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Apr 25, 2019

Wilson Cole, President of Adams, Evens, & Ross (AER) and Samantha Cole, in-house counsel for AER, revisit the important topic of getting a signed contract. Samantha explains how disheartening it can be to receive a case that looks perfect for collections in by all other indications but then it turns out the contract is not signed.

If you’ve had clients give excuses for not signing the contract or putting it off, she says you would be far from the first. Some of the popular excuses include “the fax machine is not working,” “we don’t have a scanner,” “the printer is out of ink,” or the catch-all “we were just too busy last week to sign.” Samantha says that even though all of those excuses don’t really count since cell phones can basically replace all of those machines when it comes to signing a document, the bulletproof solution is to use a service like Docusign.

For a nominal monthly fee you can upload any document to Docusign, drop in as many signature, initial, or other boxes as you want, and email it to the client. The service will even let you know when they open the document so you can know when to follow up and best of all it can even capture the IP address of the person signing it. Wilson says the IP address is one more thing that can be helpful if the case goes to court. In those situations where the case goes to court and the client says “that’s not my signature,” instead of having to spend money on a handwriting expert to vouch that it is, which is still not an open/shut case because the debtor will hire a handwriting expert to vouch that it isn’t, you can just show that you have their IP address.

Docusign also makes the process extremely easy and convenient for your clients to the point that they really have no excuse not to sign, other than they don’t want to in the first place, and in that case you might want to reconsider whether you should do business with them. Depending on how much you like Docusign, it can become a one-stop-shop for your contracts because of the other features and services they offer, such as document storage, reminders/notifications, and automation features.

AER practices what it preaches when it comes to getting contracts signed and always gets contracts signed by clients looking to have AER collect debt on their behalf. It’s just one of those things that cannot be overlooked. To follow up with Samantha, you can email her at Samantha@aercollections.com. Or if you have a collections issue that you want AER to take a look at, feel free to call Wilson at 800-452-5287, extension 6578, or you can email Wilson@aercollections.com.

2 Key Quotes

· Samantha says that even though all of those excuses don’t really count since cell phones can basically replace all of those machines when it comes to signing a document, the bulletproof solution is to use a service like Docusign.

· In those situations where the case goes to court and the client says “that’s not my signature,” instead of having to spend money on a handwriting expert to vouch that it is, which is still not an open/shut case because the debtor will hire a handwriting expert to vouch that it isn’t, you can just show that you have their IP address.