Posted by David Kral on 2/9/07 1:39am
Msg #174853

Idea-Large non paying signing company

Regarding a large non paying signing company. Perhaps, perhaps a mass letter wriging effort to its main clients might be useful.

1) Pick a date say six weeks out as the date the letters should be sent. This will give time for each notary to prepare a letter including specific payment problems. Especially notaries that no longer work with this signing company detailing why they quit.

2) Research the mailing addresses of the senior executives, including the President, CFO and legal department.

3) Write semi customer letters indicting the signings you have had problems with getting paid for and how these chronic problems are at wide variance to the industry.

4) Ask why a reputable lending company would want to facilitate doing business with such a signing service. Perhaps suggest that the lender ask the vendor to suppy are report indicating what percentage of subcontractors are paid and how quickly those payments are made.

-- While the vendor might decline to provide this information, the lender might decide to engage another similiar signing service with superior qualities. You might even suggest a few.

-- Alternatively, perhaps the lender takes the function in house where they can better control and monitor it.

--Perhaps highlight that when transactions fall through because of an inexperienced notary or because no one will take the assignment, that it is the lender that suffers.

5) Perhaps copy relevant regulators on the letters.

6) Mail the letters to the people above.

While the the signing company would prefer this not to happen, it can easily be avoided if the signing company simply cleans up its act and adopts reasonable procedures that work for the other signing companies in the industry.

Why suffer in silence?

Any thoughts?

Reply by Barbara Fillinger on 2/9/07 8:35am
Msg #174871

7) In the interests of fairness, warn SS in advance ...

... of this their consequence for continuing their unethical practice?

I know that I tend to be a bit conservative in matters like this, and some might say that that wouldn't be necessary or even appropriate.

The nice thing about doing that is that it makes the SS responsible for the consequence you suggest. That is, you give them the chance to clean up their act first, and if they opt not to, you're only doing what you warned them you would. And you aren't accused of ambushing, but instead being fair--more fair with the SS than the SS has been with you in your dealings.

I'm not naive enough to think such a warning would be enough for things to change.

I do believe in this approach, and recently had advised a slow-paying title company that I had a similar thought in mind (on a much smaller scale). I will be following through if payment isn't received as promised. It'll be easy to recruit others. I'll just go back to postings here on NotRot in recent weeks.

Reply by Les_CO on 2/9/07 9:18am
Msg #174877

How about every notary out there just NOT WORK for these companies for the next six weeks? (or ever) WE as NSA's are their PARTNERS! If it weren't for some of us they would have been out of business long ago. Save your stamps, and your faxes, and your breath. Just don't work for them!

Reply by LisaWI on 2/9/07 10:22am
Msg #174900

I have started doing just that. I am turning down work for comps that I have seen over and over again that have not paid their notaries. At first I took work from comps thinking that they might pay me although they have not paid others. Now it is a stand on my part that this isnt going to be tolerated whether its me or someone else. And I tell the comps why I wont work for them. If there are negative posts on them, Im not taking the risk and cant afford to.
Another issue is payment date. After doing this for 2 years, I have decided that waiting past 30 days is not for me. Just about all of my personal bills are due in 30 days, my rent, electric, phone and so on, so why should payment to me be any different. IMO of course.

Reply by David Kral on 2/9/07 10:20am
Msg #174899

What irks me is signing company sends a package and in the instructions in that arrive with that mornings Fedex is a memo that says Notary agrees not to contact lender about non-payment.

It is sort of like a robber, notifying its victims not to contact the authorities about the crime.

The reason to notify the lender is the lender may be unaware of the problem. I had local signing company that was not paying and also had a long relationship with the title company. Finally, one day I spoke to the head processors and mentioned that they facilitated the siging companies actions because they kept using the siging company. The head processor was unaware of the problem. She checked with a couple notaries that frequently worked for the sigining company and found out that payments would several months backs. Several notaries mentioned they could not be paid since the signing company had not yet been paid. That face was not true. The head processor put a stop to this signing company practice immediately. She informed the signing company that was not how the title company wanted to do business and to either get their shop in order or suffer the consequences. Over two months, everything got straightend out.
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As far as the lending company is concerned, it may be unaware of the scope of this problem. In effect the lender's reputation is being sullied without the lender's knowledge. Once brought significantly to the lender's attention, improvement may result.

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Reply by Les_CO on 2/9/07 10:54am
Msg #174916

First of all, I couldn't care less what some "form" sent to me by some SS says. If they DON'T PAY me then they are thieves, and I'm sure not going to worry about some "noncompete" clause, or other such drivel, from thieves. Yes, I'd call the lender and especially the title company. You'd be surprised how many processors out there are not aware that they are dealing with scum. Thereby hurting their good name with a NSA's, and others in this business.

I still maintain the only effective way to rid ourselves of these parasites, is to NOT work for them. Six weeks with no income will hurt the people that run these companies FAR more that a bunch of letters from disgruntled notaries.