I’ve had my Notary Public for over 6 months, and I just received my Online Notary Public on April 24th. I joined the NNA and have an NSA profile. I completed the online training last Monday, and am preparing to take the exam.
Since last week I’ve received 2 text messages from Signing Agents of America asking me if I was available to do loan signings in my area for $90 with less than 4 hours notice. Today I got a text asking me to take a job for $90 with less than 2 hours notice. I turned them all down, because I haven’t taken the certification exam, and because it seems to me that I would require a longer lead time because I’ve never done this before. I’m also not inclined to take less than $125. You’d think they’d be paying more in Austin.
Yesterday, I received an email from Prestige Notaries (notarydash.com) wanting me to notarize a will for $45 really close to my house. When I went to their site, I saw that they appropriated my photo and all of my data from the NNA and put it on their site, as if I had contracted with them. It strikes me as being sketchy.
Are either of these organizations legit?
Are there any NSA’s here in the Austin area? I’m in Leander, and really have no intentions of going below 183 & Mopac. I’d love to find a mentor in this city. I’m actually a classically trained chef by trade, but Coronavirus has killed my chef career, and I’m considering becoming a notary full-time.
Hi Sue, no doubt these signing service companies are accessing your public profile at the SigningAgent.com website https://www.signingagent.com/search and copying your contact information from there. You can login to your Signing Agent profile and adjust how much of your profile you wish to show.
Yes, they are legitimate businesses. However many companies do not look too closely to where you are located. Schedulers are just trying to get these assigned quickly, paying no attention to where a notary is actually located within a state and have no idea how far they are asking the notary to travel LOL! I receive many, many requests to do signings in towns that are more than 4 hours drive one way from my location in Olympia, WA. When I give them a $450 quote to do a simple signing in Central Washington, I just explain $200 of the fee is for travel expense alone. Sometimes companies are willing to pay extra to have me do the signing. If they balk at my rate, I urge them to find a notary closer to the signing location.
@Carmen_Lane, Thanks for your response!
Fortunately, there is no shortage of notary work in Central Texas. Everything I’ve been contacted about so far has been within 10 miles of my home. With the bank lobbies closed, there are no free notaries to be found. That’s good news for folks like me, who have been doing notary work as a side gig for awhile.
Besides the NNA, are there any other reputable organizations that provide reliable resources for folks just getting started in the notary industry?
Sue, these are the primary notary associations I am aware of
American Society of Notaries (Florida): http://www.notaries.org/
American Association of Notaries (Texas): https://www.texasnotary.com/
National Notary Association (California): https://www.nationalnotary.org/
