History Main / TrickedIntoSigning

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Christmas Carol'' has Blackadder sentenced to death [[ItMakesSenseInContext for not having a Christmas present]]. For a last request, he asks the Queen and [[SitcomArchNemesis Lord Melchett]] to sign a piece of paper, which turns out to be a death warrant [[ChekhovsGun Baldrick gave him earlier]], with Melchett's name on the "person being executed" line and the Queen's on the authorisation line. The Queen is so impressed by his trick she decides to go ahead with the execution of Melchett and pardon Blackadder.

* One episode of ''Series/TheBasilBrushShow'' has an American businessman trick Basil into signing over the show to him by asking him to autograph three seemingly-innocuous pieces of paper. Because Basil has therefore signed it "in triplicate"[[note]]"[[IncrediblyLamePun Never been there. Is it nice?]] [[CatchPhrase AHAHAHA! Boom boom!]]"[[/note]], he's unable to prove that he didn't actually read it. He instead turns the tables by pulling the same trick on the businessman, having three of his friends ask the businessman for ''his'' autograph, thus getting him to give Basil his show back ''and'' sign over control of his ''own'' show in the process.

* ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'': In "Really Big Shrimp", Josh is tricked into signing away the creative rights to Drake's latest song. In a variation of this trope, the papers aren't disguised; Josh was given the titular shrimp which was so delicious, he wouldn't even bother to read them.

It should be noted that [[UsefulNotes/TheCommonLaw Common Law]] provides certain protections against being tricked when entering an agreement. Countries whose legal systems are based on common law, such as the USA, UK, and Canada, will generally carry over these same protections. It's usually safe to presume a common-law jurisdiction will not hold an individual to a contract if it can be proven that someone lied about the content of the contract, the signer lacked the ability to understand it; for example, if their grasp of the language the contract was written in is too weak to fully comprehend the contract, or if someone signed the contract under duress or when too rushed to have time to actually read it.

* ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'': During Scrooge's darkest hour as a robber baron in DarkestAfrica, he tricked the voodoo priest Foola Zoola into signing away his tribe's land to him for a pittance by disguising himself. Foola Zoola puts a curse on Scrooge in revenge, sending Bombie the Zombie after him.

* Early on in ''Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings'', Shang-Chi is on his way to reunite with his sister at a top-floor establishment in Macau and is accompanied by an attendant asking for his signature on what appears to be a sign-in form. As it turns out, said establishment is actually [[FightClubbing an underground fighting ring]], the attendant is actually its ringmaster, and that form he signed was the fight registration contract, [[GotVolunteered so now he's up for at least one showing.]]

* Attempted in the Creator/TimothyZahn novel ''The Manta's Gift''. Unfortunately for the villain, the person they try this on (in order to implicate him in a fictitious rebellion against the government) is ''far'' too clever for them and makes them look like idiots: he signs it left-handed (so the signature doesn't match his handwriting) while wearing gloves (so his fingerprints and DNA aren't on the paper) using the name of a corporate mascot instead of himself. When they try to use the "signed" paper against him without having double-checked it, they're completely discredited.

* ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'': The fact that the only thing anyone involved in a contract really needs to do is stamp it with their blood has been abused a few times:
** One of the characters gets tricked into making a baby she cares for sign an enslavement contract that is presented as an adoption contract.
** The protagonist herself ends up falling for this trope, this time because [[spoiler:the contract doesn't even look like a contract]].
* Attempted by Pennington, an AmoralAttorney who was misappropriating client funds, in ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''. Pennington and his partner note from the start that it's a long shot; the person whose signature they need is Linnet Ridgeway Doyle, who is known for being both cautious and sharp when it comes to business matters, and is unlikely to sign anything without double-checking it. They are gambling on the fact that with Linnet on her honeymoon she might be inclined to sign just to be done with them and go back to enjoying herself. It doesn't work.
* Stacey Abrams's [[ConspiracyThriller political thriller]] ''While Justice Sleeps'' is about a woman tricked into signing power of attorney naming herself to represent the Supreme Court justice she clerks for, shortly before he enters a coma. He told her it was a routine personnel document, knowing she wouldn't read it before signing it.

* ''Series/TheDailyShowWithTrevorNoah'': When discussing Lori Loughlin signing autographs outside her hearing Trevor proposes that the attorneys should approach her as fans looking for an autograph and then reveal she's signed a confession.
* ''Series/TheOprahWinfreyShow'': In a special animated segment where Oprah visits [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons the Simpson family]], Lisa gives her a piece of paper to write her autograph, but Oprah quickly realizes she's trying to get herself adopted by her. "It's nice and legal, I assure you."
* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': In one season 6 episode, the vow of poverty that new members of a commune sign is really a "carefully worded document that gives [the commune's leader] power of attorney" over their money and property.

