I’m wondering if I’m hurting myself or helping myself. As we all know, there are 3 million signing services out there. It seems lately I’ll get an offer through signing order from a random signing service who I’ve never heard of with an insultingly low offer.
Like $40 for a refi that they need complete completed in two hours same day. What I’ve noticed is 30 4560 minutes later I’ll get another text offer from the same signing service and they’ll bump it up to $45.
I had a frustrating day today and this exact scenario happened to me twice and I replied back $45 is insultingly low. At the time I was thinking maybe they’ll get the message and not contact me again with stupid future offers however after thinking about it a little bit;
am I better off just ignoring me and not responding at all and I hurting myself by responding to them with something like this is an insulting offer
Any offer that starts at $40 in my opinion doesn’t deserve a response, unless it is a single document signing near my location.. There is no hope that we would ever get to an agreeable fee if they start out at $40.
Yes. You are hurting yourself and accepting these low ball fees will only keep them low. I don’t walk out the door for less than $100. I always counter and if they don’t want to pay it, I could care less. I used to be afraid to not take them, but not anymore. I work too hard to take less. Notaries deserve at least $150 - $200 per signing. When I see that a credit report charge can sometimes range from $200-$350 on a settlement statement or that a signing service charged $175+ and they only paid me $75, I get a little upset. Considering all the driving I do, the signing appointment, the scanning, and then dropping documents to ship; it angers me a bit. I stopped taking those low fees and I charge between $100-$150 on average. If I drive over an hour, I charge $175-$200 and I usually get it. They’ve been paying these low fees at least since I started back in 2020 and with increased prices over the years for toner, paper, and gas’; I refuse to take less now. My income has improved greatly. I make more yearly now than ever before and I live out a little rural, so asking for more hasn’t hurt me at all. Just ask for more. If we all do that, we all make more money and money we deserve. The title companies charge our fees to the seller or buyer/borrower, so it’s not really hurting the title company. Notary signing services should all charge title companies more nowadays. If they want to make $100, then they should charge the title companies $250-$300 and give their notaries $150-$200. I’ve completed over 1600 loan closings and I’ve never once heard a person compalin about how high the notary fee is, but I have had many show gratitude for my service, so I don’t see where the problem is by charging title companies more. When I get a random direct call from a title company that needs help, they don’t flinch when I tell them my fee. They happily pay it. Take the jump and ask for more. You deverve it!
I always counter. They will repost with a lower amount, and I counter as many times as they post. Majority of the time I don’t get the job but there is a few that will give me what I counter.
I don’t think my answer is going to be very popular but the truth is there is no insulting or not insulting there is only this is how they do things. And they do it because there are notaries accepting low ball offers for whatever reason to gain experience because they think volume will make up for it - they don’t know any better. Whatever.
I counter on all offers. I have a set requirement. Some companies send offers that match my rate sheet. I counter at a rate I will accept.
not everyone counters. And I know because I had a job on Friday but had to withdraw because I needed to get my alternator replaced. It was offered at $70 and I countered at $100 and received it. I gave them time to find another notary and when they put it back out they put it back out at $70.
If area notaries don’t understand what they can charge and receive - that’s on them.
But this is business. Finding the least expensive contract notary isn’t an insult. It’s just what they do because every business wants the highest margin possible.
There is no insulting anything. There are offers I won’t accept and counter offers I will accept. That’s all.
You’re probably better off not responding at all. I don’t know if it “hurts” you to give a nasty response. It’s not like the schedulers really care what you think or will hold it against you, but you never know who is reading the responses, and just to say something derogatory because you were “in a mood” at the time you said it does you no good other than to vent, and could possibly do you harm.
First, we aren’t communicating with people, we’re dealing with an algorithym designed to ‘pick’ the cheapest ‘solution’. Given that many areas are oversaturatied with notaries, hiring party is smart in letting the cheapest self-select. I simply ignore offers that don’t fit my date, time, location schedule and counter those that do with a profitable fee. Seems all the responses just are ‘sorted’ into ‘pools’: 1. ‘fee accepted’/scheduler picks one! 2. ‘fee accepted, need time change’. 3. counter offers, etc. Doubt that a scheduler actaually reads every comment anyway.
When you respond “Accepted” you usually get the job automatically, assuming that someone else hasn’t beaten you to it. I don’t know this for an absolute fact, but considering the quickness with which I get a response back that I’ve been awarded the job, there was no time for any decision making on anyone’s part, me vs. one or more other notaries.
It pays to know your region. I don’t get many offers that I accept as offered. But I know by location what I’m going to charge. Fewer notaries are going long distance and that’s good for me.
There is no “insulting” offer in my view. An insult is a personal thing and I don’t take any of the crazy things in this line of work personally. With that said, I just ignore the offers that don’t meet my acceptance criteria and move on. Why bother responding (and why bother getting all sweaty about it) when it accomplishes nothing? That would be like going to the gas station and chewing out the person in the booth/store/kiosk because you don’t like the price of unleaded.
Totally agree. I get probably 100 offers a day or more and ignore most of them because I do business only with the companies I know and trust will pay me timely after work is completed. Done this long enough and being at a semi retired status I don’t want to completely block them because you never know. If a company needs my services bad enough they call me directly which I can then at that point set my fee which I always get. No low ballers just direct communication. Perfect.
I have only had one company come back and berate me for my $225 request for a signing that was 75 miles from me. She said it was only 23 miles and she doesn’t even get paid that much. “I said it is 23 miles by the crow flying and they don’t have a notary stamp.” Just kidding, I just told her that I don’t leave my house for less than $125 or $150 with Scans and then add mileage. She continued to berate me and I finally said please move on and she was like you will never do one of my signings and I will tell everyone one I know not to use you. I was like I have been doing this for 10 years and I’ve heard that before. Then told her she is welcome to find another Certified NSA, Fidelity Approved in Wyoming that would do it for that price.
I don’t see them as an insult, I see those are the ones for rookies and then they will pay me to go fix them when the others realize it wasn’t worth the bid.
I don’t take low offers personally. I simply reply with what I’m willing to do the job for. With over 2000 signings, I seem to get more than enough work to keep me busy. Always counter low offers, always!
Mirrors my insights shared over many, many years of direct experience . . .