The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1905-07-12
SIGNATURE EXPERTS
THEY ARE THE REAL SAFEGUARDS
OF A MODERN BANK.

most InfR1ltble
One OF the most trying positions In
! our business, said Il bank official to a
writer ih London Tit-Bits, Is that of
signature eNpert-the man who has to
examine daily every draft that comes
In through the clearing house and
vouch for Its gcnuineness. Our bank,
one of the largest in the city, employs
six clerks who do nothing all day long
but examine checks, IL when 1 tell
you that 1t Is no uncommon thing for
10000 drafts to come In during n sin'
gle day you will understand that the
job is not altogether the slnecure 1t Is
popularity supposed to be.
These clerks hive not only to scrutl-
nize the signatures of both drawer and
drawee, but also examine the chilling
in," the latter being just us important,
perhaps more so from Il monetary
point Of view, as the signatures. AS II
matter of fact, the commoncSt forgery
with which we have to doal is the
raising" of checks, and n forger OF
this nature generally chooses Il check
bearing u genuine signature, but hay
ing very little "flling in"
For instance, he knows that it would
not be difficult to raise II check from
f3 to $4,000, for all he has TO do Is to
erase the word pounds" insert the
! word "thousand' and then nh" the
erased word again. / have seen ,,lcnty
OF this kind of work during the time
have been examining checks.
One OF the most impudcnt pieces of
forgery, however, that 1 ever came
across was II check raised from 10 to
$500. The forger had evidently relied
on colossal impudcnce carrying him
through, for he had simply added n
couple of ciplers and thcn between the
words "nvc" and pounds" ilad placed
all omission mark II written the
word hundred above, adding the in
itiuls Of the drawer of the check just
to give the thing n look Of careless gem
uineness.
1t was so astounding Il piece of cool
audacity that we had bets on the
check, two of my assistants declaring
1t to be o. X. while II other three
and myself declared 1t to he II forgery.
Further Inquiries, OF course, proved
that the opinion OF the majority was
tho correct one.
1t is marvellous what II vast mumbe
OF signatures some clerks Will carry In
their minds eye, as it were, and thus
he able to pass checks by the thousand
without once having to refer to the sig
nature books. We had n clerk here n
few years & who was little less than
n wonder. lie knew perfectly the sig
q -. -. x DNn .t nrs N md
could detect the alteration of n stroke
I'm any one of them In an instant.
More remarkable still was the fact
that he recognized with equal facility
the signatures Of those customers
whose checks only came in once or
twice n year. But he mndc an art of
his work, and ] afterwurd discovered
that most of his evenings were spent In
studying and learning the signatures OF
the customers, for he was n wonderful
hand ut copying writing. II when
ever II now signature would come in,
one with which lie was not acquainted,
he would ut once facsimile 1t In his
pecketbook and by The next morning
would he able to recognize II among
10000.
signature CltINS are hol, as u iulC,
supposed to make copies of customers
autographs, but many of them do. and
some men arc clever enough at the
work to even deceive themselves.
or course, 1t is understood that when
the signature clerks are not examining
checks they arc studying the autograph
books in order to familiarize them
selves with the caligraphy of every
customer. Each check, YOU must UNI
dcrstnnd, passes through the hands Of
each clerk In turn, SO that If II should
pass Il forgery or a raised" draft 1t Is
very unlikely that the entire STAFF
would do so. All these checks, Of
course, come through the clearing
house, and If we should pass Il forged
draft and not find out our mistake be-
fore 3 o'clock In the afternoon our
bank would be held responsible. One
of the commoncSt lodges adopted by
the modern check forger " to get a
customer Of some small country bank
to Introduce him to that institution as
n likely depositor. On the recommen-
dation of the friend (who Is probably
quite that the acquaintance
he made some few months ago is a
wrong 'un'') there is 10 difficulty In
accepting their new clients check for
$4,000, and the following day when the
same customer calls and withdraws
f100 to $500, as the case may be, he Is
politely handed the cash, and then, Of
course, loses no time In skipping the
town. After the bogus customers
check has passed through the clearing
house 1t is returned to the bank on
which 1t has been drawn, and the fraud
ls AT once discovered.
Another part OF a signature clerks
duties is TO see that no checks are post
dated, rs, of course, no drafts must be
paid until they fall due. On occasions
q careless man will pOstdate n check,
but MS a rule the mistake Is purposcly
made. This spotting of ~postdated
checks, however, Is the easiest part of
n signature clerks work, and 1T Is very
seldom that II check so dated escapes
him. Then, again, we are often noti-
fed that payment OH certain checks has
been stopped, and the clerks have to be
on the lookout for these, and 1t must
be n very careless staff indeed that lets
tbem alin Inv. We aro held ~rpSuOnsiblp