Posted by Anonymous on 9/10/05 10:22pm
Msg #64612

Need Expert Advice on a Signing Service

Yesterday at 7pm a signing service called me with 3 signings. One was in Aliso Viejo, one in Apple Valley, and one in San Bernardino. I live in Hemet. They delivered the documents to my house. I spent most of the morning preparing and reviewing the documents. They only wanted to pay me 75 for each signing. I said no. I called the borrowers in Aliso Viejo 4 times and recieved no response, the same happend for the apple valley signing. I called the borrowers in San Bernardino and they said that 7pm would be good. I called the signing service 5 times asking for more phone numbers for the borrowers that were not responding. I got no reply. I'm not familiar with San Bernardino. When I arrived at the house it was a very shady area. There were guys waiving at me and they looked like gang members. I tried several more times to call the signing service, still no response. I made the decision to leave because the area was really bad. I waited around all day for these three signings. What should I do as far as compensation.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 10:32pm
Msg #64613

I'm in California! Thanks!

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 10:41pm
Msg #64615

Why would you accept signings all over the place, unless....

they are paying you VERY well???? If its a SS, my guess is they arent! The gas alone to hit these 3 signings, even if you did them all in a row, would cost an arm and a leg! I know this isnt an answer to your question, but I am amazed since I too live in So CAL and know all the areas you speak of, I can only say, I hope you drive a very economical car and hopefully you will give more thought before saying yes, the next time.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 10:44pm
Msg #64616

Re: Why would you accept signings all over the place, unless

That was not what I asked, so you can keep your personal opinions to yourself.

Reply by CaliNotary on 9/10/05 11:31pm
Msg #64625

Give me a freaking break

You're posting on a public message board, we can give you all the personal opinions that we want. If you don't like it, don't post here you ungrateful bastard.

For you to drive up to a signing, have the borrowers waving at you, and turn around and drive away is the height of unprofessionalism and COMPLETELY unacceptable. The signing service shouldn't pay you a damn cent for that. I don't know what exactly you were expecting in San Bernardino, but there aren't a whole lot of nice areas in the city. And were you really expecting the signing service to answer their phone at 7 pm on a Saturday? Duh. I hope you at least had the courtesy to call the borrower and tell them that you weren't coming. But I'm guessing you didn't. You better just hope that your disgraceful actions didn't cause a rate lock to expire or you might find yourself on the wrong end of a big fat lawsuit.

As for the other 2 signings, you aren't owed anything for those either. That goes with the territory, sometimes we can't get a hold of people. If you choose to spend your entire day trying to chase them down, that's your own foolishness.

And the part about what the SS is paying you doesn't make sense unless you left out the part where you actually agreed on a fee with them. And if you did, I don't know why you only told us about the $75 offer since it's completely irrelevant.

All in all, it sounds like your lack of knowledge about this job is quickly going to drive you into financial ruin. And from the crappy attitude and unprofessional actions you've shown in your couple of posts here, the industry certainly won't be worse off from the loss.

Reply by BarbaraL_CA on 9/11/05 12:27am
Msg #64635

Re: Give me a freaking break

CaliNotary said: "For you to drive up to a signing, have the borrowers waving at you, and turn around and drive away is the height of unprofessionalism and COMPLETELY unacceptable"

Read it again, Cali... she never said it was the borrowers waving at her. If it were the borrowers then I agree it was unprofessional. An option would be to call the borrowers and have them meet at an agreed upon neutral location.

Reply by CaliNotary on 9/11/05 2:44pm
Msg #64679

Re: Give me a freaking break

OK, she said that when she got to the house there were guys waving at her. Whether or not they were the borrowers is really irrelevant, she still shouldn't have turned tail and left, especially when it's obvious that somebody at the house saw her arrive.

When did waving at somebody become a threatening action? In my book it's always been a friendly gesture.

This whole thing reminds of a scene in the movie "Hairspray", when Penny's mom follows her into a black neighborhood and freaks out. God I love that movie.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/13/05 11:56am
Msg #64951

Re: Give me a freaking break

there is only 1 movie quote that applies to this. The Godfather "Just when I think my out, they pull me back in."

