Posted by kmontyCA on 10/21/09 10:21pm
Msg #308173

Email letter from Pier National Notary

This is a letter I was sent after emailing them a complaint about not being paid 70 post signing.

"Pier National Notary has taken a large financial hit by the IRS for payroll taxes from 2007. We have been forced to bring our account up to date by the local IRS agent.

We had already mailed out checks and the combination of the IRS payment and the volume of checks was badly out of balance. Also, our current bank, Wells Fargo, has been charging us Overdraft Fees and NSF Fees and refuses to waive any fees to keep our account in the black.

We are not saying we are the victim here. Pier National Notary is accountable to all of its notaries and clients. We understand that this is not your problem and you deserve to be paid. We have every intention of bringing our notary payments up to date. Our plan has already been put into action:

1. Changing banks and building back up our cash flow.
2. Moving offices into a much smaller and affordable space.
3. Handling as many local signings as possible personally and putting that revenue back into the company.
4. Continued Sales efforts to build our client base and keep a steady flow of signings.
5. We have also renegotiated all of our business loans to make those payments more realistic.

We are asking for some patience during this time. (We know that some of you have already been very patient, and we appreciate that). We are not going out of business or changing names! That is the easy way out. We will continue to work hard and get you more business and paid up to date. Rocky and I hope that this is possible, in order to keep working with you. If you have any questions, please email Rocky or Paul. Phone calls are tough because we are very short staffed (for obvious reasons) and still busy with day to day operations and if we are on the phone all day, we cannot service our customers and satisfy our goal to get our notaries paid and caught up.

Thank you for understanding and we are here to serve you."

Reply by Marian_in_CA on 10/21/09 10:49pm
Msg #308177

In other words:

"We don't have enough cash flow to run our business. We didn't bother to pay our payroll taxes two years ago like we were supposed to and now the IRS has seized what operating capital we did have. Now we're doubly screwed, and we can't pay you a dime."

Reply by PAW on 10/22/09 7:30am
Msg #308197

Sounds like an admission of poor fiscal management.

Reply by Notarysigner on 10/21/09 10:56pm
Msg #308178

Unfortunately I feel this is just the start. I'm sorry you have had to go through this, a lot of us are going through the same.

Just think of this...a SS does 20 signings a day roughly 400 a month. Title pays them roughly 175 per or 70,000 dollars. They pay us approx 100 per or 40,000 dollars. That's 30,000 dollars net if they pay us. Now just think, they make us wait 30 days to pay us and low and behold, they got a buffer of 60,000 dollars and still can't pay us. What's the difference between them and Bernie Madoff?? Geeze!!

We are in a shark tank. Just venting.... James

Reply by Sylvia_FL on 10/22/09 7:48am
Msg #308199

Bad business practices!

Reply by 101livescan on 10/22/09 7:59am
Msg #308201

Tanking, man overboard, time to abandon ship. Choppy seas. In a boat with no paddles. hmmm. No sailing plan. Sounds like this business was run by the seat of its pants.

Reply by CF on 10/22/09 8:07am
Msg #308202

Kiss that money goodbye!! They are going down....

They will be out of business soon. Obviously, they have no employees left. The IRS will not allow them to operate with employees and not have enough, payroll, funds to pay.

I have only worked for them a couple of time years ago; and it was hard to get paid then. Stay clear of them!!!!

Reply by MW/VA on 10/22/09 8:13am
Msg #308205

Yikes. I can't imagine sending an email out like that, absolutely saying their business is such a bad risk. Anyone who is owed money has a long wait--the IRS will get their money first, always.

Reply by Jess/CT on 10/22/09 8:18am
Msg #308206

Thanks for sharing this n/m

Reply by Shoshana/AZ on 10/22/09 8:28am
Msg #308213

They had been hiring notaries to work the foreclosure auctions in CA and also here in Phx. My husband and I worked one for them here in Phx last May. It took forever to get paid.