Scribbled signatures....

[danegrous_21]

i got my sig from my mom, she writes the first letter in her first name then our whole last name.(i have the same last name of my mom, not my dad) so i do then same, 'cept my cursive is a lot worse.

which also makes a intresting case, because like earlier in the thread about the card signing prank, i have used my mom's debit card at stores and signed my own name without a problem. and she has the back of hers signed her way. do B(her intial) and my D look close alike in cursive. no, they dont if you where to see both.

on another note, on checking sig and id. i think out of the year i have had the debit card with this bank, i have my id checked 5 times or less. even if you looked at the back of my card i doubt you be able to read it, the card seems to be wearing out real fast cause the sig plate at the back if half worn off even the magnetic strip is getting worn out to the point where there are white spots showing through.

[Sofar]

Ever get people who sign in a different alphabet? I've had Asian customers who sign their names in the characters of their language (usually Japanese or Chinese, as far as I can tell). But they usually have their English signature too.

It took me a while to figure out that the owner was signing my paycheck in uncial Greek.

[Pagan]

I was taught very early on in grade school how to prepare my signature (full first name, middle initial, full last name, then any suffix designation, i.e., "Jr.", etc - in other words, the way to write an actual signature). I've written my signature the same way ever since. I'm 38 now. My signature looks the same on everything I sign that needs my signature on it, and it's been that way all these years. Because, as I was taught, [I]that's how you write your proper signature.

HowMayI, I'm the same age as you. I wasn't "taught" how write my signature in school. I was taugh how to write it in cursive. If you think it's a sign of disrespect and non-accountability, are you prepared to include some of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. If you go back to 1320 for the Declaration of Arbroath (which our Declaration is modeled on), you are really going to have issues with those signatures! http://heritage.scotsman.com/topics....53&id=41562005

In my signature, you can distinguish my first and last initials. But, as others have pointed out, it's always been the same drunken donkey scribbling. I am certainly not being disrepectful and I am being accountable and accepting responsibility. That just happens to be the way I sign my name. The federal government has never had a problem with it either.

That being said, I have to agree that the smartasses that are trying to get away with "X", or the one I saw at Wally World that just poked the screen, are the ones that are being disrepectful, et al.

OT: And what's up with circling the amount that's being charged?

[CSR Kim]

I've been at my place of employment off and on for 7 years. I sign a lot of paperwork at work. Looking at my signature from 4 years ago and looking at it now...I think it's deteriorated a lot. It's still legible (to me at least), but if I'm in a hurry it can sometimes become a bit loopy, with a few added squiggles.

Normally I just sign my name with my first initial, last name, unless my full name is required. When I get married in a month, I think it will "tidy up" my signature a bit, because I won't be able to write it as fast with a different last name, lol.

As a side note: I notice a lot of our Hispanic customers do not use cursive to sign their name. If I ask them to "sign here" on a credit card slip, etc. they generally will print their name. Anyone know why that is?

[Becks]

As a side note, many people these days do not know how to read or write cursive.

Wow, really? How sad.

I'm envious of my mommy's handwriting. She went to Catholic schools, and they were taught, I suppose, "properly". Whenever I see someone with similar handwriting, I question the people and 99% of them also attended Catholic schools.

[powerboy]

I have to admit my signature has become pretty much First Initial wavy line Last Initial wavy line. That, and it never looks the same twice. "

I do the exact same thing.

[Sofar]

As a side note: I notice a lot of our Hispanic customers do not use cursive to sign their name. If I ask them to "sign here" on a credit card slip, etc. they generally will print their name. Anyone know why that is?

I don't know, of my three Hispanic cooks, one of them cannot speak English but can read and write English very well, and has very neat cursive handwriting, the other can't spell but again has neat handwriting and an extremely elaborate signature, but the third indeed prints his name when he signs, he speaks English very well but basically can only read and write in Spanish. (The cooks sign for deliveries, so I'm familiar with their signatures.)