* There was a demotivational poster to this effect: The picture was Ronaldo giving autographs while the caption said: "During an autograph session with Polish fans, Ronaldo unexpectedly signed a life contract with Arka Gdynia."

* ''WebVideo/{{Jimquisition}}'': When delivering the rundown of the FrivolousLawsuit inflicted on them by James Romine, Jim reveals that after their lawyer convinced Romine to settle out of court, Romine attempted to edit the agreement before sending it back to Jim and their lawyer to sign.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug,'' Chloe asks her crush/local celebrity Adrien to sign a petition against cruelty to hamsters ("Have you seen some of the sweaters they're forced to wear?") that turns out to be a plain old autograph (which he simply doesn't like signing, because he just wants to be viewed as a normal kid). Well, an autograph under a paragraph declaring Adrien's love for Chloe, which she uses to lord over his other admirers.

* In ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'', Kazuma encounters an innocent child in the middle of a town full of crazy lunatics who pester him to join the Axis cult (generally boils down to a scam). The child looks so innocent that she just doesn't know how to spell his name so she gives him a paper for him to write his name. To his horror, Kazuma realizes in time that the paper is actually a form to sign up for the Axis cult, which means the kid is just as loony as the rest of the townspeople. Kazuma then tears up the paper in despair.

* In ''Series/IClaudius'', Claudius is tricked by his freedmen into signing Messalina's death warrant. They shove a bunch of mostly innocuous papers at him while he's drunk.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', the trio need a signed permission slip from a teacher in order to check out a book from the restricted section of the library. They pick the dumbest teacher [[MilesGloriosus Gilderoy Lockhart]] to get the signature from. While they ''do'' tell him the truth that it's for checking out a book, Lockhart clearly doesn't care enough to notice ''which'' book they're checking out and happily signs it as though it were yet another autograph.

* In the film version of ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', the President of the Galaxy (the vain Zaphod Beeblebrox) signed the document authorizing the destruction of Earth while thinking he was giving an autograph.

* In the original radio version of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'':

[[folder:Film]]

* In the ''Series/{{Gotham}}'' episode "Mad Gray Dawn", Eddie Nygma asks a policeman to sign a routine form at the scene of a bombing. He's actually signed [[spoiler:a statement that he saw Jim kill Galavan, which Eddie later uses to frame Jim for the policeman's murder]].
* In one episode of ''Series/HomeImprovement'', in order for Randy to get a note from his teacher signed without getting in trouble, Brad helps him by putting a fake permission slip over it. It nearly works as Tim is about to sign it, but Jill, who is familiar with the boys' tricks, stops him and discovers what it really is.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': The fact that the only thing anyone involved in a contract really needs to do is stamp it with their blood has been abused a few times:

It should be noted that [[UsefulNotes/TheCommonLaw Common Law]] provides certain protections against being tricked when entering an agreement. Countries whose legal systems are based on common law, such as the USA, UK, and Canada, will generally carry over these same protections. It's usually safe to presume a common-law jurisdiction will not hold an individual to a contract if it can be proven that someone lied about the content of the contract, the signer lacked the ability to understand it, for example if their grasp of the language the contract was written in is too weak to fully comprehend the contract, or if someone signed the contract under duress or when too rushed to have time to actually read it.

It's not uncommon to common law jurisdictions to provide further protections against malicious contracts. For instance if a contract was clearly written in a manner to obfuscate part of the contract, such as via [[ReadTheFinePrint excessively small print]] that signer may not be held to that section. Similarly if a section of a contract is so blatantly one sided that it's clear the signer would not have agreed to it if they were aware of it that section may be excluded. So, for example, just because you slip a paragraph into your rental agreement saying the signer will give you all their worldly possessions and agrees to become your slave doesn't necessarily mean the courts will enforce it. Of course the exact laws and degree of protection offered vary between jurisdictions, so it's best to read any contract closely just in case.

