I fired Signature Closers today and feel GREAT about it!

Have to agree with Patricia on the initial lowball offers and then usually way too many add’l offers where they minimally increase the offer. In my area, they start sending their lowball offers for signings 150 miles away & keep doing so regardless of what your response was. One thing that does happen with them frequently is I often get an offer for the same signing that they’ve been dickering around on from various other companies who accept MY fee. By being so cheap, they lose the signing to a more reasonable-pay co.

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Thank you for this post. I’ve been getting notifications to do signings for them too. I got notifications for a signing that was 4 hours away, 8 hours round trip and they offered $100. You know I laughed really hard. And…I also get signings like this: it is 11:30am and I get a notification for signing at 12:00pm🙄 I would get a notification at 5:30pm for a 5:00pm Signing. Yeah right. Better someone else than me. Thank God someone else beat me to all those signings. So I don’t even bother looking at them anymore I just delete it.

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Is anybody can share their experience how to negotiate with Signature Closures? I tried once and in request to that they unassigned my job.

…and there you have it. 99% of my replies with higher fees were dumped - not considered. Those signings kept popping up until someone fell for it. I’ve learned not to respond. Replies for higher fees will get you less and less requests. Stay the course and hold firm. If they don’t respect you and your services, move on.

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Let me be honest with you about what I’ve learned about being a NSA in these 6 months. This whole loan signing business has a terrible business model. The SS most definitely has a very bad business model especially for doing business with notaries. And the majority of notaries do not have a business model at all.
The structure of the way it’s set up is to take advantage of notaries by making them sign agreements of how SS wants to control the notaries and dictate and offer low ball fees first without inquiring what the notary’s fee are first. And… if they are too high some have the audacity to ask you to lower your fee to get their business. They put you on a rating and review system like employees and if you have a low or bad rating they won’t use that notary, making it difficult for a notary to get more business. There is too much control over the independent contractor.:thinking:
It really should be the notaries creating and sending the SS agreements of our terms on when we want to be paid and we give them our fees.
So because this has been going on for decades with the SS their business model probably will never change.
There is no way around it unless a notary accept their low fees to get their business or keep negotiating your fee. How long will that take before they accept your fee? :thinking:.
I personally have moved on and I’m not doing it anymore.
This is just my observation and my opinion.
God bless you in your business.

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Lrdb42. You moved on from doing loan signings???

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Yes LindaH. I have moved on. I can’t compete. Too saturated. Not enough business. I need a steady income. :pensive: I can’t do this negotiation stuff. This is not for me. Very hard to get business even direct with TC.

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I’m sorry to hear that…I thought you had a good shot with a solid business plan

Well,. Best of luck to you

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Thank you LindaH. I did have a good solid business plan but it would have taken me a long time because of the way SS are set up to do business. I will still work with the TC I have under my belt but not the SS.
Thanks for all your advice and input.
Be blessed.

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It’s not just Signature Closers that does this. Every signing service is the same way. The late docs are really not their fault. It’s the lenders and title companies who cause that. The signing service just sends you the docs when they receive them. They have no control over when they arrive. The system is flawed, no question about it, but we, as the signing agents have to take control over our schedule, not leave it to the whims of others. If you are going to be impacted by late documents, I would suggest sending them an email exactly at the 2-hour mark and let them know that you will no longer be able to handle the signing and that they should reassign it. It is only fair to give them reasonable notice so they can find another notary. There is no reason to “fire” an otherwise good company over something that is really out of their control. If they don’t like how you are handling these assignments, they will fire “you”. But my guess is they won’t do that if you are generally doing a good job for them. One issue that I have with signing services in general is that from their perspective it’s always “my way or the highway”. There is no interactive dialog between signing company and signing agent. We only get to speak to schedulers who have no authority to do anything except what has been mandated by management. If there was any real communication between us and them, perhaps the issues could be discussed and better solutions could be found. Just my opinion.

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I had two appointments recently where the docs never came. Signature Closers reached out to me the next morning, asking if I ever received the docs. Only when I told them that I never received them did they cancel the appointment.

