Ridiculously discounted Notary fees

Recently I was on a trip to California & I saw a large sign that says $5 Notary in Sunnyvale. You can search for it on google.
California has raised the notary fees statewide. I was wondering why this notary is discounting so deep.
Are there people lining up from all over to take advantage of this huge discount. What is the thinking of this notary?

Being a professional notary is same as any business. Unfortunately it would an entirely different matter to do pro-bono work for people who cannot afford a notary. I do it sometimes, i go out the people and when i find out they are in some desperate situation, I just waive my fees.
S.M.H, I was just thinking W.T.F

Sounds like somebody believes in volume pricing–which only works when there is a manufactured product…and sometimes not even then.

There are notary’s who advertise out here in Orange County, CA $5 as well, it seems common (what I see on Craigslist for instance). But then they charge mileage for ANY amount of travel, I assume to make up for the other $10 that they could have capitalized on. This is probably their marketing technique. As for this Notary in Sunnyvale, I wonder if they offer mobile services. If not, then yea, that is a definite puzzler.

Here’s my experience with an angel investor who contacted me claiming to have 50 signatures to notarize on a Saturday claiming his usual notary wasn’t available. This guy from Viet Nam wanted a deal and, because I turned him down last time, he had found someone else and never called back. This time when he called he asked me for a “cap” on the signature charges in case there were a few stray notarizations in his pile of docs. He offered to pay $200 for the entire thing! I accepted his offer knowing he wouldn’t make an appointment otherwise. I usually don’t undercut my fees but, as I said before, he wouldn’t have accepted even $10 per signature.

So I agreed to his deal but when I got there, there were double the amount, 100 signatures and I didn’t realize it until I was half way through. It was a lot of work too because I had to do a certificate for each one and add details in the info section. California law prohibits a notary public from holding a customer hostage to possibly discontinuing completion of his notarizations over a payment agreement dispute. Therefore I couldn’t stop in the middle of my work and say “I can’t do the rest of these unless you agree to pay me for them because you did not say there were this many notarizations over the phone”.

When it came time to pay I tried to get him to pay me double and he blew his top and threatened me and was just a very nasty man (from Vietnam, an angel investor). I decided it’s not worth it and then he offered me an additional $100 so I got $300. He felt I was being paid well and that his employees at fast food restaurants don’t make that in one day comparatively. He also said, “You made $100 per hour!” He was convinced he paid me well and I wasn’t about to argue with his kind of temperament that was highly accusatory that I was trying to take advantage of him.

I need to let you all know many are undercutting our fees to get the volume of business they require so be careful to monitor your customers reaction to fees. I’ve been noticing the $5 hike per sig in California in 2017 have a lot of customers disliking notary publics. I’m talking wealthy companies who think $50 is a lot of money to pay for two signatures, a mobile fee, etc.

This year is clearly different and people are very aware of high notary fees in California so I’m cutting my fees to loyal customers and being negotiable of certain customers situations.

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Its an office in a strip mall. CHeck out on google , "$5 notary "in sunnyvale.