* ''Manga/Area88'' begins with this. Satoru and Shin are out drinking to celebrate Shin getting his pilots license. Satoru passes Shin a form to sign. Shin does and promptly passes out. The next day, he wakes up as a mercenary pilot for the country of Aslan, which is currently at war. Satoru uses Shin's "disappearance" to endear himself to the CEO of the Yamato Air Lines (which both of them were supposed to be working for) and, more importantly, get into the CEO's daughter Ryoko's pants. Shin, meanwhile, is forced to fulfill the contract or else be shot as a deserter. [[spoiler:This ultimately fails, as Satoru is not only such a horrible business man and bully that he ends up in prison, but Shin is too good of a fighter pilot to get himself shot down as Satoru had hoped.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Sabagebu}}'', the club president of the titular [[{{UsefulNotes/Airsoft}} airsoft club]] catches Momoka the central heroine off-guard after a spurred-on match by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name#Characters asking her name, then calling it a pretty unusual one and then asking to write it down]] on ''this'' piece of paper, here you go. Too late to realize it was a club application form, Momoka is allowed a respite since to join she would have to hand the application in person. Then again, a not quite conscious person knocked out by a spiked melon bun, as it turns out, works.

* In an ''ComicBook/{{Archie Comic|s}}'', Reggie decides to write up a petition protesting litter on the beach. Archie is eager to be the first to sign it, so Reggie has him sign it with a nice and large signature before he's even drawn up the petition content. Evil-hearted Reggie then writes up a love note to an anonymous girl. With Archie's signature below it, the note is sure to unleash Betty and Veronica's wrath.

* In the live action film adaptation of ''Film/TheFlintstones'', Fred is given a superfluous executive position and asked to sign a bunch of bulky forms. Fred questions it at first, but he is bribed by his superior, Cliff Vandercave. Later, [[AcquiredSituationalNarcissism after the money changes Fred]], he unwittingly signs requisition forms which authorize laying off his coworkers.

* Early on in ''Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings'', Shang-Chi is on his way to reunite with his sister at a top-floor establishment in Macau, and is accompanied by an attendant asking for his signature on what appears to be a sign-in form. As it turns out, said establishment is actually [[FightClubbing an underground fighting ring]], the attendant is actually its ringmaster, and that form he signed was the fight registration contract, [[GotVolunteered so now he's up for at least one showing.]]

* ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'': The Big Chapter Book ''in the Freaky Funhouse'' has the villains commit contract fraud by giving Dr. Gert Grizzly four copies of a contract to sign; however, the first one, which is the only one she read, is a fake which falsely claims that eighty percent of the money they're raising will go to the hospital and twenty percent goes to the circus. The trope applies into the other three copies, which have things the other way around, and which Gert doesn't realize until late in the book. Happily, the fraud is ultimately exposed and the hospital gets its money.

* In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheNecromancer'', Cabal has one year to get 100 people to sell their souls to the Devil in order to get his own soul back and is shown tricking a miserly and greedy farmer into selling his soul by making the man think he's signing a land contract. The guy does question the reference to himself as the "Damnee", but Cabal tells his that it is antiquated legal jargon. It's noted in the text that some of the fine print in the contract indicates that signatures are valid/signees are damned even if they don't know what they are signing.
* Attempted in the Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel ''Unnatural Death''. Mary Whittaker tries to trick her great-aunt Agatha Dawson into signing a will by burying it in a bunch of other papers than need a signature -- and by having two of the housemaids ready to witness the signing of the will without Agatha realizing it. However, Agatha notices the will and refuses to sign.

* A spin-off book based on ''Series/{{Revenge}}'' has Ava Winters happily married to the perfect guy who helps her with the vineyards that have been in her family for generations. He tells her of a great deal to expand the vineyards and she signs the papers for the loan needed. Too late, Ava discovers she actually gave him power of attorney to sell the vineyards to her family's long-time enemy and leave her nearly penniless. Even worse, it turns out their "marriage" was never legal in the first place and he was setting her up all this time. Needless to say, she wants payback and joins in a "school" to teach her how to get it.

* Attempted by Pennington, an AmoralAttorney who was misappropriating client funds, in ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile''. Pennington and his partner note from the start that it's a long-shot; the person whose signature they need is Linnet Ridgeway Doyle, who is known for being both cautious and sharp when it comes to business matters, and is unlikely to sign anything without double checking it. They are gambling on the fact that with Linnet on her honeymoon she might be inclined to sign just to be done with them and go back to enjoying herself. It doesn't work.

* In one episode of ''Series/Adam12'', Reed and Malloy answer a call about a business dispute that's disturbing the peace, and arrive at HonestJohnsDealership, where a car dealer has tricked a customer who speaks very little English into signing a contract purchasing the car by passing it off as a waiver in case of accident during the test drive. The dealer's secretary had placed the call, and after Reed and Malloy persuade the dealer to release Mr. Diaz from the contract SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs; they give the secretary a calling card for the detective bureau.