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Those last minute (or beyond) signings that you describe are usually ones where the notary flaked out at the last minute and they have to find a replacement. I usually avoid those like the plague.

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You nailed it. None of this makes any sense to me. No assignments should be offered until docs are ready. Period. Why is this so hard? There’s tons of us out there, ready and willing to take an assignment. If I got an offer for $85 within 15 minutes of my house and the docs were ready, I’d jump on it. But to accept the $85, knowing full well that it may cause me to lose out on higher paying jobs and eventually be canceled, I just can’t do it. SC has been fairly good to me. I have asked not to receive offers from Closings USA because of everything listed here. They screwed me at least 3 times before I fired them. But I’ll hang on to SC for a bit longer.

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I’ve heard that some notaries go to lengths to get a printer setup in their vehicle so they can print out late docs while they’re on the road. I think it’s quite expensive to get this done but I’m not sure.

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I’m on my second notary commission and have been working with SC for years. If I don’t like the terms, distance and rate, I don’t take the assignment. The assignments I do take are in response to a counter-offer where they already know my terms.
I like that SC pays reliably, in a business where some companies never pay, that is a bonus in my book.
Late documents is a problem that many companies face, including bookings directly from title. There is so much volume lately, it is expected that not every scheduled appointment will take place. It looks like the trend lately is to book the notary first, then worry about getting the docs on time.
I print in my office, never in public. And I won’t consider car printing in my noto-car. If docs are not available within the two-hour window I will send the assignment back unless the location is within 10 miles of my office and I know I can wait for the docs.
In the case of late documents, you can print one set and ask Title to send a secure email version of the signed documents to the borrower. This isn’t a go-to, just something that might save a signing. A notary is not allowed to send a blank copy of the docs, as you all know and sending your own scanback without encryption opens you up to legal action. Encryption software is problematic and many times doesn’t work, so the safest option is to ask Escrow to send a secure soft copy if they don’t already have them available on their portal.

I wouldn’t put SC on the baddie list.

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Signature services sent an email everytime you did requesting docs from lender. They are just like you being at the mercy of getting docs from the lender.
I love this company. Fast , consistent pay and rarely fax backs.
I coordinate the expectation of late docs by working with the signer on other available time slots to sign. I find it easy to add another last minute signing if necessary.
In this industry late docs happen and it is not the signing services fault.
I am afraid that in this industry you may cut out some valuable companies by firing every service that has late docs.

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Thank you. I too have been really concerned with discontinuing use of a certain company (No Name for now) due to similar circumstances. I’ve really been gracious to accept signings from them. I just totaled all of the Cancellations and the seven (7) without any Notice, with a toal of eleven (11). I think that is enough!

As a NSA professional, I read the contracts and accept their guidlines to uphold the highest of everything - along with my 99% accuracy on the assignments. At this point, on all accounts, I feel really down right disrespected. I dont see how, in good faith, that I should accept another assignment from them.

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I will do them if docs are ready and I triple my fee. Its my way or the highway. I wish all my local agents could get together and set some price guidelines. Some of them are snapping up the low ball fees when they could be getting double or triple the offer.I don’t do any Refi’s under $200. We all have to lift our game and not be the SS slaves. In my opinion.

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Hi Barbara., Good for you! I’ve tracked their performance with the signings I’ve received. 68% of the time the documents have arrived late. (less than two hours before signing) Several of them the documents came well after the scheduled time. One was six hours after the scheduled closing, and they asked if I could still go out (late at night) and do the closing. I passed! I canceled most of the closings that the documents arrived late. I’ve put in some bids for closings that are a long way away. One was two hours away and I put in a nice sized bid. They called and awarded me the job three days before the scheduled signing. I told them I would need the documents four hours before the signing because of the two hour drive. That was the one where the documents arrived six hours after the signing and they wanted me to still try to make it. They wasted my whole day!

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I had a signer who said he wouldn’t sign because he wasn’t finished “negotiating” with the loan company. I had already printed the documents and so I went anyway. When I got there he repeated that he would not sign. At that point I called SC and told them that I was at the residence and the signer refused to sign. I was paid 50% of the original fee for a trip charge. But if you don’t go, good luck getting paid.

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