Sending loose certificates is illegal!
People who work at Title companies are notorious for breaking the law in so many ways. Here are some common types of fraud that happen at Title companies daily:
(1) Many will deliberately and shamelessly forge initials when the borrower forgets to initial. I’m not sure how bad of a crime this is, but I recommend against any type of forgery — no matter what!
(2) Most will unstaple documents that have been stapled which makes the completed certificate which is attached (a legal requirement), no longer attached (illegal) and hence a loose certificate (gulp). I have had multiple Title companies complain to me that they didn’t like the industrial staples I used since they were so hard to unstaple. They don’t have a legal right to unstaple those notarized documents because the certificate must stay attached. Part of the problem with unattaching certificates, is that they could get reattached to some OTHER document creating confusion, havoc, and hence having a document notarized without having it presented to a notary public and going through the procedure and journal entry.
(3) Many will ask a notary to send them a loose certificate if a document needs to be notarized again for some reason. Sometimes the seal was smudgy, or perhaps they needed to replace the document and get a new certificate for the new document with a new date. If you are a “loose notary” who has a loose interpretation of notary law in your state, you might be breaking the law!
It all starts out with a pad of loose certificates!
You start out with our pad of loose acknowledgment certificates and jurat certificates. Any serious notary will have this type of pad on hand as if their life depends on it. Sure, the certificates are loose now, but that is okay, since they haven’t been filled out or stamped yet! When you notarize a signature(s) on a document(s), you have the signer(s) signer the instrument, and then you have them sign your official journal of notarial acts. Then, you fill out the certificate wording embedded in the document, or if that boiler plate wording isn’t there, you can add a certificate form which has the identical, or hopefully very similar boiler plate wording. You fill out the form, cross you s’s, and dot your t’s, etc. The minute you sign the certificate, and affix your official notary seal, then you may NOT let that certificate out of your site until it is ATTACHED to the corresponding document. It is illegal to unattach a certificate from a document, and very unkosher to unattach the staple for a notarized multipage document. What are your intentions? Are you going to swap pages after the fact? I can smell fraud a mile away!
What should you the notary do when asked to send a loose certificate?
It’s easy. Someone at a Title company says they need a new Jurat certificate for the Affidavit of Domicile you notarized for them a week ago otherwise their loan won’t go through (pressure technique). They want you to mail the loose certificate to them! Tell them:
“No problem, just send me the document and the original certificate — I’ll shred the old certificate and add a new one… You can not have two certificates for the same document. The signer already signed the journal for this particular transaction and doesn’t need to sign it again for a certificate which is to be dated the same date they signed the journal.”
And they will say:
“Oh, come on, why does this have to be so difficult. That takes extra time and money. Why can’t you just (break the law) and send us what we want (and risk your commission and risk being sent to jail or being fined perhaps more than $1000) for our convenience?”
And then you should say:
“If you need notaries to routinely break the law for your pleasure, you should ask your notaries some pre-screening questions. Ask them if they are willing to break the law on a whim (your whim) and risk their commission and perhaps some jail time for your convenience. Ask them if they mind risking going to jail to save you from having to wait an additional 24 hours for a loose certificate… if they say ‘sure’, then they are the notary for you!”
My concluding advice
Don’t break the law for these rascals. They are not worth it. You probably won’t get in trouble, but as a notary public, your position in society is to preserve integrity, and to safeguard transactions by making sure that the signer really signed the corresponding document in question. If certificates get switched on documents due to fraud, or because you didn’t identify the document carefully enough on the certificate, then you are a liability to society and shouldn’t be a notary public.
As a notary, you should be very sensitive to the fact that if you are notarizing multiple documents for a particular signer, those documents could get mixed up, and the signer could pull a fast one and reattach notary certificates from a document you really did notarize, to another similarly named document that you did not notarize.
Multi-page documents can be taken apart and pages switched. Title companies ROUTINELY take apart documents as a matter of standard procedure, and if you don’t emboss every page of everything you notarize, it would be easy for someone to replace page 5 with another similar looking page 5. Assume that people are dishonest and shady, so that you can protect the virtue and integrity of your work. Document everything to a tee, and don’t give in to pressure to do illegal notary acts even if it means losing a client. You don’t want that client anyway in the long run — trust me!
