Posted by April Livingston on 10/23/06 8:48pm
Msg #154632

Something funny for you .....

I just wanted to share this with you all. I work for a title company for my day job and I received a closing package back from a notary today.... and can you believe this? She did not notarize a single document. I COULDN'T BELIEVE MY EYES. What the heck did she think she is getting paid for? I'm thinking she was alittle overwhelmed because the borrower was an NFL football player (for privacy reason no additional details will be given). I just couldn't believe that. In my 5 year career there this has got to be the dumbest thing our agent did.

Reply by Jersey_Boy on 10/23/06 8:49pm
Msg #154633

I am suprised SL doesn't get alot of this, especially when offering $60 fees.

Reply by LisaWI on 10/23/06 8:50pm
Msg #154635

Re: Oh boy, here we go!!! n/m

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/23/06 8:54pm
Msg #154637

Re: Oh boy, here we go!!! My thoughts exactly, Lisa. n/m

Reply by LisaWI on 10/23/06 9:18pm
Msg #154640

Re: April....If you are still there

please read the thread starting with msg 153956.

Reply by VickiWA on 10/23/06 9:23pm
Msg #154641

I have been curious but afraid to ask...

As a newbie, I have read that the experienced NSA's have to sometimes clean up after the newbies. My first 2 signings I had to go back because of one missed signature and I caught it before I sent the docs. Since then I have not had to go back and no one has complained to me. So I have been curious as to what messes you veteran notaries have had to clean up?

Reply by LisaWI on 10/23/06 9:32pm
Msg #154642

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

Vicki, I havent had the pleasure of going after someone to "clean up" but I will tell you when I first started doing these, one of the best suggestions I received (and it was from BrendaTX in one of her posts, Thank you Brenda) was to recheck, recheck and recheck again. Its your best defense against mistakes. It sounds like you are on the right track. Im so anal, I check 2 to 3 times at the appt and then 1 or 2 times before I send out.

Reply by VickiWA on 10/23/06 9:45pm
Msg #154647

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

Thank you for this advice. Where were you when I needed you I sometimes get a little OCD as I am sealing up the package...hmm should I check it one more time?

I want to read some messy notary stories in honor of Halloween.

Reply by LawrenceOK on 10/24/06 8:30am
Msg #154680

Re: Cleaning up messes.

When I have been called to clean up the mess by another notary, it's usually the Tc that calls. They want me to re-do the signing because they do not want to use that notary again. The major complaint I get (from the borrowers) is that the notary never notarized the docs in front of them. The 2nd complaint is that the notary never put them under oath, and 3rd is, "the notary stated they were there only to witness their signatures" and the one that really gets me is "they never checked our ID.

Reply by cassiewi on 10/24/06 8:53am
Msg #154682

Re: Cleaning up messes.

The first time we refinanced out here, the lady notarized the docs in front of us, but did not put us under oath. (I wasn't yet doing signings at this time) The second time it was a man and he took all of 30 minutes to go through our first and second (no oath or notarizations), he also missed my sig as non borrowing spouse on a few documents and I had to remind him that I needed to sign those documents. People are not very diligent out here. Most of the time the BOs I meet do not even know why I'm filling out a journal. They're not required in WI, but I choose to keep one.

Reply by Blueink_CA on 10/23/06 9:42pm
Msg #154646

The worst of the worst

I was called for a resign. Apparently the first Notary handed the complete package to the borrowers and instructed them to start signing and stop when they get to a page that needed notarizing. Unbelievable.

Reply by Robin_IN on 10/23/06 9:45pm
Msg #154648

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

It is amazing some of the stupid/silly mistakes that are made. I think the worst one I have seen was the time I was asked to resign a deal that another notary had originally done, but not given a reason why. When I got there, the borrowers' copies were all cut off at the top. Legal pages printed on letter paper - how could someone not notice this??? I agree with the recheck and recheck. I check every page as I am going through the loan, then I will check them again before I leave. Sometimes small things will slip through the cracks during the inital signing, that you can catch and clean up at the table...maybe an inital or even the wrong year. I had someone date a page 2005 and just didn't catch it the first time, but caught it on the recheck before I left. The 2-3 minutes that it takes can be enough to save you a lot of headache later.

Reply by LisaWI on 10/23/06 10:05pm
Msg #154650

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

I have heard from a title company these notary mistakes:
Missing Sigs
Missing Stamps
No Venue
Not Filling out the ID Form
This is the best one: Holes in the top of the Documents, made with a paper punch.

Reply by christiSocal on 10/24/06 12:12am
Msg #154657

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

I was told by an ss to be very careful with one signing. They had almost lost a title co when the "experienced" notary they used the last signing had used blue glitter pen to sign docs!

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/24/06 8:29pm
Msg #154774

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

**Holes in the top of the Documents, made with a paper punch.**

I have received a few this way from the tc. I figured that was just an efficient clerk making holes when it was time to stack.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 10/24/06 3:36am
Msg #154666

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

I was asked recently to go to get a simple Grant Deed signed for a couple nearby. I was told that I was the third notary to go out there because the wife's first name was misspelled. The GD was emailed to me, so of course, I checked the name spelling right away. It was correct, but I found another problem which I was able to fix.

When I got to the borrowers, they started to tell me about the last notary who had been there. Husband looks out the window and sees a baseball cap. The rest of the outfit was a Rolling Stone T-shirt (yes, the one with the big tongue...), ragged cut-offs and flip-flops. Also, the other notary didn't bother checking the document before he went there, so he didn't see that the error wasn't corrected and ended up leaving without a properly executed GD (which was why I was called).

You can be sure this borrower has told or is telling this story to everyone (including the ss who will no longer be using this notary!) This may not be exactly the type of thing you were looking for, but it's still fresh on my mind.

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/24/06 5:06am
Msg #154667

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

**So I have been curious as to what messes you veteran notaries have had to clean up?**

Vicki, I am curious also.

I have a problem with that term "cleaning up messes" as I just don't see it in these terms. What mess? A new set of docs to be signed properly never yields me a view of a mess. It's not like someone botched a surgery.

The biggest problem I have encountered was b/c someone did not do everything right is from notaries not showing up or bothering to call. I think that's because they did not charge enough to care about the job, put it on their calendar, and to remember to go do the job.

Reply by VickiWA on 10/24/06 7:21am
Msg #154674

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

Several times I have read that notaries get $$$ cleaning up after newbies. I just wondered what had to be cleaned up. About a month ago I was called by SS and asked to get a non-borrowering spouse to sign a DOT. I didn't think this was a mess to "clean up" just made me realize that the check and recheck several times is a must.

Reply by Barbara O on 10/24/06 7:04pm
Msg #154766

Re: I have been curious but afraid to ask...

Oooh I just did a "clean up" tonight. Oddly enough they actually emailed me a copy of the mortgage I was supposed to re-do with the borrower (the original) and then the new fresh blank one to actually sign with them. I was dumbfounded at what the other notary had done! They hadn't had them inital a single page of the mortgage, they didn't put the county in, they never put their seal on the page, and.. and maybe this is just me remembering something "anal" I read but always follow - they wrote the date on the mortage as 0-00-00 instead of writing the month out. And, they wrote their expiration the same way. Aye aye aye.

I did a clean up once where the notary had taken the document home and fed it into their typewriter and xxxxx out items on the doc, used white out, put their seal in the middle of the document (over all the words)... PLEASE FOLLOW THE NOTARY RULES!! lol ...or don't, so I get the big bucks cleaning up your messes.