Reply by Barry Silver on 9/10/05 10:50pm
Msg #64617

If you ever get a hold of the signing service, discuss it with them. If they gave you the confirmation for the three signings, and the borrowers did not avail themselves to the closings, then I would count that as a cancellatiuon fee as you may have had the option to accept other work but you were prohibited from doing so because you had already committed here.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 11:00pm
Msg #64621

Thank you, that is great advice.

Reply by JLCa on 9/10/05 10:55pm
Msg #64619

If you don't mind, could you tell us the name of the SS.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 10:59pm
Msg #64620

I do not feel that revieling the name of the signing service would be appropriate. Now if they do not pay me in 30 days, I'll put there name up on this board and I'll post a complaint with the BBB.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/10/05 11:59pm
Msg #64631

I can't believe how rude some of you are to questions

It's so unprofessional and uncalled for. I would hate to have people like you working for me.

Reply by CaliNotary on 9/11/05 12:03am
Msg #64633

Re: I can't believe how rude some of you are to questions

Posting as "anonymous" is uncalled for too.

Reply by CarolynCO on 9/11/05 9:13am
Msg #64654

Re: I can't believe how rude some of you are to questions

What gives you the right to ocme in here hiding behind your Anonymous cover and call anyone unprofessional or not want someone working for you because they disagreed with you? Until you reveal your identity and come out from under your rock, you don't even deserve a response.

Reply by TitleGalCA on 9/11/05 12:24pm
Msg #64665

Ditto Carolyn and Cali

You've got some nerve qualifying the answers to a question you posted. You're dam lucky anybody took the trouble to answer. Posting as anonymous with nasty little comments to responses is worse than tacky - shame on you.

Reply by PAW_Fl on 9/12/05 9:18am
Msg #64737

Re: I can't believe how rude some of you are to questions

Don't worry, most of us would never consider working for an anonymous person or company. Just as I would never consider hiring an anonymous person or company either.

What you may be taking as "rude" may be more of blunt responses. Tact sometimes creates unwanted responses, as does directness. You can't have it both ways. Readers must not read innuendoes into any posts. If it isn't in black & white, it more than likely isn't there. Take the post as face value. If you don't like it, move on.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 9/11/05 12:57am
Msg #64637

First of all, I hope they finally agreed to pay you lots more than $75 each to cover all those locations from Hemet and that you settled your terms before having them deliver the docs to you. As for the signings in Aliso Viejo and Apple Valley, if you left messages for the borrowers and they never got back to you and you unsuccessfully tried to reach the signing service there is not much you can do about it (unless the docs are not date sensitive docs and you can reschedule for tomorrow - same rescission date). You'll be lucky to even get a cancellation fee, if anything, for those two otherwise. Just touch base with the SS as soon as you can to see what they want you to do. It's been my experience that MOST of the time, when a borrower doesn't return my calls there's a reason for it and those often end up being cancelled anyway.

As far as the appt in San Bernardino, did you try to call the borrowers when you got there? If you just left without trying to complete the signing because some guys "looked like gang members", I have to say I think you screwed up and could be accused of discrimination. What if they were the borrowers and were trying to indicate to you that you'd found the right house? Have you tried calling them since? As far as waiting around all day for these three signings, that was your choice and your time management. The agency doesn't owe you for that. At this point, if I were you, I'd be much more worried about trying to salvage the signings than what I'm going to get paid for having made a few phone calls.

CaliNotary's style may be a bit abrasive, but I generally agree with his perspective. And the person who suggested meeting in a neutral place has the right idea. Again, unless the documents were date sensitive, you might be able to salvage things by trying again tomorrow. Just ask yourself how much do you really want to succeed in this business. The rest you can chalk up to education from the school of hard knocks...

Reply by Sylvia_FL on 9/11/05 8:48am
Msg #64651

Obviously as you accepted the signings and you had told then "No" on the $75, you must have agreed on a mutually accepted fee.

I don't understand you spending "most of the morning preparing and reviewing the documents" Unless you are very new there is no need for this. I get a package, look through it to make sure everything is there, pull out the RTC's and put them to the front and place the Note and Mortgage after the HUD. (takes less than 5 minutes).
I call the borrowers, and if I get an answering machine I leave a message for them to call me back. I won't spend a lot of time chasing them down.

