Has anyone every had their professional documents altered without them knowing it until much later after it happened? Has anyone every had their seal and signature forged on a document?
In my 35+ year career I have had one document altered by a former boss many years ago that I didn't find out about until several weeks after it happened. This was back before CAD and digital signatures. That was over 25 years ago.
> Has anyone every had their professional documents altered without them knowing it until much later after it happened?
Yes
> Has anyone every had their seal and signature forged on a document?
Yes
It happens, and with the advent of Xerox it is quite easy to do.
and your point Jim?
> Has anyone every had their professional documents altered without them knowing it until much later after it happened? Has anyone every had their seal and signature forged on a document?
>
> In my 35+ year career I have had one document altered by a former boss many years ago that I didn't find out about until several weeks after it happened. This was back before CAD and digital signatures. That was over 25 years ago.
I've heard of this at least 3 different times. Fortunately for me never personally experienced it.
Case #1. Local guy is set to testify in a boundary dispute. His client is the defendant. The attorney for the plaintiff introduces a map as evidence. The local PLS takes one look and says.... wait a minute, that is my map with considerable changes made. Turns out the plaintiff had copied some of the basic stuff from the surveyors plat and created how he wanted things to be for the rest. (Case dismissed and plaintiff ordered to pay defendants expenses.)
Case #2. Local guy prepares a boundary survey plat showing area of overlap. Real Estate Agent is concerned buyer will not close the deal with an overlap so she copies and removes all mention of overlap. (What happened? No clue. Had I been the PLS, either me or the RE Agent would have been in jail. Given what I know of the PLS and the RE Agent, I suspect the PLS just let it go and said nothing.)
Case #3. CA Surveyor has an employee that lasts about 6 months. Employee is fired for incompetence. Employee moves to a different part of the state, buys stamp with his name and the former employers PLS #. Opens business and works for years doing very poor work. CA Surveyor finds out about this many years later when someone calls his office fussing about the poor quality work with his #. I discussed this with the CA Surveyor a few years ago. My memory is the former employee ended up in jail on fraud and identify theft charges.
Larry P
> Has anyone every had their professional documents altered without them knowing it until much later after it happened? Has anyone every had their seal and signature forged on a document?
I was involved in investigating a situation a few years ago where a woman had taken a survey of her (large suburban) lot and by cut-and-paste and xeroxing had produced two "new surveys" that were used to defraud a lender and a buyer to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars. I wasn't the surveyor whose map was used as the starting material, but it demonstrated to my satisfaction the value of impression seals instead of rubber stamp seals.
The reason for asking the question is that there are a lot of security concerns about seals and hand written signatures versus digital signatures.
I was wondering if the concerns were based upon actual experiences and if altered documents and forgery are a common occurrence. I for one have had only the one personal experience and until replies to this post I knew of no others.
Technologies are advancing with identity theft being high on the watch list, especially with credit and the millions of online transactions taking place each day.
It appears as though altering and/or forging surveying documents have mostly been bypassed. Not that it doesn't happen, you just don't hear about it much.
Digital signatures with it's embedded security features is the closest thing to securing a survey document in PDF that I have ran across. It's like Lifelock is to credit. If the document is altered in anyway, the PDF will notify the reader.
No security feature is 100% fail safe, electronic or hard copy. Perhaps someday we will be able to attach our DNA to a document.
It has never happened to me, I hope, but I know of several cases of blatant forgery and fraudulent use of a seal.
I have had several documents altered and used by others
In the mid 80's a lawyer began the practice of taking hardcopies and adding changes to make divisions to my drawings and property descriptions with the help of xerox copier to work around hiring and paying for the service
A few choice phrases from some popular movies and to let him know that KARMA has made a visit in his life with pictures solved that problem
One surveyor , now long past on, would take another's drawing and xerox the portion he was working on and add a line or two or three and put his signature and seal on to avoid drawing the entire subject again
There was the case a few counties away around the same time where an unlicensed surveyor was using a dead man's seal to continue his career resulted in a trial and fines and an order to stop all surveying with no hope of ever becoming licensed.
A little over 10yrs ago another lawyer began to make divisions on paper and was using my descriptions in an altered form to put in new deeds. I never saw any drawings or property descriptions with my name on them, I simply ran across deeds without surveys during my court house search. He did issue title opinions. A reminder of the need of an actual document to substantiate an actual survey put him in a possible bind that hopefully has stopped his habit.
Those of mine and the cases I've been told of by others, always involve people that can easily afford to hire surveyors. The common thread always appears they are at a level of confidence that they think is bullet proof and who is going to call their hand.
I've never had a problem in this digital world. I do not give out my entire digital drawing unless that was a part of the work order.
On a typical sending of drawing info, I scrap the points and descriptions and let the receiver pick and choose from cad what they want to convert into coordinates. Mostly, I send a color PDF from cad or of a hardcopy
I had a stamped foundation as-built plan I had done altered to show a proposed pool showing setbacks to the lot lines. The pool co. submitted to the building inspector for the permit, and he accepted it. When I asked the bldg. inspector why he accepted the forged plan he said "happens all the time."
I posted about this a few months back. I contacted the BOR about the matter and they couldn't have been less interested. I was a little discouraged, needless to say.
Forged plans are going to happen. It falls on the part of the accepting authority to ensure the plan is valid, and unfortunately, in this case, they just didn't care.
-V
I've never seen it first-hand, and have been hearing about it as a bogeyman to be feared for years. I assume it was the reason our Registries of Deeds started requiring embossed seals years ago -- they've since lost that requirement, though the truth is that my CAD-made seal would be easier to forge than it would be to obtain a phony embossed seal (though the manufacturers used to sell an embossed seal to anyone with the cash (not a fortune) who ordered one. It's just not something to lose much sleep over, in my opinion. And I hope the various legislatures agree, rather than provide a new line of hoops for us to jump through.
Wow, that IS a horror story -- a real serial forger -- I'd say off with his head. It seems he got off relatively easy, a 2-year revocation and a $1000 fine seems mild in this case. I've still never heard of anything like this in Maine -- I'd be interested if any of my colleagues have.
Wow!! Locks keep honest folks and lazy criminals out, but are only a speed bump for the determined criminal. I'm not sure that any reasonable system, be it raised seal, wet stamp with original signature, or digital signature could prevent someone so determined to commit fraud.
> Here is a horror story from Alabama.
I wonder how many of the surveyors filed fraud/identity theft charges or filed complaints with the respective BOR in the other states. The $1,000 dollar fine and two year suspension is a slap on the wrist. However, the total of other actions, fines, jail time and legal costs could be very large.
Thanks for all of the replies.
I am much better informed of occurrences where altered documents and forgeries have happened.
There is no perfect security system to protect our professional documents from would be criminals to do what it is that they do.
The bottom line is we use whatever method is available that helps us sleep better at night and see what develops in the future.
"Necessity is the mother of invention"
I had to learn the hard way about the Alabama horror story. we performed quite a few surveys following the serial forger. No pins, no rhyme or reason for any of the work at all. He was using quite a few other seals and performing work in Georgia and Alabama. The Alabama work he sealed.....I don't think any of the work was actually "surveyed" though. Try arguing with a title company why you want them to use your description versus the serial sealer's fake survey!
