We are still requiring notarization in 2012?

I thought we were past that. Anyway I used “SignNow’s online notary feature”:https://notary.signnow.com/, sadly “Docusign”:http://www.docusign.com does not yet have a notary feature.

So the way the SignNow feature is supposed to work is this – you upload a document, they throw you into a video chat with a notary, the notary asks you all the notary type questions, looks at your ID, accepts your signature, stamps the doc, and you are done. It could be a great convenience. And the people at SignNow were incredibly gracious, they are just rolling out this service, they worked super hard to make sure I was satisfied. I could hear the notary on the other end working with her tech support to solve issues as they cropped up.

But the stupid Adobe Flash in-browser video control is killing them. It would never work on my machine (Brand new macbook pro retina, google chrome). I restarted the browser to no avail. We finally go to the point where the notary could see me, and we could hear each other, but I could never see the notary, all I saw was a frozen Flash control. This isn’t the first company I’ve seen struggle with the Flash control, that thing is a killer.

But thanks to the diligence of the SignNow folks I did get a notarized doc and so my problem was solved. For their sake I hope they find a solution that doesn’t need this Flash thing. I assume they are completely nonstarters on the iPad.

The whole experience does make you wonder about the value of notarization, if you weren’t already wondering. Has this process really made my signature more trustworthy and reliable – I mean, the notary was in Virgina, attesting to my signature in Washington, for a lease document in California.