Hi, I’m looking for advice. I do Notary work on the side/on my days off. I’m getting more RON work which is great, but I’ve had a few issues for both Mobile/RON where someone books an appointment either through my website or calling me and it comes close to the appointment and they’ve stopped communicating with me when I’m doing the pre-appointment reminders etc. or they do not upload the documents or join the call when doing RON.
I’m thinking of charging a small deposit $5-$10, has anyone done this and had it work? I’m in Arizona and they only regulate that the fee for the notary is max $10 and we can’t charge service fees but when I contacted them they advised they don’t regulate anything else, so it seems possible to charge a deposit but I’m hesitant to do it but I’ve also had to decline service for others because I couldn’t fit them in and then had the person with the appointment slot not respond so I’ve lost out on money.
I don’t know enough about RON to reply, but doctors, dentists DO charge for missed Appts, ('tho they don’t require a deposit). You can give it a whirl & see if that gets 'em where they need to be when they need to be there. I think you also should give them some sort of time frame during which they CAN cancel & deposit will be refunded. That may be a problem, too, because I imagine the time frame between ‘we need a RON’ and actual ‘here we are’ is quite short.
For example, I bought a new router a month ago. Installed it and later got a notice that all the Chinese-manufactured routers were being recalled due to privacy issues. Then, both of my websites were Bricked, but it took a week or so to realize it because my phone just stopped ringing. Coincidence? Maybe, but there’s a large segment of the population that just doesn’t trust that much intrusion, and RON is the ultimate intrusion. Second thoughts are a real human emotion, just the cost of doing business.
@michellebmurphy I make people pay up front for my RON stuff, and it totally gets rid of the no-shows and having to chase them on the phone. We always go over everything beforehand, though, before they pay.
It’s not Profitable to charge $5 or $10 for a RON service, but my suggestion would be $25 or more depending on the documents involved. You have to take into account platform fees and other expenses.
As for the documents, I actually find it easier to upload them myself prior to the meeting so I can set up the signature lines and notary sections ahead of time. That way the session goes much smoother and more efficiently.
@antonio Please note that the Original Poster [OP] identified the following for an appointment deposit (not the total Remote Online Notarization [RON] fee):
Personally I have never had to charge any fee to cover canceled appointments. I’m not going to chase around and try to collect money like that.
There is one or two lenders and one signing service that have become consistently late with documents to the point they cancel an appointment. So for those lenders, I am canceling and asking they re-schedule those appointments when I don’t receive the documents by the deadline I always set for those specific companies that seem to cancel for no documents more than anyone else.
So that was a terribly long sentence to say if I don’t get documents by the deadline I give I cancel before they can.
