4 ms·

Good one. I think a signature these days mean that you claim to have read and understood the document — rather than authentication. After all, when was the la

Good one. I think a signature these days mean that you claim to have read and understood the document — rather than authentication. After all, when was the last time most of us signed a cheque?

glanzwulf 5y ago
4 years ago I was in India I had to pay my rent every month by cheque. Funny enough that was also when I first saw my first cheques, and also learned how to fill/sign them.
InitialLastName 5y ago
I had to do a second-factor authentication with my bank not too long ago. I had written a cheque for an unusual purchase; they called me and said "there was an issue with the signature check on a cheque you wrote" so I logged in, verified my identity and approved it manually. I assume that they only checked the signature because the payment was outside of my normal habits, because my signature is an inconsistent mess in the best of times (I sign about 10 cheques/year because reasons). The worst case for me is the stylus pads at checkouts. I can barely use those coherently when I'm not under pressure, so when there are people behind me in line and a cashier waiting for me to leave, the social anxiety kicks in and I get a pair of initials and some extra lines, at best.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  In many countries, a signature has a special legal meaning. Forging a signature is illegal, and your own signature, however badly written, even if it doesn't match, is considered legit. That allows companies to get any old doodle from you and it can be considered (part of evidence for) a legally binding agreement.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    That's why you write “I DO NOT ACCEPT THE TERMS” as your signature. (Obviously not when you're trying to accept a contract, though.)
- C19is20 5y ago
  I'd always heard (no evidence atm) that pin pads etc are designed to be uncomfortable to make forgery more difficult (proving that signatures are compared).
- flerchin 5y ago
  I just put a straight line on the stylus pad at checkouts. No one cares.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    Nobody has ever cared at checkouts, but my state requires that you use a stylus pad to enter your signature for your driver's license (it gets printed right on the card). In early 2020 I used my driver's license renewal as an opportunity to update my voting registration (I had just moved), and apparently that stylus pad signature ended up being my "check" signature for my vote-by-mail for the 2020 election. Of course, I had my ballot bounce and had to provide further identification, because there's no way I'm getting my signature from a stylus pad to match one on paper.
- robga 5y ago
  Whenever I have to put a signature, which is rare, I tell them I don’t have a signature. Because I don’t, really, not one I’d trust not to be faked. I haven’t used a signature on a debit/credit card for 20 years and it’s never once been challenged. It’s blank. The only ‘signatures’ I’ve provided have been on a mortgage, a marriage cert, and a passport. Because they insisted. I doubt they match. Decades since I’ve written a check. Maybe I’ve provided some scrawl on a bank account application? Little memory and I do a sort of Mr Messy drawing that I’d never be able to copy. I take the same approach with some online passwords since it’s easy enough to reset a Netflix password once than find it in a password app.
tokai 5y ago
Authenticate in this sense means to confirm legal validity or that a document is authoritative. Not that the document is an authentic document.
kevincox 5y ago
I had this issue trying to buy a house. My bank was refusing to do the transfer because they "couldn't authenticate my signature". It turns out that one specific signature on one of the signup documents becomes your canonical signature and they match large transfers against that. Of course this random signature half-way through a 30 page agreement was really lazy and didn't look much like my "real" signature (which they have dozens of copies of by now). I was sitting on my phone with bad connection during a camping trip trying to scribble a signature that looked like the magic reference signature (that I didn't know) so that my purchase didn't fall through. What a stupid way to authenticate people.
- Macha 5y ago
  Given I signed up for my primary bank account at age 14, it's more likely than not that my signature is nothing like whatever they kept from then. My handwriting has had over 10 years to deteriorate since I finished school and basically stopped handwriting anything that wasn't a signature.
- another-dave 5y ago
  I had some paperwork refused on my business account with Lloyds because it "didn't match the signature on file" — I went in to the bank with photo ID and got my stuff sorted and happened to ask "Can I see the signature that you have on file for me?" (because generally it doesn't change that much for me time-to-time) — it was a completely different person! Wasn't even my name. The cashier agreed with me that it _clearly_ wasn't my signature & "didn't know how it happened". I was in a big rush that day & no longer have the account, but I really regret not escalating it though.
- asdff 5y ago
  It's especially a stupid way when you don't even have a pen, in the case of DocuSign where you have to write something with a mouse. The vast majority of people just scribble a random shape since its impossible to pen your signature on a trackpad. A Phishermans dream I expect.
nmcfarl 5y ago
Five years ago I moved to eastern Oregon and I was shocked at the number of checks I had to start writing. The cleaning service and the car detailing service were cash or check only as was every vendor at the farmers market - which as small operations kind of makes sense. But so was the propane service, garbage service, the dump - and the electrical utility charged $36 a year to use an E-check (no credit cards accepted). I wrote a lot of checks.
- gtk40 5y ago
  The last place I rented (about 5 years ago), in a major metro area, my landlord would only accept a check from a local bank. I mostly used on-line bank accounts, but I had one account at a CU with a branch 30 minutes away. They would drive to the CU to deposit the check each month.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Most of the checks "I" write are actually written and delivered by my bank. That's the case with utilities, garbage, etc. But checks still are the easiest and most natural way to give a person or a service person money on the spot most of the time. I'll use Apple Pay or whatever if that's what someone wants but a check is easy and straightforward.
ghaff 5y ago
>After all, when was the last time most of us signed a cheque? Last week. I don't write a lot of checks but there are a fair number of service people, for example, where that's the standard way of paying them. Certainly my signature is just a scrawl at this point though.
kenjackson 5y ago
Absentee voting is a prominent example of authentication. Unfortunately, I've had my signature fail for voting in the past because I don't have a very consistent signature.
jdfellow 5y ago
I'm 31 years old and have never written a check in my life. I've never even bought a checkbook. If a card doesn't work, I use cash, or in a couple of edge cases I've used a cashier's check.
- mrexroad 5y ago
  Fascinating. I’m older, but not significantly, and I still end up writing a check every once every few months. Mostly related to kids’ activities.
tsomctl 5y ago
I have a neighbor with a car with no muffler. Half the neighborhood just signed a letter to his landlord with our complaint. It's pretty impressive to have an entire page full of signatures, each one completely different. It went from being a sterile document written by a lawyer, to something that has normal people behind it.

