In Germany, payments with signature are legally just a direct debit (that's the small contract you sign on the bill, the reason there's so much text on there).

In Germany, payments with signature are legally just a direct debit (that's the small contract you sign on the bill, the reason there's so much text on there). If the card was stolen, the merchant takes the risk. The account holder can get the money refunded for a very long time (think 3 months but at least several weeks after the monthly statement). Most stores have an automatic system where they require pin if a payment has bounced before and in random intervals. But using the direct debit system instead of PIN is so much cheaper that even higher fraud rates don't matter much.