I'd agree that this is slimy on the part of merchants. However, internet/mail order merchants in particular have next to no recourse to deal with chargebacks. Once a customer disputes a charge, it's up to the merchant to try to prove it was valid, and because the credit card industry lives in 1980, that means a signature.

If the customer didn't sign on delivery, the merchant loses. Collections/small claims court is the next step, and in my experience it's just not worth it. Note also that the merchant pays a fee when you dispute a charge, regardless of outcome.

For large orders, we email people a form to sign and fax back. This is annoying for customers, and we've lost orders because of it. But we've never had a chargeback on an order we've gotten a faxed signature on.

If a chargeback database existed and was reasonably-priced, I'd use it, even if it included people who just threatened chargeback (which, for a lot of people, is Step One). I wouldn't reject orders from chargebackers, but I'd require a signature for sure.

The glyphs seem to mean "Learn The Rule of Heaven." They're written right to left as old-timey inscriptions often are.

Here's the Wikipedia page (in Japanese):
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/學天則

Here are a bunch of images via Google Images:
http://images.google.com/images?q=学天則