Seeing more borrowers pull out those ultra-smooth gel pens lately, and i’m kinda wary. Twice last week the ink looked fine at the table but smeared on the lender’s coated pages and left blue smudges on my scanner glass, and i missed the 5 pm drop fixing pages and cleaning. How are you avoiding smears or scanner streaks when clients insist on using their own pen? i broke a small ‘rule’ and it helped. i stopped deferring to their pen and hand over a cheap Bic ballpoint instead, only if the instructions allow and the ballpoint matches the required color. Curious if there’s a better way before this becomes another tiny but costly habit in my bag.
Borrower used a G2 on that glossy lender stock last week. Looked dry, then ghosted onto the next page and my scanner glass. I hand them a 1.0 mm oil-based ballpoint (BIC Round Stic). Jetstream backup. quick-dry gels still smear on coated stock.
Gel ink sits on top of that coated stock, so it smears. I just don’t let gels hit lender pages. Hand them a blue oil‑based ballpoint and say, use this one. I’ve had good luck with.
Same here - I carry a Uni Jetstream 1.0 blue and a couple blotting cards; if they insist on gel, I lay a blotter or clean sheet over each fresh signature and slide it page to page, which stops offset and scanner streaks. Have you tried a quick‑dry hybrid ballpoint like the Jetstream?