A google search finds most notaries in 12 seconds. Not sure why it’s such an issue I guess to each their own.
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Here’s the thing — by the time I’m standing on someone’s doorstep, they’ve already vetted me.
Every signing starts with a confirmation call: I tell them my name, who hired me, the property, the date and time, who else is signing, and I confirm their address back to them. That’s not information a random person off the street has — it’s information that only comes from actually being the notary assigned to their transaction. So when I show up and say “Hi, I’m [name], we spoke yesterday about the signing,” that IS the ID check. It happened the day before, over a channel they controlled, before I ever knocked.
A driver’s license doesn’t add much on top of that. It proves my name matches a card. The confirmation call already proved I’m the specific person their title company sent, for their specific appointment.
If someone’s still uneasy after that — memory’s fuzzy, the call was handled by the other spouse who forgot, whatever — I’ve got two backups that don’t involve handing over my personal ID: they can look my commission up directly on the CA Secretary of State’s site, or call the title company back to confirm I’m their assigned notary. Both are faster and more useful to them than eyeballing a license they have no way to authenticate anyway.
Showing my license doesn’t actually solve their problem. It just gives them something to look at.
As for “the right to know who they’re dealing with” — I agree with that completely. I just don’t think a glance at a laminated card is what actually gives them that. The confirmation call, the title company connection, and a public commission record do that job far better than my license ever could.
There’s no issue. This is a discussion forum for notaries to “discuss” topics.
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Creepy! The NNA tells us to present ID if asked, in fact, it might be the protocol to show your ID every time. I used to have an expired Driver License I carried around since I don’t take my purse into the signing but that was lifted from my car in San Francisco, practically under my nose. In nearly 10 years I’ve only been asked three times to present my ID, twice I didn’t have it on me.
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Thats scarry. If it just like that.
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It seriously cracks me up, the responses here…The photo itself was awkward, and even rude. This soapbox about presenting your ID came out of left field. You are walking into their house, and as much as you think it’s impossible for you to have all the information that you do and not be legit, yes, you very much can. Scammers do it all the time; do a Google search. Anything from a leaked email to a server breach can give the wrong party any of our info, including the info from the signing… Are you going to be the one reported for refusing to present ID like it’s some hidden, “oh my gosh, no one should ever see it private thing?” What makes these statements more comical is the fact that we, as notaries, see everyone we work with’s ID. That’s the mentality some signers have… it makes no logical sense for us to have that false mentality in the profession we have chosen… They want to see it; by guiding practices and even law, we are supposed to show it. Do I find it ridiculous when asked? Sure. I even have a giggle about it, usually quipping, “I hope I’m who I’m supposed to be; I have quite a bit of your personal information in my bag.” But hand it over; keep moving.
You handled that much nicer than I would. Professionalism would have left my mind easily. A good few WTF would have come out of my mouth and given them 10 seconds to get away from my property before I called the police for stalking. And easily would have blurted out that I dun answer to them in any way and the paperwork doesn’t belong to them. Sure, probably not the best way to handle it but at that point of over stepping bounds, I honestly wouldn’t care. That person over stepped by a mile+. No one has the right to dictate what we do or where we go. I sometimes have multiple stops, it’s not anyone’s business but mine so long as the docs are secured. I know that’s my responsability.
That was a serious breach and I would have filed a complaint with the bar. That lawyer knows damn well they had no business or right to give out your information, and I would have held them liable for the signer coming to my home uninvited.
I agree with you, show it and keep moving.
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Doesn’t matter what we think. I think it’s stupid when someone asks for my ID personally… I still grab the wallet and show them. Why? Because I’ll be damned if I have a complaint filed against me because I didn’t, or have Title told that the police had to come out to validate me, and I embarrassed the title company by making a stink of it when it’s clearly stated in our yearly training that we should offer it when we walk through the door. I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do, but consider that your offer, as nicely as you word it, to contact the police could come across as somehow threatening, and Title could fire you or black list you for violating professional guidelines. Just a thought. I can’t say I would ever consider letting that come out of my mouth. That’s just me. Then again, I work with an air of transparency. The comfort level of the signers with most title companies will definitely be taken in more consideration than any of us who are easily seen as replaceable.
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In almost two decades of doing this, no borrower has ever asked to see my license. I don’t expect that to change. There’s no California statute requiring a notary to show their own ID to a signer. The NNA guidelines are not law, and given I’ve carried a NNA membership for only the very first year of my commission (2007) and never as a signing agent, I can’t speak to what their materials say either way. But “guiding practices” and “law” aren’t the same thing.
The CA SOS requires two passport photos on file with every notary’s application. That’s a record a signer can independently check against my face, backed by a state agency. Therefore, the borrower can call the SOS. The TC could require my photo and send it to the borrower so they know who’s showing up on their doorstep. If you choose to show the borrower your driver’s license, that’s your call to make. But I’m not ever going to show my driver’s license to a borrower and couldn’t care less how ridiculous someone thinks it is.
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I made a corporate photo ID badge with my image, a company ID number, my Title, and fully laminate hanging around my neck on a lanyard. The risk of ID theft was too high to show a signer my DL.
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That’s a good solution. I like that.