Posted by Clem/CA on 8/25/13 9:13am
Msg #481791

Here They come!!!!

Not going to happen with me.


Dear Mortgage Connect Signing Partner,

As you know, the refinance business has dramatically decreased within the past six weeks. Statistics show that a decrease in the new applications has fallen off as much as 70% with most major lenders throughout the country.
This, of course, hurts all of us and forces us to make dramatic changes in the way we do business in order to "weather the storm." We are sure you have already felt the impact on your business as orders have fallen off the chart. Mortgage Connect is working very hard to analyze the impact on our company over the next few months, and to implement efficiencies in our processes in order to maintain and ultimately enhance the customer experience. We see this as an opportunity to grow, but we must certainly control our costs during such a dramatic turnaround in business activity.
Therefore, we are asking all of our signing agents to share in the necessary cost reductions at this time. Going forward, we will pay $75 for your signing services, inclusive of printed documents and fax backs of critical documents. Your signing agent profile will be temporarily idled until we hear back from you regarding your acceptance of this new fee; this fee will be in effect for all new orders that you accept.
Please give this the utmost attention and let us know via return email at [e-mail address] if you choose to accept participation in this necessary cost cutting venture.
Best Regards,

Vendor Management Team
Mortgage Connect, LP
260 Airside Drive
Moon Township, PA. 15108
Phone: (866) 789-1814
Fax: (866) 804-7295
[e-mail address]

Reply by ananotary on 8/25/13 9:36am
Msg #481792

Ridiculous!!!! n/m

Reply by 101livescan on 8/25/13 9:42am
Msg #481793

Any bonus pay for this insane servitude? n/m

Reply by Ilene C. Seidel on 8/25/13 3:35pm
Msg #481854

Re: Any bonus pay for this insane servitude?

Forget servitude! We will be paying them to work. The car expense, the office expense. Forget it, I'm not interested.

Reply by ikando on 8/25/13 9:51am
Msg #481795

Just a minute. We are independent contractors. What about cutting their in-house employees? Reduce the owner's draw? Stop spending money to run their own business? Why do they feel we would willingly hurt our businesses in order to keep them in business? Maybe they could merge with some of the other similar businesses to create fewer choices for lenders. Only the agile survive in business, but asking another company to carry their burden doesn't make sense to me.

Reply by CJ on 8/25/13 10:02am
Msg #481796

I remember they did this before.

When it got slow, they all needed to cut OUR pay to pay for THEIR overhead. We needed to "understand". Don't we have overhead and bills too? Hasn't our cash flow also slowed by two-thirds? And, when it is busy, do they raise our rates because there is so much money to spread around? And what about lower rates for us, but still, larger and larger packages? There are always just a few more pages, and a few more pages. When I started, loan packages were 50 pages. Now, you know, they are easily over $100, but they are still paying us the same, even though it is twice the paper, twice the ink, and twice the time. Technically, this means my pay has been cut in half, and my workload cut-by two thirds.

Those people who are cutting our fees, when things get "back to normal", will they raise our fees "back to normal"?

Reply by Luckydog on 8/25/13 2:10pm
Msg #481839

I would love to see their proof of everyone cutting their wages by 25% and not just ours. The buyer pays for this in the end on their settlement charges as standard. They are just trying to screw us to keep their wages the same. Less closings= same income. No way, no one should ever agree to this.

Reply by Sylvia_FL on 8/25/13 10:05am
Msg #481798

Borrowers are still paying same costs for the loan which takes into consideration notary fees etc, so why should a notary reduce the signing agent fee just to put more money in Mortgage Connect pockets to meet their obligations. In fact you all should be increasing your fees to meet your added costs of business. Gas prices have risen, vehicles still have to be maintained, laser cartridges and paper has to be bought (and I don't see the cost of those items being reduced). And your time is worth something.

Reply by Notarysigner on 8/25/13 10:22am
Msg #481804

let me be the first to say MC...goodbye! n/m

Reply by Darlin_AL on 8/25/13 10:27am
Msg #481806

It's insulting (what's left of) my intelligence... n/m

Reply by 101livescan on 8/25/13 10:28am
Msg #481807

They need the experience of hiring notaries who:

1) have no loan document experience, knowledge or professionalism;

2) are available on their lunch hours only to sign their valuable clients;

3) who haven't a clue about "time is of the essence"

The myriad of errors that occur when you don't hire "seasoned", knowledgeable pros will end up costing them more than they are trying to save.

Another "not so brilliant" executive decision. It will be interesting to see how this all works out, but I haven't worked for them since they started trying to get me to accept $95 for edocs. This comes as no surprise to me.

Reply by Lee/AR on 8/25/13 10:35am
Msg #481808

Re: Here They come!!!! n/m

Reply by Lee/AR on 8/25/13 10:38am
Msg #481809

Ooops...just read on another forum that same co. wants $50

fees from poster....who probably accepted their last plea for 'help' and so now they are asking for 'more help'. Hope he wised up on this go 'round.

