I've signed PDFs digitally overlaying a digital version in Preview on a Mac, which is free -- for all parties. I'm not sure how much more legal wiggle room there is for that version vs Docusign.
Either way, as noted, DocuSign has other features.
This is my favourite lifehack. I don't own a scanner and signing docs can be a pain without it.
A very few places will reject the Preview-signed copy, wanting a hand signature, but you can filter the pages a bit (tilt slightly, add noise) and they won't know the difference.
Parts of the US government will reject this and other types of electronic signatures including stylus/apple pencil type devices. The regulations explicitly mention 'wet-ink', and even when they allow copies, they have to be copies of wet-ink (i.e., scan of an actually signed doc). There are a lot of ass-backwards policies even in the west, and I can assure you that it's much worse in the rest of the world. So you really need to know where the document is going.
Seems ridiculously insecure for those to be accepted. Given just one signed document, a fraudster could copy and paste your signature into literally any number of other documents.
They can do that anyway. They could simply scan your signature, scan the document, and copy-paste your signature onto it before printing it out. With printers being so high resolution, odds are nobody would notice the difference (if they were even paying attention enough in the first place.)
Well, there are actual signatures too, but that's just like the CA racket for ssl. Adobe and others just gatekeep it. And any type of key material is quite complex to manage, so it would never get widespread adoption even if it were free.
I agree but wet ink signatures can be forged too. Signatures alone do not make a transaction non-repudiable. High value deals are also secured by public notaries, agents, government clerks, and even attorneys.
If you own a smartphone Adobe's free document scanner is quicker and easier to use than a normal scanner. And it's totally fine for legal documents like contracts (having just used it for that)
That’s clever but all the documents I recall not being able to e-sign also wanted me to return the original by post. At that point there’s not much point faking it I guess. Feels ridiculous though!
I’ve combined it with my scan app in black-and-white setting (no shades of grey) off my screen to pass German companies that don’t accept digital signatures. (It looks like the good old fax they love and can’t replace)
As I understand it, it's actually the fact that docusign maintains a record in their database of you signing the document which makes the e-signature verifiable. That's what the hash in your docusign PDF refers to, so the signature can be verified, as opposed to _just_ having an image in a PDF.
Either way, as noted, DocuSign has other features.