How to prove that someone forged my signature on a contract that I was not aware of?

Question

I found this similar question that already has an accepted answer. However, I don't fully like that answer because it says that "signed contract would not be binding if you can prove that it is fraud". Basically answer to the question contains original question because "faked signature" is fraud.

So I will ask again - in disputes how is it proved that signature was faked by another person on legal documents?

In the answer, I want something among the lines:

1. The judge looks at your authentic signatures from the past of various documents and on the one that has allegedly faked signature. Of course this method is not reliable alone.

2. The judge looks for other discrepancies in the situation as a whole (e.g. time when contract was signed). And then if you have alibi that you weren't physically in the place where contract allegedly was signed it is considered that signature is not authentic.

3. Someone launches investigation against the person who is accused of faking signatures to see if other people have suffered from the same issue. If considerable amount of people are saying the same thing then that serves as proof.

The reason I am asking this is because today we received copies of Application and Termination forms signed by my friend regarding the case I have discussed here. According to my friend at the time of signing there was only one page and that was Application Form. However, now they sent us 3 pages where second page talks about this $840 fee and Application form does not explicitly mention that there was more than one page. Also, signature on other pages is forged - it looks different. I think that either the sales person, a young girl, was interested to get more customers because she probably receives commission from each deal and decided to forge my friend's signature on the other two pages. Or the customer representative realized that sales person did not give my friend to sign the other two pages and they forged my friends signature before sending it to us so that they would have "legal" rights to keep $840 that they charged. Of course there is a chance that the company as a whole is doing fraud, but I think that would be way too blatant move. Note, that there are other people complaining that this companies' sales persons promise no early termination fees, however, when customers ask for a copy of documents to dispute these fees they receive 3 pages that actually state ETF. So potential victims feel guilty that they signed something that they did not get a chance to read in the first place.

Is it even possible to prove fraud in a case where con-artist adds another page and forges signature? If yes, then how?

Answer 1

By producing sufficient evidence at trial.

In this case, the most likely sources of evidence would either be eye witnesses (if someone witnessed the forgery) or expert testimony (i.e., handwriting experts). Any experts would have done an analysis and would testify about the results of their analysis. Any eye witnesses would testify to what they personally observed.

Judges are not handwriting experts. They don't evaluate signatures.

Judges are law experts. They evaluate evidence.

Sworn testimony (subject to cross-examination) by a qualified handwriting expert stating so would be evidence of a forged signature. The handwriting expert would conduct all the necessary analysis, then provide a conclusion and their testimony in exchange for a fee.

Also, patterns of deceptive conduct (that can be found during discovery) could be introduced as evidence to impeach the credibility of the testimony of any witness (including your counterparty).

I am not an attorney. I am not your attorney. Please do not do anything based on anything I have written because I really don't know what I am talking about. I'm just stumbling around in the dark like everybody else. If you need help with a case, please hire a real attorney and even offer to pay them for their time and expertise.

Answer 2

If their affirmative defense is that "you signed the agreement", they would have the burden of proving that the signature was yours and placed upon those documents by you.