You might also like:
10 tight points on loose certificates
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=15449
Signing agent best practices
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=4315
Notary Certificates, Notary Wording & Notary Verbiage
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=1834
Make your own certificate forms
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=1759
Low Ball Signing Companies
Low Ball Signing Companies
Notaries are always complaining about low ball signing companies. My advice is to just say yes or no. As long as its quick and they pay you, you have nothing to lose, but your dignity. Sometimes a quick $40 is not so bad. If it takes you an hour or slightly more for the whole affair, that is not bad pay. Just don’t take a low ball job and have to do fax backs, and wait for two hours while the borrower reads each phrase of each page and asks a million questions.
Tough times are here
We are living in tough times, and people in foreign countries live on a quarter of the income you have. They have simpler habits and smaller cars or mopeds. They eat less meat and more beans and rice or “Rad Na” if they live in Thailand. Its better to take what you can get and save up for a rainy day. I used to work for very little. When I was booked, my prices would go up. When things were slow, I would accept jobs for very little, no matter what. My bills didn’t care how many dollars per hour I made. My mistake was not to ask for high amounts of money. Some people and companies will pay you double what you think they will. Just ask. If they say no, then take less if you have to. Its better than starving.
Your lives are not that bad
Assuming you don’t have a health emergency and are not having your life threatened by your local gang, and assuming that a tsunami didn’t visit your neighborhood, your life is not that bad (I’m guessing). As a world traveler, I see how middle class people live in India. Broken roads, clunky cars, the other drivers’ purpose in life is to run you off the road and kill you, food that gives you dysentary, traffic from hell, salaries 20% of what Americans make, expensive rent, cab drivers that always try to rip you off. Just crossing the street in Pune, India is an ordeal that most of you will never have to face. Additionally, they have terrorist attacks on a regular basis and its not safe for women to go out after dark. Few of you have any of these situations to contend with. So, count your blessings. Even in America, I know many who work for minimum wage who ride a bicycle to work through dangerous areas. If you own a car, you are doing better than my bicycle riding friends who can barely pay their rent.
Forum posts on the subject:
The text below is written by notaries, and does not represent the viewpoints of 123notary.com
If you accept $50 signings
If one accepts $50 signings, then it’s obvious one has not taken into account everything that is involved in the signing, from consumables to time to depreciation of equipment ……
http://www.123notary.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2993
Vital Signings
……If you want to support Vital signings be aware YOU will not make any money. After a dozen signings I calculated I made $18.00 per signing. They get the bucks, you don’t.
The best micro-managers in the business. What a pain. They can’t pay me enough to work for them again.
If make an error, they take away YOUR fee and make you pay their fee as well….. (scroll down for this one)
http://www.123notary.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26
Firma Signing Solutions
…..So, you can imagine how hard my chin hit the floor when he quoted $35.00 for the whole thing! The low ballers fail to remember what all it takes to become adept at this job, you have to know what you’re doing. You’re not “just a notary” but a certified signing agent, which takes training and education to fully understand this process. I will just decline the job if the price doesn’t meet my fees, it’s just not worth it…..
http://www.123notary.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3170
Fax Backs
…. (scroll to the bottom) Has anyone else had jobs recently where they want the whole package faxed back? I have had two from Nations Direct. Of course, as usual, they are low balling the price and then state that the whole package needs to be faxed back. Both times I have told them I will not do a job for their low price, especially with all of the fax backs. Yesterday, for example, they asked me to go 30 miles away with edocs and fax back the whole package for $70. I don’t think so.
http://www.123notary.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3902
Question 2 Price Formula
……Rule of thumb: The lower the offer, the bigger th PITA it will be. It never fails….when you agree to a lower fee, docs will be late, the closing will go awry somehow, you will have a ton of fax-backs and need permission to ship…AND…you’ll wait at least 60 days to get paid the low ball fee. HONEST !! ………
http://www.123notary.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1872
Tweets:
(1) Notaries are always complaining about low-ball signing co’s. Don’t complain, just say no!
(2) We are living in tough times. Maybe those low-ball signing companies keep you from starvation!
(3) Read real stories about four low-ball signing companies.
You might also like:
Good signing companies – a thorough list
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=21091
Getting what is due! A clever plan!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=3221
Bounced checks, Collection Agencies, FBI reports!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=1765