Posted by Deborah Lewellen on 4/3/08 5:02pm
Msg #242088

My Opinion on ESigning in TN

It would be great in a perfect world, I do have the laptop and wireless capabilities, but the risk of going to a closing where cell service may or may not work is a risky business, You don't know from
job to job where you will or will not have service here, esp. in the remote mountainous areas. City is usually fine, but even so, in our little town of Greeneville, you have minimal service sometimes
not at all even downtown because of the buildings. That is Tennessee for you, are we behind the times? Yes, most likely. Cell service is unpredictable for East Tennessee in rural areas. I would hate
to have docs on a computer only to find out when I got to a borrowers that my cell is not working or is working at a very low level. As far as utilizing a borrowers home computer, again, complications
can run the gamut of using dial up that takes forever to download or having an old computer that has problems with the proper upgrades in order to even open up a PDF file. Why should we waste time at
a library when those computers could be being used by someone else, have people looking over your shoulders and hearing the borrowers business taking place. I am personally very computer savy
and know alot to get me by, however, I have seen issues with the esigning that could cause problems. Personally I want hard copies of documents for myself, actually doing a refi myself for another house I own
and I like to have the hardcopy for my records. Computers lose data all the time, you can burn disk and even burning copies of the borrowers docs to a disk is a great idea, again, if the disk becomes compromised
then they don't have those copies.

I also look at the cost of $60+ per month for wireless internet for my cell, I all ready have an office in town, where I conduct closings/print docs/ have a phone for faxing/copying/printing and DSL
this is a great convenience for myself and for borrowers. when I add up the costs of my home office/ office in town, phone, internet bills, costs of having two computers, 3 laser printers, all the paper/toner
as you can see it gets quite expensive. To add another $60 a month bill to my plate for may or may not be justified, esp. since most signing services want to cut fees because of having this capability.
I personally have not raised my fees whatsoever even though the price of gas is skyrocketing. Though if it keeps it up and goes to $4 a gallon, I may have to add a minimal charge of $10 to help defray costs.
At this point not sure if I can justify the cost of an eSign esp. with lower fees.
thankyou so much for hearing my viewpoint. \
Deborah Lewellen

I got an email from PSS, and this was my reply email, I'm sure there are lots of opinions on this.

Reply by Sharon Taylor on 4/3/08 5:25pm
Msg #242091

Excellent reply, Deb - I agree almost totally

except for the part about TN being behind the times. We are not, I think. There are many many rural areas around the country that would have the same issues, like upstate New York where I was born and raised 30 miles from the Canadian border and which consists of small towns and villages and rural farmland.
I cannot justify the added cost when it would be useless in most areas around here just in hopes of picking up one or two closings a month, and probably not even that many.
As far as edocs are concerned, you are absolutely correct - how many borrowers will back up that data AND know where to find the disk(s) during an entire 30-year loan period. And of course computer hardware changes dramatically. I had to just about twist off the arm of my buddy the geek who did a custom build of a new computer for us last fall - he could not imagine why I would want a 3-1/2" floppy disc drive. Anyone remember 5-1/4" floppy discs? Current CDs and DVDs and jumpdrives will be as outmoded as those are, and borrowers will be stuck with loan package saved on an unreadable device.

Reply by Lee/AR on 4/3/08 9:59pm
Msg #242125

Re: Excellent reply, Deb - I agree totally

Ditto AR. And you did make an excellent point of 'having your mortgage on a CD'. Just think---you're in a mortgage for 15 to 30 years....and just look at all the technology changes in the last ten years! Another thing I just thought about---If the Lender asks the B if they'd like to do an e-sign, do you really think they're going to tell them the possible/probable downside of the process? Also, most B's are just stunned by the number of pages & amount of time a 'normal' signing takes. So when they say 'Yes' to e-signing, they are probably thinking this will take 5 minutes. I also feel that this process is somehow 'invasive'. Sit across a table passing paper or bunch up around a computer so everyone can see the screen & access the mouse. It might look very neat in an office setting with a huge conference table---but that's NOT going to be the normal situation we walk into. LOL...can you tell I think this is a dumb concept and not very well thought through by the powers-that-be?

Reply by Art_MD on 4/4/08 6:20am
Msg #242142

Re: media - DVD, CD, 3 1/2", 5 1/4", 8"


Sharon, I agree with you completely about storage media. Over the years, too many in fact, I stored info on progressively compact formats. Major problem is not religiously moving stored data to the current generation of media. I still have some 8" floppies in a box (lets not even mention the 30MB winchester disk - which I can't read!!). Somewhere, I still have accessories to read all these media. Don't know how good my DOS skills are now.

Art

Reply by Daniel Suarez on 4/4/08 11:32am
Msg #242179

Re: media - DVD, CD, 3 1/2", 5 1/4", 8"

The experts say you should update your older data on older media to new media every 8 years or so because it will then may become unreadable due to data degradation. This is specially true for magnetic media such as the floppy disks and even your hard drives.