I hear this from multiple sources. There are a lot of Notaries on a lot of private Facebook groups who get together and bash people. I am one of the people who gets bashed the most because those Notaries were rude to me or failed my test, or both. If you are rude to me, I normally let it slide the first time, but if you just don’t stop, then I get forceful in return and then the Notaries who receive my reciprocal wrath run to Facebook (like babies) to slander me. This is a pattern that has been going on a lot in the last year, and somewhat less before that. You can’t just cause trouble, run away and stab someone in the back online. Those type of people get kicked off my site, get no work and drop out of the industry — it is their karma.

Asking Questions on Facebook
Since bad Notaries hate me, and wouldn’t turn to their Notary Handbook for knowledge if God himself told them to at gunpoint, they resort to Facebook. I do not monitor my personal Facebook group, so asking questions there will get responses from those who do use it. This is a nice network for discussions and opinions, but not for law and practices related questions. Here is why asking questions on Facebook is a bad idea.

1. You do not know the competency or level of experience of the person answering you. Even those with 20 years signing experience fail my test the majority of the time. So, the more experience you have, the worse you usually are. You get stuck in this industry since no other industry will have you. You don’t even know the identity of the person you are corresponding with on Facebook either.

2. People who use Facebook will give you wrong answers to Notary questions more than half the time and probably give you bad marketing advice too.

3. People on Facebook do, however know where their business is coming from (if they keep track) and what the gossip is about who is paying, and who is mean (I am generally on that list even though I am nice to those who treat me with respect which is a factor never considered by slanderers.)

4. People on Facebook can tell you what their experience is. They might not interpret their experience in a way that makes sense, but they know what they experienced, and whether they liked it or not.

5. I recommend against asking technical questions on Facebook. The NNA, your Notary Division, or perhaps 123notary (we do not know state specific laws though.) are not bad entities to ask notary questions. 123notary steers people in the right direction all day long in many aspects of the notary profession. But, those on the private groups on Facebook choose to ignore our help which is free of charge and bash us instead. It tells you what type of people you are dealing with on the private groups.

Basically, private groups on Facebook are for frustrated low-IQ people to commiserate, bash people and exchange a lot of erroneous technical notary knowledge. I recommend that your first recourse is to consult your state notary handbook. The NNA might still have their hotline which has state specific knowledge. There are notary law primers available for most states. Additionally, there are many articles online about various notary topics — but beware, those articles might also have wrong or outdated information. So, if the information is for a job that has legal liability, your state is the only official source for up to date and correct information — not Facebook.