* One episode of ''Series/TheBasilBrushShow'' has an American businessman trick Basil into signing over the show to him by asking him to autograph three seemingly-inncouous pieces of paper. Because Basil has therefore signed it "in triplicate"[[note]]"[[IncrediblyLamePun Never been there. Is it nice?]] [[CatchPhrase AHAHAHA! Boom boom!]]"[[/note]], he's unable to prove that he didn't actually read it. He instead turns the tables by pulling the same trick on the businessman, having three of his friends ask the businessman for ''his'' autograph, thus getting him to give Basil his show back ''and'' sign over control of his ''own'' show in the process.

* ''Series/JonathanCreek'': In "Gorgons Wood", Carla is signing copies of her new work-out video and a woman with a small child asks if she could take a picture of her with her nephew on Carla's knee. Turns out that the "nephew" is a grown man. The whole thing is distraction so she wouldn't notice that she is signing a contract allowing them to [[spoiler:license "all forms of sexual erotica, however explicit, bearing my name, face or likeness"]].

* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'': The titular character is in the hospital, after having done a happy dance out in the street after winning $100,000 off a lotto scratcher and gotten hit by a car. He's all doped up on morphine, and his wife comes to see him, accompanied by a mutual friend she'd been cheating on him with for ''years'', while holding a stack of papers. She tells Earl to sign next to the sticky yellow tabs, and in doing so, she divorces him ''and'' included a clause about him signing their trailer over to her. So he's left with no wife, no home to go back to, and no lotto ticket. He turns on the TV, and sees Carson Daly talking about [[CallItKarma karma]], and decides to make up for every bad thing he's done, in the hopes that maybe his luck will turn around.

* ''Radio/BleakExpectations:'' Pip Bin gets tricked by a money lender into signing a lease with grotesquely inflated interest, fluctuating wildly and randomly in the money lender's favour, via reverse-psychology. As Pip was signing the form, the man instructed him to ''not'' sign a specific part. At which point Pip signed it.

* In ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' there is a puzzle requiring Bernard to get Dr. Fred's signature on a contract that he refuses to sign because he's preoccupied with trying to think of a way to defeat Purple Tentacle.. One of the four possible solutions involves tricking him by claiming it's the cancellation form for a record club.

* At the very beginning of ''[[VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles Mystery Case Files: Black Crown]]'', the Master Detective is asked by a doctor to sign some administrative papers to allow her seeing one of his patients, which she does. [[spoiler:She should have read it, as the doctor was in cahoots with the BigBad, the ghostly pirate Phineas Crown, and the paper was in fact a contract binding her to join the latter's crew.]]

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' has this happen to Trucy in the 2nd case. A TV producer asks Trucy to sign a contract for her magic show to be televised on his network and she does so. Later on, the same producer starts demanding several million dollars in compensation because Trucy's show ended in disaster due to her being accused of murdering someone on stage and that she's responsible for it due to her signing the contract with those clauses. Apollo doesn't buy it because he knows Trucy would never sign such a contract. [[spoiler:And he is right. The contract Trucy signed was on carbon paper, which copied her signature on a different contract behind it and she had no knowledge of it. She also didn't kill the victim. It was all done by the producer to get Trucy's life ruined due to what her grandfather did to him in the past.]]

* On ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'', in the episode "Home Sweet Homing Pigeon", Dick Dastardly asks Muttley, Klunk and Zilly, who are being discharged, to sign his memory book. They actually signed four-year enlistment renewals.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' story line "Painting Theft", Boris uses the autograph trick to get Bullwinkle to sign a will making Boris the moose's sole heir.

** In the episode "Bart Mangled Banner," after Bart goes deaf after having a reaction to a vaccine that Dr. Hibbert applied. After explaining what happened Hibbert gives Homer a free pen and provides a piece of paper for him to try it out, and right after Homer signs his name on it, Hibbert unfolds the paper, revealing it to be a malpractice waiver.
* In ''WesternAnimation/WabbitALooneyTunesProduction'', Bugs tricks Vladimir Angelo Chafong Reginald [=McMurthy=] into signing a trade contact by pretending to be a tourist and make him autograph several things without him [Vladimir] noticing. This makes it legal for Vladimir to join the Alaskan Halibuts.

* ''Allegedly'', this was how UsefulNotes/ElizabethI's council finally got her to sign the order to execute UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland, by burying the order among a stack of other papers that needed her signature. In reality, Elizabeth knew the whole time, but insisted that they make it look like this trope to try and lessen her personal culpability for Mary's death in the eyes of the world (Elizabeth always had...mixed feelings about executing a fellow monarch, especially with regard to how other nations would react to it).