sign here

About a month ago we got a notice that Wells Fargo was buying our mortgage from Washington Mutual. I don't like the hassle, but there isn't much that can be done about that. There are over a million other mortgages changing hands, so a lot of people are affected. Thankfully, my mortgage complaints are not what this post is about.

While I was signing up for an online account with Wells Fargo I had to go through two of those legal documents where you have to click that you agree before continuing. I read through the first and sloughed off the second, which was the size of a large novelette.

What is with the size of legal documents presented for simple services? Are they long, in small print, and in legalese because they need to be or so I will give up and not read everything I am signing? My (very large) cynical side suspects that the main purpose for the complication is to frustrate me into not reading the legal stuff.

At what point are these agreements too much? At what point are they so deceptive that they no longer become valid? At what point do a large number of people unknowingly sign over all their worldly possessions just because they filled out a credit card application?

With all the documents that I have signed in my life and how few of them I completely understood, I am sure some company somewhere has power of attorney on me, or I have agreed to provide them with a 80% cut of my salary, or something horrible like that. What can be done, though? Not only am I lazy, I also have a hard time reading a complicated document when under a time constraint or when someone is watching me.

So, I'll continue to sign the complicated documents, and I'll continue to fork over my money to unscrupulous corporations due to clauses I did not read.