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I had to do a second-factor authentication with my bank not too long ago. I had written a cheque for an unusual purchase; they called me and said "there was an issue with the signature check on a cheque you wrote" so I logged in, verified my identity and approved it manually.

I assume that they only checked the signature because the payment was outside of my normal habits, because my signature is an inconsistent mess in the best of times (I sign about 10 cheques/year because reasons).

The worst case for me is the stylus pads at checkouts. I can barely use those coherently when I'm not under pressure, so when there are people behind me in line and a cashier waiting for me to leave, the social anxiety kicks in and I get a pair of initials and some extra lines, at best.

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In many countries, a signature has a special legal meaning. Forging a signature is illegal, and your own signature, however badly written, even if it doesn't match, is considered legit.

That allows companies to get any old doodle from you and it can be considered (part of evidence for) a legally binding agreement.

That's why you write “I DO NOT ACCEPT THE TERMS” as your signature. (Obviously not when you're trying to accept a contract, though.)

Whenever I have to put a signature, which is rare, I tell them I don’t have a signature. Because I don’t, really, not one I’d trust not to be faked. I haven’t used a signature on a debit/credit card for 20 years and it’s never once been challenged. It’s blank. The only ‘signatures’ I’ve provided have been on a mortgage, a marriage cert, and a passport. Because they insisted. I doubt they match. Decades since I’ve written a check. Maybe I’ve provided some scrawl on a bank account application? Little memory and I do a sort of Mr Messy drawing that I’d never be able to copy. I take the same approach with some online passwords since it’s easy enough to reset a Netflix password once than find it in a password app.

I'd always heard (no evidence atm) that pin pads etc are designed to be uncomfortable to make forgery more difficult (proving that signatures are compared).

I just put a straight line on the stylus pad at checkouts. No one cares.

Nobody has ever cared at checkouts, but my state requires that you use a stylus pad to enter your signature for your driver's license (it gets printed right on the card). In early 2020 I used my driver's license renewal as an opportunity to update my voting registration (I had just moved), and apparently that stylus pad signature ended up being my "check" signature for my vote-by-mail for the 2020 election. Of course, I had my ballot bounce and had to provide further identification, because there's no way I'm getting my signature from a stylus pad to match one on paper.

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