Good one. I think a signature these days mean that you claim to have read and understood the document — rather than authentication. After all, when was the last time most of us signed a cheque?

glanzwulf 5y ago

4 years ago I was in India I had to pay my rent every month by cheque. Funny enough that was also when I first saw my first cheques, and also learned how to fill/sign them.

InitialLastName 5y ago

I had to do a second-factor authentication with my bank not too long ago. I had written a cheque for an unusual purchase; they called me and said "there was an issue with the signature check on a cheque you wrote" so I logged in, verified my identity and approved it manually. I assume that they only checked the signature because the payment was outside of my normal habits, because my signature is an inconsistent mess in the best of times (I sign about 10 cheques/year because reasons). The worst case for me is the stylus pads at checkouts. I can barely use those coherently when I'm not under pressure, so when there are people behind me in line and a cashier waiting for me to leave, the social anxiety kicks in and I get a pair of initials and some extra lines, at best.

londons_explore 5y ago
In many countries, a signature has a special legal meaning. Forging a signature is illegal, and your own signature, however badly written, even if it doesn't match, is considered legit. That allows companies to get any old doodle from you and it can be considered (part of evidence for) a legally binding agreement.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  That's why you write “I DO NOT ACCEPT THE TERMS” as your signature. (Obviously not when you're trying to accept a contract, though.)
C19is20 5y ago
I'd always heard (no evidence atm) that pin pads etc are designed to be uncomfortable to make forgery more difficult (proving that signatures are compared).
flerchin 5y ago
I just put a straight line on the stylus pad at checkouts. No one cares.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  Nobody has ever cared at checkouts, but my state requires that you use a stylus pad to enter your signature for your driver's license (it gets printed right on the card). In early 2020 I used my driver's license renewal as an opportunity to update my voting registration (I had just moved), and apparently that stylus pad signature ended up being my "check" signature for my vote-by-mail for the 2020 election. Of course, I had my ballot bounce and had to provide further identification, because there's no way I'm getting my signature from a stylus pad to match one on paper.
robga 5y ago
Whenever I have to put a signature, which is rare, I tell them I don’t have a signature. Because I don’t, really, not one I’d trust not to be faked. I haven’t used a signature on a debit/credit card for 20 years and it’s never once been challenged. It’s blank. The only ‘signatures’ I’ve provided have been on a mortgage, a marriage cert, and a passport. Because they insisted. I doubt they match. Decades since I’ve written a check. Maybe I’ve provided some scrawl on a bank account application? Little memory and I do a sort of Mr Messy drawing that I’d never be able to copy. I take the same approach with some online passwords since it’s easy enough to reset a Netflix password once than find it in a password app.