If I got to the house and it was a shady area, I would make sure my doors were locked and windows up, then I would have got on the cell phone to the borrowers and asked them about the "gang members", and if it was unsafe I would have asked them to meet me elsewhere.
I would not just drive away. That is unprofessional to leave the borrowers hanging.

How did they look like "gang members"? What does a "gang member" look like?

I once had signing in a "shady area". Drove down the street and there were people in the street standing around, and some obviously "ladies of the evening".
I pulled in front of the borrowers home, made sure I locked the van door.
Borrowers were very nice, but told me it was a bad neighborhood and the people I saw on the street were drug dealers, but as long as I ignored them I was fine. The borrowers son escorted me to the van after and watched as I drove away. I never once thought of letting the borrowers down because it was a "shady area"

As far as compensation goes - not being able to get a hold of the borrowers so you didn't go out, then you don't get compensated for those. I would have made sure when called by the signing service what they paid if borrowers were a no show or no sign, and if they paid full fee, I would have gone out - sometimes people don't answer the phone if they don't recognize the name on the caller ID. Also, I would have got the loan officers name off the 1003 and called him/her to let them know I couldn't reach the borrower.

And for the one you drove out to and decided to leave, then you don't get compensated for that. The company would have had to send out another signing agent to do the signing.

It would pay to know the areas you travel to before accepting the signings, and if there are "shady areas" then you can turn down those signings or take someone with you.

You just have to chalk this up to experience.

Reply by M_Gall_CA on 9/11/05 9:22am
Msg #64656

I'm close to you (Homeland). No way would I have accepted those signings to be completed in one day. If you returned home after each you are looking at a minimum of 400 miles. If you could have scheduled them one after each other you are still looking at almost 300 miles. Either of these would have been in excess of 5 hours driving time. It was your choice to wait around all day. I would consider it a learning experience.

Reply by corona71 on 9/11/05 10:13am
Msg #64659

Curious about distance

I am very curious, if Southern California is so saturated with signing agents, then how come this person got three phone calls in totally different areas? Seems absurd to travel to all those places when there are plenty of agents in each of those areas.

Reply by SoCal Signing Co. on 9/11/05 6:29pm
Msg #64691

Do not understand any of this

1. I do not understand why its so bad to ask any questions or give any comments as anonymous as this board gives this option. Sometimes people may hide to avoid bitter and rude "regulars" comments. Or they do not want to be critiqued by name.

2. This question almost seems like a set up to watch people react, a bit silly to react to it.

3. Calling anyone a "Bastard" is just uncalled for.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/11/05 8:47pm
Msg #64700

Maybe the author knows them and they are...

I don't underatnd why people have a problem with the term bastard, it's either true or it isn't. Today it doesn't much matter.

Reply by CaliNotary on 9/11/05 11:51pm
Msg #64722

Re: Do not understand any of this

When somebody posts "That was not what I asked, so you can keep your personal opinions to yourself" in response to a helpful reply to one of their posts, I think the term "ungrateful bastard" is quite appropriate.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/12/05 10:50am
Msg #64758

Re: Do not understand any of this

You're wrong about that

Reply by CaliNotary on 9/12/05 11:56am
Msg #64778

Re: Do not understand any of this

You're anonymous and your mother dresses you funny.

Reply by Anonymous on 9/13/05 11:52am
Msg #64949

Re: Do not understand any of this

my mother has great taste thanks

Reply by christiSocal on 9/14/05 2:29am
Msg #65061

ROFL, Cali sometimes you crack me up!

Reply by Anonymous on 9/11/05 11:11pm
Msg #64717

I am sorry that your experience was so stressful. As for compensation I would say that you need to address that issue with the agency that you committed to do the work. I would also say that if you had committed to my agency, I would've given you more support to insure that the signings were completed. Be that as it may, you should not expect compensation beyond the education you just received. Painful as it is, you would do well to get as much information from the signatores when confirming the appt. so as to understand the circumstances you are walking into. Secondly, you would've done better to contact the borrowers by Cell Phone for assistance if you were uncomfortable with your surroundings. Instead of a wasted drive you could've been compensated.