immediately called the police and filed a report. The next morning I was at the bank closing the account. The crooks wrote checks for several high priced items...cameras, bikes, and other things. The merchants tried to come after me for non payment but I simply sent them a copy of the police report and I was done. Their fault for not getting ID.
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>Good point, Craig. Before the intro of "Chip 'n' PIN" not so long ago I was always appalled at the laxity of clerks when they took your payment card and never even glanced at your payment slip signature to check it matched that on the card.
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>I take it you have this service in the USA, whereby you type your PIN into a hand-held console. We were a bit late in intro'ing this, a few years ago, as the French had had it for years before us.
>...


Some places still ask you to sign. My current debit card is very worn (overuse I guess) the signature strip is completely worn off so you can just see the word void printed in the plastic. Places that ask me to sign have never queried it. One place that had chip and pin did query it.

Its about time we had decent biometrics. Fingerprint stored on the card and fingerprint readers at the point of use would be good. Still would be a problem with cardholder not present sales.

Nick