tokai 5y ago

Authenticate in this sense means to confirm legal validity or that a document is authoritative. Not that the document is an authentic document.

kevincox 5y ago

I had this issue trying to buy a house. My bank was refusing to do the transfer because they "couldn't authenticate my signature". It turns out that one specific signature on one of the signup documents becomes your canonical signature and they match large transfers against that. Of course this random signature half-way through a 30 page agreement was really lazy and didn't look much like my "real" signature (which they have dozens of copies of by now). I was sitting on my phone with bad connection during a camping trip trying to scribble a signature that looked like the magic reference signature (that I didn't know) so that my purchase didn't fall through. What a stupid way to authenticate people.

Macha 5y ago
Given I signed up for my primary bank account at age 14, it's more likely than not that my signature is nothing like whatever they kept from then. My handwriting has had over 10 years to deteriorate since I finished school and basically stopped handwriting anything that wasn't a signature.
another-dave 5y ago
I had some paperwork refused on my business account with Lloyds because it "didn't match the signature on file" — I went in to the bank with photo ID and got my stuff sorted and happened to ask "Can I see the signature that you have on file for me?" (because generally it doesn't change that much for me time-to-time) — it was a completely different person! Wasn't even my name. The cashier agreed with me that it _clearly_ wasn't my signature & "didn't know how it happened". I was in a big rush that day & no longer have the account, but I really regret not escalating it though.
asdff 5y ago
It's especially a stupid way when you don't even have a pen, in the case of DocuSign where you have to write something with a mouse. The vast majority of people just scribble a random shape since its impossible to pen your signature on a trackpad. A Phishermans dream I expect.

nmcfarl 5y ago

Five years ago I moved to eastern Oregon and I was shocked at the number of checks I had to start writing. The cleaning service and the car detailing service were cash or check only as was every vendor at the farmers market - which as small operations kind of makes sense. But so was the propane service, garbage service, the dump - and the electrical utility charged $36 a year to use an E-check (no credit cards accepted). I wrote a lot of checks.

gtk40 5y ago
The last place I rented (about 5 years ago), in a major metro area, my landlord would only accept a check from a local bank. I mostly used on-line bank accounts, but I had one account at a CU with a branch 30 minutes away. They would drive to the CU to deposit the check each month.
ghaff 5y ago
Most of the checks "I" write are actually written and delivered by my bank. That's the case with utilities, garbage, etc. But checks still are the easiest and most natural way to give a person or a service person money on the spot most of the time. I'll use Apple Pay or whatever if that's what someone wants but a check is easy and straightforward.

ghaff 5y ago

>After all, when was the last time most of us signed a cheque? Last week. I don't write a lot of checks but there are a fair number of service people, for example, where that's the standard way of paying them. Certainly my signature is just a scrawl at this point though.

kenjackson 5y ago

Absentee voting is a prominent example of authentication. Unfortunately, I've had my signature fail for voting in the past because I don't have a very consistent signature.

jdfellow 5y ago

I'm 31 years old and have never written a check in my life. I've never even bought a checkbook. If a card doesn't work, I use cash, or in a couple of edge cases I've used a cashier's check.

mrexroad 5y ago
Fascinating. I’m older, but not significantly, and I still end up writing a check every once every few months. Mostly related to kids’ activities.

tsomctl 5y ago

I have a neighbor with a car with no muffler. Half the neighborhood just signed a letter to his landlord with our complaint. It's pretty impressive to have an entire page full of signatures, each one completely different. It went from being a sterile document written by a lawyer, to something that has normal people behind it.