Odd Requests Raise Suspicions

Paul Mees of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, had been a Notary Signing Agent just a few months when a loan modification company offered him work, but didn’t want him to notarize anything. Instead they asked him to deliver documents to a customer, get signatures and collect more than $2,000 in fees. Mees became suspicious when the firm directed him to return all documents to the company, even though the package included a receipt acknowledging that the customer had received copies. Mees declined to perform the assignment.

Notary Michael Martens of Muskegon, Michigan, started asking questions when he discovered that the firm seeking to hire him told its customers not to contact their banks. The company also was asking customers for several postdated checks. When the local police told Martens that the firm was running a scam, he told the company he wouldn’t do business with them. “They wanted me to be an ‘agent’ and said they were contacting Notaries because of their credibility,” Martens said. “I decided I didn’t want to be a part of it.”