Robo-Signer

Our cousin Vanessa claims to have the best part-time job in the world. For twenty hours a week, she hangs out in a cubicle, sips her fave green tea, and signs mortgage documents. She doesn’t even read them; she just sits there and signs them. Half the time, she’s catching up on Riverdale fandom while she’s sitting there. Her official job title is Mortgage Administration Coordinator, but in reality, she’s a robo-signer.

A “robo-signer” is an employee who is paid to sign mortgage documents, but is not required to evaluate said documents, or even verify that the information on them is accurate. Sometimes, they receive a little training, but probably not as much as we’d like them to have. As one might expect, robo-signing is seriously frowned upon. After the massive 2008 mortgage crisis, it was discovered that tons of lenders had used robo-signers like Vanessa, and as a result, ended up pushing through a lot of inaccurate mortgage docs, or mortgages that never should have been approved. A lot of those robo-signers got fired.

Was that the fairest way to deal with the situation? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But it does remind us of something we learned a long time ago: we shouldn’t sign our name on something unless we completely understand and agree with it. Because, if we signed it, we can be held legally responsible for it. Maybe someday Vanessa will clue into that lesson as well.