[reformedwaitress]

No, it's not hard. At all. If you've made it past, say, the FOURTH GRADE in public school, you've no excuse, in my opinion, for providing a sloppy, impossible-to-read signature. And I find it arrogant and annoying that people will be so lazy about saying who they are.

My signature looks to most people like my first initial and a bunch of squiggles. I will not ever apologize for this to anyone and it doesn't make me arrogant or lazy. However, it always matches EXACTLY what's on the back of my card.

Why do I have such a bad signature? Because when I was 18, a "friend" of my roommate stole my credit card and charged about $1500 to it before I realized it was missing. My signature on the card was nice, neat, and incredibly easy to forge. No one can reproduce my sig now. People have tried.

So no, it's not necessarily lazy. Sometimes it's a protection thing.

[simplyanother]

What if I wanted to rent an apartment?
What if I wanted to by a gun? What if I wanted to donate blood at the hospital?

What if you did? If you look at many documents like the ones you'd be dealing with to rent an apartment, buy a gun..etc. You'd have to print your name AND write your signature. I don't see what the big deal is.

The thing on the back of my credit card says "authorized signature". If I'm checking the signature on the back of a customers card with what they've signed, it only has to match, it doesn't have to be decipherable to me.

Shoot, when we have cash returns, people are required to both print their names and provide their signature. Why? Because signatures are not usually easily read.

Hell, it wasn't so very long ago that most people were illiterate and couldn't write their own names.

[AFpheonix]

I had one guy who used to sign his name and draw a smiley face at the end. Cute.

I had a customer once with the last name of Shirtz, and along with his signature on his card, he had drawn a lil' tee-shirt with a z in the middle.
He didn't reproduce it on the cc slip, though
I had a good giggle, though.

[Ringtail Z28]

I had one guy who used to sign his name and draw a smiley face at the end. Cute.

Isn't there a rule that says guys aren't allowed to do stuff like that?

[tamezin]

Guilty as Charged

Is it really that hard to make a signature? Something that might resemble a name, or letters at least? I just can't imagine the inconvenience this could cause a person.

Guilty...I have the second worse signature on the face of the Earth...my oldest daughter has the worst...Once you develop a lazy signature, it is very difficult to break the habit.

[Fawn]

The only time I write in cursive is when I write my signiture. My signiture is always the same and oddly small, except the first letter of the first and last name.

Both my parents have very easy to read and legibal signitures. Mine is pretty legible too, even with its tiny-ness.

I can understand if u have to write out your name a million times, but if you don't, theres no reason for not having a legibal signiture.

[Pezzle]

Christ I didn't know people got so up-in-arms about signatures. I'm an artist, I create tons of pieces, and have to sign off on all of them without my signature "popping out" as part of the piece. So I worked with it for a few years and now it's a little b, squiggles, big stylized P and squiggles into "07" or whatever year it happens to be.

Since I sign like that all the flippin time, It rubs off on my credit card sig and my DL sig. I usually leave out the "07" but sometimes it gets tacked on by accident.

Sure it USED to be a nice, pretty, long drawn out all three names in perfect cursive sort of thing. Then I realized it was taking the focus away from my actual art

[auntiem]

The ones that bug me are the ones where the name is say Tom Tuttle and the signature is three big loops and a scribble (wha? that isn't even close) but it is consistant with everything else - so it is valid.
As far as Hispanic signatures, I've seen printed signatures on some Mexican passports, so maybe the teach cursive at a higher grade level or it is optional?
When I was a kid (the 70's) I remmember restaurants would sometimes have handwriting analysts come thru and analize signatures - kinda like a party trick. I remember thinking really hard about what my signature said about me after that.
I once, in my early 20's, had the bank call me because a check I signed at a grocery store didn't look anything like my signature card. I had to go down to the bank to look at it and admit to the teller that I did write it, I was just really drunk.