WARNING - RANT BELOW - Not looking for advice or anything just need to tell people who understand.
ok so Service Link reached out to me for a signing. Due to timing issues on their end the signing didn’t happen. Thats ok. I asked specifically about the onboarding fees in my email to them. I was told there were none.
Then someone else emailed me this morning saying everything was good to go - this is taken directly from my email
" Hello,In order to on board, I will need a fee of $75 for Home Equity and a fee of $85 for Refinances along with Auto Assignment in at least your home county. "
I’m confused…which is it ? Fee or no fee? Then I got to feeling " some type of way" about it and just couldn’t shut my fingers up. I replied. " Hello . When I first started the on boarding process I specifically asked about fees and was told there were none by Liberty . I guess just send me sellers , purchase, reverse, loan mods , RONs ( no helocs or refis) , and GNW you get . Have a great day ."
Yes I was being dramatic and sarcastic because … . I am not into the bait and switch. $160 is a lot for being on a directory that is not guaranteeing work in my area and wants auto assignment. I know I can reject the job, but I don’t want anything like a W2 job . I decide where , when , and how much . and I’m rural so every dollar counts as most signings not directly in my town are 45-1 hr away if not more . I’m over here being extra salty about it right now.
My take on this is - they meant they will need you to agree to $75 for Home Equity and $85 for refinances (all inclusive for all services rendered on each) - and you agree to auto-assignment in your home county (no negotiating, no phone calls, nothing - it’s automatically assigned to you at the above agreed-upon fee).
Indeed, you’re correct that this business entity is QUITE difficult to work with . . . especially over an extended interval of time. REPEATEDLY DECREASE Fees they pay to professional signing agents [PSAs] as time progresses coupled with increased package sizes & additional services they throw into their instructions for “good measure.”
Of course, as always, I’m speaking from direct experience.
It’s their “bad” on the way the message was phrased . . .
“I will need a fee of $75 for Home Equity and a fee of $85 for Refinances along with Auto Assignment in at least your home county”
==>> Means these are the Fees you must Accept for HELOC & Refinance packages (respectively) while providing your PSA services via automatic assignment of the Signing Orders [SOs] from their business entity.
Understand your briny response to it!
FYI: There is NO FEE that you pay to them for On-Boarding or listing within their database of PSAs.
Agree with Linda’s interpretation of that email. They want to you to accept those fees for those particular types of signings and with auto assignment.
IME, Servicelink does not charge a fee to onboard. IMO, those fees are too low. I do work with Servicelink. I am not on their auto assign. I live in a large county. I will quote them a fee depending on where the signing is scheduled to take place. If I have to drive 2 hours (one-way) to signing location, my fee is considerably higher than if I just drive for 20 minutes. They reach out to me when they need my services.
I am not going to repeat what has already been addressed. ServiceLink system has a calendar, where you are to mark your available and unavailable hours. They will populate your available time slots with loan signings assignments. So you have to check your calendar daily and watch for their notifications. The upside is potential constant assignments, downside you have to be careful not to get double booked by accepting another company’s order without blocking out the Servicelink slot. I took myself off their calendar system, once they start dropping their fees. Otherwise Servicelink is one of the good companies to work for and they pay quickly. ServiceLink isn’t a “W2”, you will still be an “1099” Independent Contractor.
When Jot asked me to sign up, they were specific that a fees page couldn’t list more than $90 per contract. So I did that but included fees for out of county, excessive drive time, excessive mileage, large page counts. They don’t not onboard you but whoever accepts $90 first with no counter offer gets the contract. I think it’s indicative of what people are willing to accept that has platforms saying we’ll pay this or this or this. But in actuality they’ll pay the fee that gets the notary for the location they have.
You also have to agree to their way too low & non-negotiable fee offered on that ‘auto-offer’ app. They will call you a ‘white glove notary’ so you don’t feel so dirty for taking the low fee. Then, 6 months later, they’ll call & try to get you to lower your fee in exchange for (non-existent) volume. Yessireee, newbs, you can make money needed by doing 5 for the profit of one! And it works well for them. Until the notary realizes this is NOT a business where volume-in-lieu-of-profitable-fee does a darn thing for them.
@chandie.kent Arichter’s direct experience mirrors the direct experience I shared above.
So, I wouldn’t fret much at all about that business entity.
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NOTE: There may be rare pockets/regions within the US wherein that business entity will pay a reasonable signing agent [SA] fee; however, it certainly isn’t the norm as evidenced by the multiple threads & posts throughout this forum that attest to various direct experiences akin to Arichter’s, mine, & others.
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I’m certain you’ve already researched the notarial saturation in your region/locale & can easily make a sagacious determination in this regard.
I work with this signing service and you are definitely misunderstanding. There is no $75 onboarding fee that you have to pay. You sign up as a vendor for free. They want you to agree to accept assignments automatically and accept what they want to pay you ($75). For this reason, I do not permit auto assignments with any signing service because I need to be able to negotiate rates based on travel distance and amount of work anticipated. I am still a vendor with them but I negotiate my own rates.
Just contact vendor management and they can help clear up any misunderstanding. Good luck!
@Carmen_Lane Your business model mirrors mine (in this instance); i.e., no auto assignments.
The reasoning behind choosing no auto assignments is identical to yours as well.
Many professional signing agents [PSAs] across the US serve more than 1 county & their financial end result would be a Net Loss on their Profit & Loss [P&L] sheet during the End-of-Year calculation.
The business model utilized by SL with low rates (“we’ll send you volume”) & auto assignments doesn’t function well at all for Independent Contractors [ICs] within our business sector.
thank you , I know its not a real W2 , but I am weary of being told to be somewhere at a specific time, one of the reasons I chose to be an entrepreneur. If their fees are too low then tragically I will be unavailable. Thanks again Carl.
@Arichter – Actually, the NSA can counter offer to the JOT auto-offer by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right corner and then enter the counter fee. The only thing allowed is a counter for the fee.
Sorry…I’ve tangled SL with 1st Am…both of whom are mostly lowballers…and neither of which I’ve worked with for years. Tho’ I did get a CALL from JOT once, but… fee offered would have worked had signing been within 5 miles…45 miles? Nope.
The signing service may ask you to review terms of their agreement and fill out some forms – BE SURE TO READ and if you agree with it, sign. If there is any portion you disagree with, do not sign/initial that portion. This becomes the Agreement. I do not sign the part that says I will accept $75 for assignments they automatically assign to me. Under fees, I wrote “TBD” based on travel distance/assignment request". To pay you, this signing service will ask for you to send a W9 so their billing department knows who to make checks out to. (Example W9 attached, yours may be different if you use your personal SSN instead of a business EIN for taxpayer ID. I always make sure the REQUESTER portion is not left blank. If this was for ServiceLink, I’d fill in the ServiceLink info.)
I used to work with them but stopped, because they are very strict with the rules and they will suspend your account for some days without a way to dispute if you miss the dead line for scan backs which is I believe is two hours but sometimes the commute and signing will cause you to delay the scan backs which will result in a suspension eventually
. I am not into the bait and switch. $160 is a lot for being on a directory that is not guaranteeing work in my area and wants auto assignment. I know I can reject the job, but I don’t want anything like a W2 job . I decide where , when , and how much . and I’m rural so every dollar counts as most signings not directly in my town are 45-1 hr away if not more . I’m over here being extra salty 
