Is this illegal?

You can sign whatever you want, including an X. If you put ink to paper it's YOUR signature in the eyes of the law.

 

Sure, in the eyes of the law, in the mean time, you gain deniability. I sign everything SLC.

 

I used to do that too when ran reefer, Shippers Load & Count, since it was. Sometimes I wasn't allowed on the dock at those produce warehouses.

One day I get a call from dispatch: "Fuller, your full load of lettuce came up 10 boxes short at the receivers end. We're going to have to take that off your pay."

So, they will still try. Fuller's reply: "Like F### you will! I'm not a thief, and even if I was, 10 boxes of lettuce would be the last thing I'd steal!" (I hauled some high value goods also with them too occasionally, worth millions of dollars, so why the hell would I steal some lettuce?)

I swear there's no other industry that expects so much from the driver for so little, even trying to nickel & dime us for a few boxes of lettuce that either the shipper or receiver miscounted.

 

Do not sign anything until it is complete. If they refuse to unload, have them call their manager and tell them you will not sign a document that implies you are responsible for the count on the truck until you see the count being done and confirm the count number.

this is a legal issue, putting a signature on a document making you and your carrier responsible is just for expedience and nothing else, they are lazy in their job.

nope.

your legal signature that can be confirmed by admittance and/or comparison to an established signatures and is the only thing that is held up as valid under the law.

you have deniable plausibility when there is anything different on the paper.

 

The admittance will be what gets your average driver. They'll be asked if they put ink to paper and the driver will say yeah, but that's not my name/signature. They will surely admit to writing it and that's all she wrote.