Illegible signatures

[Zorro]

Last edited Thu Apr 9, 2020, 02:13 PM - Edit history (1)

I just received an (unsubscribed) email from Ammar Campa-Najjar (who is running to replace Duncan Hunter as representative for California's 50th Congressional district), and noticed he's someone whose signature is just a scribble.

As a poll worker in the past, I noticed that there's a fair number of people who share that same cacographic tendency (including our current CinC).

I know cursive writing has been in decline for some time now, but I remember learning good penmanship in the third grade was somewhat of a rite of passage into a more mature stage of life.

Anyway, I guess illegible signatures is a pet peeve of mine. Anyone care to clue me in on why some folks use inscrutable signatures? Are they just not that important any more?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. This is nothing new.

I can also tell you from experience that if a person does a lot of signing, their signature my deteriorate into something of a scribble.

It happened to me a while back, and then I made a conscious effort to return to a more legible signature. I'm no longer signing as many things as I used to, either.

[Laffy Kat]

2. I've worked for doctors for over thirty years.

One doc had a signature that was just one horizontal line with one dot over the line and one dot under the line. Anyone could copy it but he didn't care. That's the way he signed his name like it or not.

[gopiscrap]

3. Plausible deniability?

[Midnight Writer]

4. I worked for years with a grifting SOB who scribbled his signature so as not to be held accountable.

Guy was a genuine con man, would dress in a suit and carry a briefcase and snooker people out of their money.

Part of our job was signing out valuable equipment, and this guy would just make a squiggly line.

He told me that way if something came up missing or damaged, nobody could prove he had signed it out.

[Phentex]

5. I don't get I either...

I see this on checks we receive for work. Just a line or a scratch. Anybody could forge that. I don't see the point in anybody not being able to sign with actual letters. (Unless you are 2 years old or never learned to read or write or any other way out exception that someone will list here.)

[Turbineguy]

6. I worked for a company that asked me

to change my signature. They didn't like the music I played in my office either.

[Aristus]

7. As a medical provider, I probably sign my name thirty times a day.

I strive for legibility, but, given clinical time constraints, it's not always possible.

[FoxNewsSucks]

8. My signature is illegible,

it became a somewhat-elaborate squiggle years ago. It generally has the shape of my name, and back when I wrote a lot of checks, I noticed that it is a consistent squiggle. It wouldn't be any easier to duplicate than a well-penned cursive signature. Unlike the people who just deliberately use a straight line and dots.

Several years ago, at a convention, there was a speaker who was an expert on handwriting analysis. It was a very interesting afternoon. One of the things she mentioned was that people's signatures often change after a traumatic or highly-negative emotional event. She used Richard Nixon as an example. I can't pinpoint the exact date my signature became the squiggle it is today, but it did change a lot following a time with a very unpleasant breakup and financial problems



(article here - https://www.forestparkreview.com/News/Articles/5-23-2006/Richard-Nixon's-signature-shows-decomposition-of-personality/ )

[lastlib]

9. I'll explain my own rationale:

(YMMV...)

On physical documents that require a signature (like an actual check--yes, I still write 'em), I will write my name legibly. On anything electronic, I scrawl the most inintelligible scribble I know how to make. If I have to sign an electronic transaction invoice at a checkout, e.g., a credit card transaction receipt, it's a scrawl. Because that will be stored on some hard drive or server that could be hacked, and the hacker could use my signature anywhere. Now if the question comes up, I can say that the legible signature is how I sign things, not that stolen scrawl. Then the other party had better have some proof that it was me who put that scrawl on that receipt.

As someone up above said, "plausible deniability".

YMMV.