WHERE A PHOTOCOPY IS TREATED AS AN ORIGINAL

QUESTION

Hi Mr.Old Man,

From the time I knew your blog, I have always wondered why you call yourself Mr.Old Man. I think it's fun and in real life you are a person with great sense of humour,I guess. I just want to say it out that you are never 'old', you are actually more like our big bro who are generous in sharing his knowlege and we thank you for that.

Go back to my question. Real life situation is really complicated. Single matter of making a decision as to whether docs presented are originals or copies is difficult. In a nutshell, I would like to find the answers to the following questions:

1) Is a photocopy marked 'orginal' an original (especially important docs like: insurance poli/cert, transport document)?
2) Is duly signed and stamped doc marked 'copy' a copy or an original. In this case, please take a look at my attached file. I treated it as a photocopy doc.

Please let me know whether I am right or not in treating this doc as a copy one.
Thanks
TTL
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ANSWER

Dear TTL,

“Mr. Old Man” is just a nickname given to me by a young FTU student when I first joined Yahoo! 360 Blog in 2007. The name has become familiar to thousands of students and colleagues, who eat, sleep and breathe L/C and remained unchanged so far. And I like it.

Back to your question:
1) Is a photocopy marked “ORIGINAL” an original (especially important documents like insurance documents, transport documents…)?

According to ICC Policy Document No. 470/871rev, if a photocopy appears to have been completed by the document issuer’s hand marking the photocopy (i.e., appears to be written, typed, perforated, or stamped by the document issuer’s hand), the resulting document is treated as an original document…
So, in theory, a photocopy marked or stamped “ORIGINAL” should be treated as an original irrespective of whether it is an insurance document or a transport document.
However, my observation has shown that some still doubt that the above ICC statement is not applicable to insurance documents and transport documents.
My final view now is insurance documents and/or transport documents are not exceptions to the statement.
Forgery is another issue. If you have evidence to believe that the said document is forged, you can reject the payment.

2) Is duly signed and stamped document marked 'copy' a copy or an original?

It’s a copy. Also according to the above ICC Document, a document indicates that it is non-original if it states that it is a true copy of another document. The case in your question falls into this category.

Best regards,
Mr. Old Man