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We are relying on legal opinions that the site fully complies with the ESIGN Act. That act makes electronic signatures on par with physical signatures. (Disclos

We are relying on legal opinions that the site fully complies with the ESIGN Act. That act makes electronic signatures on par with physical signatures. (Disclosure = I'm not a lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...

eganist 7y ago
Edit: dumb question from me. I didn't follow the flow because I don't have a chase account, so I wasn't aware it was a multi-part form. Original comment below: --- I'm likewise not an attorney, but how hard would it be to do a simple "Type your name here to represent your signature" type of deal? This is the most common lay practice I've seen, with the more common CYA practice for electronic records being e.g. what Docusign or Adobe offer, or the use of cryptographic signatures.
- mjkornbl 7y ago
  If you fill in your info on the page and click the buttom, this happens as the final part of the flow before it submits.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    "By checking this box, I certify that my account information is accurate and I want to e-sign and mail this document to chase to opt out of binding arbitration." The document is not actually present.
    - mjkornbl 7y ago
      Not a lawyer. I'll make sure we have a legal opinion addressing this if we don't already.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mehrdadn 7y ago
Just a layman here but that seems like a misinterpretation of the statute? The idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract. It does not state that in any given contract, private parties must accept the terms signed in any form whatsoever -- that's still left as something for those people to agree on, and Chase very clearly spelled out that that's not valid for the contract. So the "reason" for the invalidity of a contract wouldn't be that it has an electronic signature, but that one of the parties simply didn't follow the terms it set for validity (whatever they were -- in this case, that they be personally signed, and mailed by the actual account holder). So I'm very curious how legal opinions interpret the statute otherwise, since I don't see any hint that it was intended to be interpreted as allowing one of the parties to change the signing terms to include electronic signatures.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > the idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract Unless Chase explicitly said wet signature, then a government court would find the electronic signature valid.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    While I disagree on that point, what about the fact that the terms require you to mail it yourself. Edit: Also, I'm not sure what "wet signature" means. The claim was not quite that the signature has to be in ink. The debate is over whether you (not someone else) are performing the signing, and whether you (not someone else) are mailing (not emailing etc.) it on paper (not e.g. a flash drive) or not. Which, to me, means you could sign on your computer/tablet/etc., then print that as your signature with a printer and then mail the form, with no ink involved anywhere in the process. That seems like a pretty reasonable interpretation of "personally signing" the letter and "mailing" it, so Chase would have a hard time arguing you didn't do that. But to type your name on a random website for someone else to print and mail the contract on your behalf? You neither personally signed that letter (whether on the computer or on the paper) nor did you mail it... all you did was casually tell some random guy on the internet to impersonate you to your financial institution.

eganist 7y ago

Edit: dumb question from me. I didn't follow the flow because I don't have a chase account, so I wasn't aware it was a multi-part form. Original comment below: --- I'm likewise not an attorney, but how hard would it be to do a simple "Type your name here to represent your signature" type of deal? This is the most common lay practice I've seen, with the more common CYA practice for electronic records being e.g. what Docusign or Adobe offer, or the use of cryptographic signatures.

mjkornbl 7y ago
If you fill in your info on the page and click the buttom, this happens as the final part of the flow before it submits.
- lozenge 7y ago
  "By checking this box, I certify that my account information is accurate and I want to e-sign and mail this document to chase to opt out of binding arbitration." The document is not actually present.
  - mjkornbl 7y ago
    Not a lawyer. I'll make sure we have a legal opinion addressing this if we don't already.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mehrdadn 7y ago

Just a layman here but that seems like a misinterpretation of the statute? The idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract. It does not state that in any given contract, private parties must accept the terms signed in any form whatsoever -- that's still left as something for those people to agree on, and Chase very clearly spelled out that that's not valid for the contract. So the "reason" for the invalidity of a contract wouldn't be that it has an electronic signature, but that one of the parties simply didn't follow the terms it set for validity (whatever they were -- in this case, that they be personally signed, and mailed by the actual account holder). So I'm very curious how legal opinions interpret the statute otherwise, since I don't see any hint that it was intended to be interpreted as allowing one of the parties to change the signing terms to include electronic signatures.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> the idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract Unless Chase explicitly said wet signature, then a government court would find the electronic signature valid.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  While I disagree on that point, what about the fact that the terms require you to mail it yourself. Edit: Also, I'm not sure what "wet signature" means. The claim was not quite that the signature has to be in ink. The debate is over whether you (not someone else) are performing the signing, and whether you (not someone else) are mailing (not emailing etc.) it on paper (not e.g. a flash drive) or not. Which, to me, means you could sign on your computer/tablet/etc., then print that as your signature with a printer and then mail the form, with no ink involved anywhere in the process. That seems like a pretty reasonable interpretation of "personally signing" the letter and "mailing" it, so Chase would have a hard time arguing you didn't do that. But to type your name on a random website for someone else to print and mail the contract on your behalf? You neither personally signed that letter (whether on the computer or on the paper) nor did you mail it... all you did was casually tell some random guy on the internet to impersonate you to your financial institution.