Three signatures for a bank?

January 9, 2016 5:59 AM

My bank asked me to fax them my ID along with three signatures on a piece of paper. What's that about?

Following some stupid verification issues Bank of America asked me to fax them my ID and a piece of paper with three signatures and a phone number. They said I don't need to notarize them or anything. I've never heard about that kind of ID procedure before. What's that about? What will those lonely signatures on a piece of paper prove?

(I'm in Europe, that's why it has to be fax and not a visit to a local branch).
Thanks!

posted by Guelder to Work & Money (6 answers total)

It's to verify checks.
posted by JPD at 6:00 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Oh, I see. I never use them, so thanks for the explanation.
posted by Guelder at 6:04 AM on January 9, 2016

Also, in the U.S. at least, some credit card readers in retail locations require you to write your signature on a touch-sensitive screen with a stylus when you make a purchase. So they might be for comparison with that, too.
posted by XMLicious at 6:51 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

What will those lonely signatures on a piece of paper prove?

Have you given them another signature sample before? They might check the ones you fax with the ones they have to (try to) make sure you haven't just stolen the ID you are faxing in. Speculating further, they are asking for three signatures so you don't just copy and paste one from another document either physically or digitally: three actual signatures won't be completely identical but have some expected range of variation.
posted by Dr Dracator at 9:34 AM on January 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The BOA branch where I opened my account has a signature card with my signature that was created the day I opened the account...

I have on several occasions needed to get a Signature guarantee from BOA for another financial institution - this is different from a Notarized signature in that I believe the bank actually assumes some level of financial responsibility if the signature is not genuine. I suspect the signature card is one more (albeit dated) method of ensuring signatures of genuine.

Ideally BOA would simply capture every time I sign for a validated transaction and build a representation of my "real" signature - given the variability that would probably be infinitely better than the one I created for them many years ago...perhaps they do, and the fact that you do not use checks means they do not have enough data for you...
posted by NoDef at 10:10 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

A quick search for Signature Verification with ANN (Artificial Neural Networks) yields tons of results. My guess (and I stress guess) is that they want to make a statistical model based on the three examples you provide so they can robo-check your purchases (or similar). Think of it as training the handwriting recognition on your Newton.
posted by cleroy at 5:07 PM on January 9, 2016