Hi all. I recently signed up with Xome Signings because it’s been slow around my area and I was looking for new Signing companies. Anyway I received a Signing for them, it was a refi. $90. Here’s the thing, I drove 45 Min away to the clients home only to start signing and discover the signers social security number was wrong on a bunch of docs. Called title/Signing company let them know what happened and title said to stop immediately. They would need to contact lender probably draw up new docs and have borrowers sign again on a different date. They changed my fee to $50. She said it was a print/travel fee. I’ve done the math and it was about $18 to print the docs (almost 300 pgs altogether). So then add up gas and everything I feel like I hardly made anything! Is this right? Should they have paid the whole fee?
Yep. Thing is that if you address ‘full fee regardless of outcome’ BEFORE you do the job, you have an “Agreement”.
Afterwards, all you have is an argument. I also think you didn’t place enough value on your time when you accepted $90 for 1 1/2 hrs drive time alone.
Bingo…my first thought too -
Normally companies agree to pay half the fee for a no-sign/aborted signing - unless you get it in writing that you get full fee if you make it to the table, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Maybe you can get a promise from them that you’ll get the re-sign? That may help make up for it - but you may be stuck on this assignment with the $90 you originally quoted.,…which I agree is ridiculously low for 1.5 hours travel and printing 300 pages.
You may take a small beating on this signing but I would respectfully suggest you review your fee structure and business plan.
Good luck with this
Thank you for the feedback. I also agree I didn’t value my time enough with that signing and I will definitely be coming up with an agreement with signing companies for future signings.
I have seen this comment on fees. I used to receive of over 100 on my 1st year as a NSA . Recently IF I get contacted and ask for 65/90 I don’t get a call back. I haven’t had one signing since December. I realize accepting 45/60 becomes volunteering but these days how are we to keep out skills sharp with no business? Any suggestions?
I have a similar question about messed up docs - I did a signing for a company and the lender didn’t include a document (lender admitted it was all their fault). Lender realized this after the signing was complete and called the signing company who then called me when I was en route home (the trip was about 40 miles one way in heavy traffic) they asked me if I could “just run home and print it out and run back later or the next day” to get the borrower to sign it like it was nothing. A second trip for a mistake that was not mine would put me at a loss due to the distance (fee was 100)
I said No, I could not go back, because I handled the docs I was given correctly and this was like a 2 hr round trip in driving and I would not go back for a mistake that wasn’t my fault. The guy at the signing place got very snarky, while he admitted it was 100% the lender’s error, he didn’t like it that i was not willing to run all over the place a second time for no additional pay. In the end, he said the lender “had it taken care of” - so now I will just see if they pay me.
Is this common for docs to be messed up? Common for signing companies to expect the notary to make extra free trips when its not the notary’s mistake? Not crazy about this company anyhow - very short notice for jobs, send docs like an hour before I have to leave and I am always very rushed - are they all like this? (I am new) Thanks
In my experience, nobody used to expect freebies. Today, it seems to me that it’s almost become some sort of game… how much work can we get from these fools for how little? I can almost imagine a weekly pool where the scheduler who gets some dumb notary to go the farthest for the least amount of money wins. And there seems to be no end to volunteer fools. I digress… to answer your question: No, it’s not that common for lender or TC to make a mistake, but it does happen. I will go so far as to say that it happens more often with some lenders, TCs than others. And the ‘always late docs’ is kind of a tipoff that there may be problems ahead.
Thank you, that is what I was thinking - always late is a tip off of more problems and an example of a company preying on a new notary with the attitude “we will make you jump through hoops if you want work.”
I have worked with only one other signing company so far, who confirmed they were using me within 5 minutes and sent the edocs the evening before (different lender), and were very easy to deal with, so I will try to find more companies like them.
The company that I had initially wrote about also didn’t tell me that I had been assigned until 3 hours after I told them I was available - I had actually thought that after an hour and a half passed, that someone else got assigned, since their email says “if you dont hear back from us, that means another notary has been assigned.” Seems that most companies seem to assign the jobs within minutes, not hours, so I didn’t think a 3 hour wait to find out was normal either.
In retrospect I am thinking that experienced notaries in my area must avoid this company because of similar experiences and this is probably why I was getting the jobs from them so easily - I was new and unaware.
Lesson learned 
Thanks again for your time!
Not letting you know sooner than 3 hours makes me wonder if they weren’t shopping around for a cheaper Notary. I’ve come to realize that the bottom feeders circle like sharks at the end of the month. I had 4 different companies calling about the same signing this week. One met my fee, told me docs were available then cancelled the signing within 15 minutes. They prey on the desperation of new Notaries.
Thanks Maria - That is a very good possibility and I appreciate you pointing that out. They had sent out an email at 7:15 AM for $80 and apparently no one took it. Then at 10 they sent one and upped to $100. I thought, ok I can do that even though its more of a drive than I’d like. So you are right, they probably were price shopping and preying on new notaries. The appointment was in an large city that has a lot of notaries so I am thinking the experienced ones knew to stay away.
I do have other work (sell books on ebay and digital designs on etsy) so this is a supplement for me and I wont put up with antics like this. I will avoid this company and will keep that in mind about the end of the month tactics, and I think i will just avoid taking jobs that arent offered at least a day in advance - I don’t like to rush, because rushing = mistakes. I gave this place 3 tries and each time the assignment was last minute, docs were late and then them trying to get me to drive back again the next day for lender error (see my first post, and I refused to do it) is pretty much it for me.
Thanks for your input and have a great weekend
No thanks needed. I guess I hijacked your post a little bit because I was irritated with myself. Like you said, lesson learned. I appreciate you sharing your experience. It helps to know what others have experienced so that we can all work smarter. Hope you had a great weekend!