Reply by Frank/NC on 8/25/13 10:55am
Msg #481811

That's a smart move from Mortgage Connect

Now that they have made it public that their fees have been lowered, we can spread the news of how bad they are a lot faster than they could have done it by one phone call at a time. We applaud Mortgage Connect for allowing all of us to put them directly into voice mail at one time rather than one at a time. The next effort in their "cost cutting venture" might be to remove their phones. Thank you MC for "temporarily idling' me. The name of the township in PA where they are located also seems quite apprapro.

Reply by 101livescan on 8/25/13 11:27am
Msg #481812

Only 2.5* company in SC! No big loss here!

All I can say is that the top ten companies I work for are more concerned about the highest level of customer service and satisfaction for their valuable clients so that they don't lose the account with lenders.

Guess MC doesn't care that much. It's all about the $$.

Reply by MW/VA on 8/25/13 11:43am
Msg #481814

Agree. I don't work for them in the first place. One of

those cos. that demands a lot, but pays low fees--no thanks!

Reply by 101livescan on 8/25/13 12:04pm
Msg #481816

I went on record in March 2013 with MC they were 2 stars!

Cheryl,
I was not aware of the 2 star rating and have forwarded your response to management so that they may correct any issues on the notary boards. We know that our notaries are our backbone and without their help we couldn’t perform in this industry very long. There has been a past issue with Vendor payment but we have tried to correct any previous problems (i.e.- Many of our notaries did not know they needed to send an invoice for billing.)

We hope to see a vast improvement on the notary boards regarding this issue.

I thank you for your time and consideration and if you wish to work for us in the future please let me know.

Have a wonderful day!

Judy Block
Scheduler
Mortgage Connect, LP
260 Airside Drive
Moon Township, PA. 15108
Phone: (866) 789-1814 x437
Fax: (866) 789-1845

[e-mail address]
www.MortgageConnectLP.com




From: Cheryl Elliott [mailto:[e-mail address]]
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:43 PM
To: Judy Block
Subject: Re: New 'Follow Up' Note for Vendor ID: xxxxx


Judy, thank you for this opportunity. I do not know if you are aware that Mortgage Connect has a two star rating with Notary Rotary in Signing Central, a database of all vendors who have been rated across the United States in the mortgage industry.

These ratings reflect very poorly on your company for low pay and slow pay history to signing agents. For that reason, I'm requesting that you remove my name from your contact list. I do not wish to be contacted for future opportunities with Mortgage Connect.

Thank you for your assistance.

Cheryl Elliott
Mobile Notary Public & Live Scan Fingerprinting Services
Preferred Notary Public with First American, Old Republic, and all Fidelity Affiliates

Reply by Winkle/CT on 8/25/13 12:22pm
Msg #481818

Forget it... they make us jump through hoops to even qualify to work for them... our time, our paper, our gas, unbeleiveable fax backs... see ya.. we need to all kick them to the curb..

Reply by Eric Andrist on 8/25/13 12:50pm
Msg #481820

Weather is better here

I had 2 signings in all of July. Now in the last 4 days I've had 4 signings.

There just seems to be no rhyme or reason.

Reply by LeeA on 8/25/13 1:04pm
Msg #481822

Afraid this might be the trend.

Over the past few months I have spoke to a bunch of National Title Companies, and they are all saying they are laying off, cutting costs. I am afraid this might be another down turn for our industry. I am afraid others might follow. Its like the Airlines. When one cuts fees they all cut fees, when one raises they will all raise fees.

The government thought we were out of the recession, so they started to mess with it again. I am afraid everything is going to crash again.

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 8/25/13 2:40pm
Msg #481846

I'd do it

Borrowers come to me at a time mutually convenient; their copy is e-mailed to them.

Oh, wait. We still are expected to provide "red carpet treatment" but at an even lower fee that they pay now? Yikes! MC's per capita income increases to cover their dwindling income, but ours decreases on both fronts? I misunderstood!

Actually, I never understood why anyone would work for them anyway. Wonder if they got the seal of approval from their Big Partner, the NNA, on this latest, shameful debacle?

Reply by Marian_in_CA on 8/25/13 4:11pm
Msg #481858

heh....

Cost reductions??? Perhaps they don't quite understand that our costs are going UP. It makes no economic sense to cut our rates when our costs of doing business keep going up.

They must think we're idiots.

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 8/25/13 5:44pm
Msg #481867

<<They must think we're idiots.>>

I'm sure they do, Marian.

And unfortunately, there are plenty of idiot notaries out there who will gobble this up. So sad.

Reply by 101livescan on 8/25/13 4:40pm
Msg #481860

Other expense line items not being affected, how is that?

Let's see, Title Insurance Policy, going down? No!
Escrow Fee, going down? No!
Flood Certificate, Credit Report? NOPE
Appraisal? Nope!
Tax Service Fee? Nope!
Recording Fees? We already know they have doubled in the last five years in any CA County.

So are we being discriminated against as a group. Danged right! If things are so darned tight, why isn't the title insurance being charged reduced?

Reply by RalphNC on 8/26/13 7:11am
Msg #481911

We've worked for them as recently as last Friday but they've always been a pain to get up to a decent rate. This letter was the final straw. We emailed that our company was firing them. They just lost two of the best notaries of the best and hardest working notaries in Western North Carolina. Knowing some the other very professional signing agents in our area, I'm sure we were not the first boot Mortgage Connect.