Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
The entry titled "It's a Really Bad Sign(ature)."
Categories
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F
More recent entries
Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > July > 02 > Entry
It’s a Really Bad Sign(ature)
A year ago, when I got my Mexican work permit, I never imagined my financial future hung in the balance. As I signed the work visa, I didn’t think twice. The passport-sized visa booklet is small, the signature line even smaller and I was slightly rushed as I hunched over it at the immigration office in Mexico City.
The result was a signature with only a slight resemblance to my normal John Hancock, the letters at the end of Schwartz strangely mangled and truncated. But who cared anyways?
Well, the Mexican banking system, that’s who.
A few months later I opened a Mexican bank account and was forced to fill out multiple signature cards. But the signatures had to match the work visa signature EXACTLY.
I went through about 10 attempts in the bank manager’s office, my hand shaking and thoroughly rattled. It’s pretty hard to copy an abnormal signature (forgery really is a skill). I finally managed to squeeze out a few copies that slightly resembled the abomination on my work visa, but my nightmare was just beginning.
In the U.S., it seemed to me, bank signature cards were thrown in a vault somewhere and only dug up when you closed an account.
In Mexico, signature cards are scanned, downloaded and called up by tellers when you cash a check. The slightest variation in the signature is cause for the bank to reject the check.
Needless to say, I have written a good number of checks with signatures that don’t match that monstrosity on my work visa. I have had checks rejected throughout Mexico City, leaving a trail of unhappy folks. Every month I write a check for office expenses and every month go through the harrowing experience of trying to mimic that signature. I have had to tear up dozens of checks in the process.
I thought the nightmare would end when my work visa expired. I dreamed of the day I would sign it with fluid, normal strokes. But alas, the renewal consists of a stamp inside the booklet.
It seems I am stuck with my mutant signature until I leave Mexico.
Comments
By Dave C.
July 9, 2007 4:51 PM | Link to this
Hilarious! The Attack of the Mutant Signature!