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Comment by megakid | Hacker News Reader

I used a service similar to this in 2011 after I moved back from Australia to UK. Australian banks charge a monthly fee if you don't deposit your salary into the account so after a few months I realized my now-defunct Australian current account was very close to $0 (I had left a few dollars in there when I left). I emailed them and asked them to close the account to which they replied I needed to send a snail-mail letter - I used a service like this (with scanned signature no-less) to do so because it was easier than sending my own international letter to them. I got an email back saying they needed me to send a real letter with a real signature. I replied saying they could keep my account open but I wouldn't be paying for any fees, the reply was swift "Your account is now closed".

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In Poland the law theoretically mandates that a digital signature is just as good as a pen-and-paper one. But, when dealing with banks, one quickly finds that the law is one thing and the stone wall of your bank is another.

Here's how a typical discussion unrolls:

Bank: "To do X or Y, we require you to visit us in person or provide a written statement".

Me: "Here's my statement with a digital signature, attached as a PDF."

Bank (ignoring the PDF): "To do X or Y, we require you to visit us in person or provide a written statement".

Me: "The law says (specific citation goes here) that I have just provided a written and signed statement. Here it is again."

Bank (ignoring the PDF): "To do X or Y, we require you to visit us in person or provide a written statement".

By the way, I had this kind of stupid back-and-forth with mBank, which tries to position itself as a "modern and innovative" bank.

The only next step is to sue, but who would bother.

regulatory complaints work wonders too

I wonder if it was just the scanned signature, or was it something else about the service you used that made the physical letter look untrustworthy.

Scanned signature for sure. I once had a form rejected by the Australian equivalent of the DMV for it "appearing to have different handwriting in places", and another time a bank rejected a form for the signature being in a different colour ink to the rest of the form.

This is interesting. In the US, my 'signature' is always a picture or a doodle, sometimes I write famous people's names in sloppy cursive. If it was like an important contract or something, I might try a bit harder... but to be honest I don't truly have a 'signature', I can either write my name in my terrible handwriting, or not.

> If it was like an important contract or something, I might try a bit harder.

When I was sworn in as an attorney, they had us sign a book in the courthouse as part of the ceremony. They said that sometimes people used a fancy signature since it was a special occasion, and explicitly told us not to do that since they would sometimes be asked to compare a purported signature to one in the book.

German authorities use a phrase like "this letter was written by machine and is valid without signature".

I thought about using similar services, but the hassle of signing up and paying meant I just bought some international stamps.

A letter from the UK to Australia costs £1.35, or £1.20 for "economy".

In the US we have international “forever” stamps. If you have a sheet of a dozen of those, you just scrawl a reply, address an envelope, and drop it in the letter box.

In Fiji, we have those, but also prepaid envelopes that come with no stamps at all. You have a pack of those, and you just stick a letter in and then drop it in the letter box.

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