Are there any issues with us sending an unauthorized debit card transaction affidavit by email through DocuSign to a customer? We require an affidavit be signed when a transaction is disputed and would like to begin using DocuSign to send the forms for a signature when the customer lives out of town. We would obviously be in contact with the customer and ask for their approval to send the form in this manner prior to emailing it. Would ESIGN apply?

Thanks!

I would follow Esign procedures.

What happens if they don't sign the affidavit?

Thanks Skittles.

If they don't sign the affidavit within 10 business days then we don't have to provide provisional credit within 10 business days. We just recently started using DocuSign in other areas of the bank and I was questioned as to whether we could use it for this purpose. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything before I answered.

You cannot do that - it cannot be a requirement - anymore than you can require them to file a police report. You are setting yourself up for a huge CMP if that statement is fact.

https://www.bankersonline.com/penalty/160324#

Through May 2015, as a matter of policy USAA did not investigate reported errors unless the consumer asserting the error submitted a completed WSUD (written statement of unauthorized debit) within 10 days of USAA sending the consumer the form.


Other than that, there is no problem with using DocuSign.

You can request written confirmation, but you cannot require that the written confirmation be in the form of a affidavit.

We still investigate all claims, we just require written notification. Reg E does state that we can require written notification from a customer when we receive an oral notification.

Yes - but not in the form of an affidavit.

So, if the customer agrees to sign the affidavit, we still can't accept it? I'm so confused. If they want to provide us something written, we would accept it. But, normally we simply fill out our affidavit, which lists everything they are disputing, and we just have them sign it.

However, we always start the investigation immediately.

As long as they know they have the option, that would be fine, but that is not what you originally said: " We require an affidavit be signed when a transaction is disputed".

So I did. I will definitely make sure we are giving the customer an option of how they would like to provide us a written statement.

But, they do agree to sign our document, sending it by DocuSign would be ok?

Sure - it is not a required disclosure that must be delivered in writing to the consumer, so it falls outside of the E-Sign requirements.

Thank you Randy!

You can't require the customer to sign a specific form, like Randy said. But if you're wanting a standardized process to keep everything uniform for back-office paperwork, there are ways to help. We use the same forms for every dispute we receive, we just don't require the customer to fill that out. If a customer is out of town or simply has trouble getting to the branch (for various reasons) they generally call or email. In those cases we simply transfer the information to our form and keep the original (if email) with our paperwork. Maybe this process, or something similar, will help in your situation.

Thank you burkemi! We do have a form that the back-office fills out when talking with the customer. When a customer comes into the bank and speaks with a CSR, the CSR fills out the affidavit and has the customer sign it at that time. The affidavit is then sent to the back-office area that handles the investigations.

Maybe we need to re-look at our process....