Are signatures required or not?

[MannaMeadows]

I've just started going down the rabbit hole of Square's updated Terms and conditions that they sent via email today.  In the Payment Processing Terms there is the following statement:

"29. Receipts

You need to offer a receipt for transactions greater than $15, and you need to request that customers sign for transactions greater than $25.

You will request that your customer personally sign for all transactions greater than $25 when your customer is present. You must make a written receipt available to your customers for any transaction greater than $15. You may give your customers the option to receive or decline a written receipt."

Since Square offered the option, and I believe automatically turned off signature collection, there appears to be a contradiction of their Terms.

Should I be turning signature collection back on?

[crystalimages]

My assumption is they didn't update the terms, or left it in there to cover themselves. 
This article from square.com/support says the following:

Disable Signatures for Payments

(Click to see full article)

Card Providers don’t require signatures for Dip, Tap and Swipe payments in the US and Canada. To help speed up your checkout experience, the Square app allows you to disable customer signatures for all card payments. Starting in April 2021, Square will automatically disable signature collection for Sellers who are still collecting signatures on devices.

Additionally, signatures are not essential to win chargebacks, and not collecting signatures will not affect your processing rates. Disabling signatures will make your checkout experience even faster and safer — and just as secure for you and your customers. To enable or disable your signature settings:

I believe this is a relatively new development, especially after Covid and reducing contact by touching/signing. 

Most people don't sign as they did on their card anyway, so signatures rarely match up.

[Donnie-M · Accepted solution]

@MannaMeadows @crystalimages A lot of this has to do with the EMV shift.  Signature or not, if a customer has a chip card it needs to be dipped or tapped for you to have fraud protection.  Swiped cards or keyed transactions do not have the same protection since the industry wide change and liability shift.

From what I have seen, if someone doesn't have a chip card, which are very few and far between now, you just are not gonna be protected the same.  But for chip tap, dip, you do not need signatures.

[alexandriak]

This is my understanding as well