For those who are interested, this is what I am told is one of the original reasons for inventing the CVV value. Back in the olden days credit card transactions

For those who are interested, this is what I am told is one of the original reasons for inventing the CVV value. Back in the olden days credit card transactions were processed and verified by taking an impression of the card and the raised numbers on the front of the card. To prevent merchants, and/or employees of those merchants from taking credit card numbers off of the impressions and using them to make over the phone transactions (or any transaction where the card is not physically present), the CVV value was created. This is why the CVV value is printed on the back of the card, or if it's on the front of the card then it's not printed on raised type, so that the CVV number will never show up on credit card impressions. This is why the CVV number is often referred to as the "credit card not present" number, and is usually required when making transactions where the card is not physically present to the merchant.