An inquiring customer wanted to drive to me from Fremont to San Francisco claiming two UPS stores refused to notarize his foreign language doc. They told him why they could not. I explained it wasn’t unlawful. Has anyone heard about this?
That’s a great question…. In AZ according to the SOS… I would check your State laws.
Foreign Language Requirements
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION IS KEY
Notaries may only perform the notarial acts prescribed in their notarial duties if the signer signs in a language that the notary public understands, and the notarial certificate is worded and completed using only letters characters and a language that is read, written and understood by the notary public. ⧫
DOCUMENTS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
A notary MAY perform a notarial act on a document that is in a foreign language that the notary does not understand so long as the notarial certificate is worded and completed using only letters, charac- ters and a language that is read, written and understood by the notary public.
VERBAL TRANSLATIONS
The signer may communicate directly with the notary in a language they both understand, or indi- rectly through a translator who is physically present with the signer and the notary at the time of the notarization and communicates directly with the signer and the notary in languages the translator understands. A.R.S. § 41-253(F)⧫
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Yes the guy who asked to be notarized spoke English just fine but it seems two locations of UPS employees didn’t know it was legal to notarize foreign language and affix a certificate in English.
No one should have to drive all the way to San Francisco to get a notarization like that. It’s really none of my business but all that gas was wasted.
Well we all know that UPS notaries are not the best resource for this type of stuff. But hey customers will continue to rely on them and they get what they pay for.
@donaldsonnp Absolutely accurate. Concur 
percent! 
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Unfortunately, the reputation UPS has built for shipment services DOES NOT EXTEND to their NOTARIAL SERVICES.
At every UPS store that I’ve visited (approximately twelve [12] in my region) the person who provides the notary service complains that their manager submitted their Notary Commission application & notarized their Bond without providing ANY training, insights, guidance, instruction, reference materials, notary guidebook, regulation, legislation material, etc.
Each employee was quite frustrated, but didn’t want to rock the proverbial boat and possibly lose their Job by asking questions.
Although, I will add that absolutely NONE of them took the initiative to research on their own for edification about the process they were engaged in . . . well, at least they didn’t prior to our conversations.
Afterwards, there were several who grabbed their own bootstraps & dramatically improved their skills simply based upon the general questions that I asked . . .
As I regularly say, Caveat Emptor, as a consumer of any Goods or Services, etc. Of course, this applies to ALL areas within the business sector & outside as well.
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That explains why the notaries at UPS take an age to notarize a document, seemed to be frightened and think they are verifying whatever is written in the document. My brother was at a UPS the other day when he overheard their notary saying they had to read carefully through the document that needed a certificate. My brother piped in and said that as a notary, their responsibility is to make sure the person standing in front of them has valid ID. The contents of the document are private and should not be pored over. This was met with disbelief. Apparently UPS notaries are not trained beyond how to fill out the journal and stamp the document.
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UPS is largely a joke for notarization services. I’ve learned to refer single doc 1 sig signings to UPS a block away from my office so people won’t complain when I’m not there as a mobile notary out on the field.
Most of the NP’s have no idea what they’re doing at UPS. People didn’t do their homework. Don’t know how they passed the test in California. It’s not their own business so they don’t care.
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The UPS notaries are there as a loss leader for UPS. It’s to get you into their store hoping you’ll use them in the future. There’s also UPS corporate who’s risk management won’t allow for certain engagements, such estate or end of life documents. I’ve observed non-notary employees filler out the journal and certificate, then call the store manager to perform the notarization.
In Texas there is no required training or testing. There are only two requirements to become a notary; First no criminal convictions, second the ability to fog a mirror.
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I’m loving ‘fog a mirror.’
UPS has a strict set of guidelines to follow, if anything is remotely complicated or out of the normal they refuse to do them. That’s ok, if it’s legally ok I’ll happily take their business. Especially foreign docs in Spanish because I speak and read Spanish.
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I owned a UPS Store for 18 years (sold it a year ago.) We were very busy with Notaries, but I did every one of them for the first 15 or so years. It wasn’t until I started offering a $5 bonus for each act, paid by the customer as an admin fee, that my staff became interested in doing them, and even then they were reluctant. Only one of my staff embraced the idea and she made a couple hundred bucks a month in bonuses. So what you get at a UPS Store is usually one person who knows what they’re doing (the owner or manager,) and the rest are just worker bees who really just want to get paid and go home.
Also, remember that they are franchises, each with a different owner and each owner will make their own rules. Their are no UPS policies or guidelines regarding notaries, except that each store has to have a notary on staff and must follow state rules. That’s it. They make the store do them but provide no guidance or support whatsoever, a major point of contention among franchise owners.
If I were a notary in a state that regulated fees, I would be very skeptical of the idea of charging an admin fee. The total out-of-pocket fee the client pays is the notarization fee, unless other services that are clearly separate from the notarization are provided. Such as travel, which doesn’t apply in a UPS store. Or such as making copies, which might apply in a UPS store.
I asked the state approved trainer about this and she said that we can charge an admin fee for anything. Her word, “anything.” She even called it “a way to make extra money.”
In PA, the notary is a contractor and gets to keep all of the state mandated notary fee, even if they are paid a salary and the store paid for the commission. So the admin fee represented the store’s overhead in providing the notary. A mobile notary travel fee pays the overhead for time and expenses for travel; our admin fee paid for the overhead of rent and everything else, without which the notary can’t be done.
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