Document Examiner
When someone is being held accountable for documents, such as contracts or credit card receipts that they did not sign, a document examiner may be able to help establish their innocence.
In an age of high tech identity theft, many are surprised to discover that a good portion of fraud is still attempted in the old fashioned way – by simply signing someone else’s name without authorization. A victim can lose thousands, even millions of dollars if he is held liable for a forgery of his own signature.
Worse yet, if someone signs an illegal document (such as a threatening letter), the victim could actually be held criminally liable for something he or she didn’t do. The best way to prove whether or not someone signed a document is by submitting the document in question to an independent document examination. Forensic examination by a trained and competent document examiner can be admissible as evidence in a court of law and could be used to clear or identify someone of responsibility for the signing of contracts or other documents.
If you are a forgery victim, be careful to use a document examiner who has been properly trained. When document examination is involved, the forensic experience of the questioned document examiner can make or break the credibility of a case. There are many who offer their services as document examiners, but who haven’t completed the minimum two-year apprenticeship with an experienced document examiner qualified to train others. This is the standard set by the Scientific Working Group for Forensic Document Examiners (SWGDOC) for a forensic document examiner that is widely espoused by every credible professional organization of document examiners.