I have a friend who works for a signing service, which she is getting ready to bail from, and this is what she had to say in an email to me about nonpayment issues by her current DEADBEAT employer. And by the way, the company has operated in this fashion for over 10 years and still profiting. It's a bit more difficult these days, but they are still on the grid.
First of all, it's a very stressful job, since she is the one who fields the collection calls from notaries. That is why she has resigned her job and taking an escrow assistant position with one of the SS clients.
Most of the notaries don't realize THEY are the ones keeping them in biz. The SS preys on newbie notaries because they are clueless about how this SS operates. The SS has ceased taking the signings they can't find anyone to accommodate and eventually the customers go away. Not that they won't eventually end up with the quality of notary the SS is using. Mostly the seasoned notaries have caught on... just a few notaries who are on their "pay monthly list" who aren't affected by the no/slow pay so that they will keep taking the signings. The rest are all newbies who don't know what they are doing and desperate to get their foot in the door. Their checks are stacked in a box to see if they remember they are owed money for signings. SOP.
Their clients have no idea that the notaries are not getting paid.. No idea at all. My friend is very close to one of the clients and asked her to google DEADBEAT SS and she was shocked at what she found. Needless to say, her friend stopped using them to find notaries for their closings.
So this is a rampant practice among SSs, and do you think these companies care that much? Apparently not. It is SOP among these 1-2 star companies.
When the &#*$ hits the fan, I'll let you know, but for right now I can't tell you the name of the SS. I haven't taken work from them in years.
Things could come to an abrupt and brutal end of business environment for this SS and others who employ this practice. There have been so many companies who went out of business in the night owing notaries lots of money before cutting their phone service, email addy's and websites taken down and no way to collect their fees.
How many notaries were ever able to collect in Small Claims from these deadbeats? Few I'm afraid. I believe we'll see a tsunami of imploding low star rated SSs in the coming months. |
