Inscription Suspicion

Sign Here to Give Away Your Signature

Aha! So this is what Jiffy Lube means by a "Signature Service" oil change? Just sign on the digital line!

Melanie Files thinks the quickie lube-job pioneer is slipping one past its customers. The West Virginia teacher says it never occurred to her when she pulled her 1993 Toyota Camry into the Martinsburg, W.Va., Jiffy Lube that the auto-maintenance giant not only services vehicles of more than 30 million customers annually, but it also services their John Hancocks.

After she paid cash for an oil change, Files says, the clerk asked her to sign off on the invoice. No big deal, right? She scribbled her name and left.

"When I got home, it dawned on me that the invoice had been placed on the [electronic] signature pad," says Files.

Hey, welcome to the Paperless Revolution! But since federal law established the legal validity of electronic signatures five years ago, giving them legal weight of pen-and-ink signatures in most commercial transactions, the business world has only timidly embraced the technology. You see it mostly for credit card and check transactions. Corporations salivate thinking of its convenience, easy storage and money-saving potential compared with paperwork transactions, but even for them, concerns about security and fraud linger.

Files raced back to Jiffy Lube pronto and confronted the clerk. Suspicion confirmed. Without asking permission, with no counter notice stating that customer signatures are electronically collected, the clerk had indeed slid the invoice on top of a signature-capture pad.

"I was truly outraged," says Files, who doesn't think a cash-paying customer should be asked to give up her electronic signature -- and certainly shouldn't be tricked into doing it. "The clerk never said a thing."

When Files protested, the manager said it's what Jiffy Lube does. When she asked that he remove her signature, he told her he couldn't. Files calls what Jiffy Lube does "stealing signatures" and wants her signature and any other information pertaining to her deleted from its database.

Okay, right about now you're maybe thinking this Melanie Files is some kind of privacy kook. Or maybe that her reasonable prudence in protecting her confidential data has turned into paranoia, what with headlines of government info-tapping and identity theft getting scarier than all get-out.

But like an increasing number of Americans, Files is just trying to be smart about protecting what little privacy she has left. So whether it's shredding her business mail, not giving information to strangers over the phone, or never replying to online spam, she takes more everyday measures than ever to limit access to her personal information.

A nationwide Harris Interactive survey last May found that 67 percent of respondents now shred credit card offers and bills, 25 percent do not sign the back of their credit card to force sales clerks to check their identification, and 7 percent use only cash for purchases so there's no paper trail.

In October, a CBS News/New York Times poll found widespread public concern about businesses harvesting personal information, with most Americans condemning what is now a common practice. The poll also showed that 52 percent think the right to privacy is under serious threat and another 30 percent fear it has already been lost.