Just as the title suggest, you be the judge.
The Offer
I received a call from a representative of FieldChoice. The representative ask if I would be willing to take an assignment that was according to her records 1 1/2 hours from me for $$. After getting the exact location and I found that it would actually take me about 2 hours one way to get to the assignment so I countered her offer with my own offer for $$$. The representative said she had to see if she can get an approval and will call me back. We ended the call.
The Second Offer
Received a second call from FieldChoice. This time the representative stated that he is JD Trinidad and he is the Director of Operations. He made a offer that was still less than what I asked for. I told him that I would not be able to do the assignment due to cost and time commitment on my part was greater than the pay out. I told him to feel free to contact another notary.
So far "Offers" made and in this case "Offers" declined. Standard notary business stuff right? Well here is where it gets a little weird ....
Desperate Measures???
JD Trinidad then pulled up my last closing with their company and told me that he believed I overcharged them for my last closing (I will call it Closing X). Mr. Trinidad then told me I need to work with his company and take the closing at a lower price(this is a standard practice for these type of companies). Then Mr. Trinidad said something I never heard before.
He said that I (the notary) was an employee of his company base on his companies guidelines and that he could compel me to take the assignment.
At this point I wasn't sure if I was hearing this right so I ask him to repeat it and he did. I stated that I am a Independent Contractor and that your guidelines apply if I was actually accepting the assignment. Mr. Trinidad told me again that he was the Director of Operations and compel me to take the assignment. Once we could not agree on a fee I ended the call.
More Desperate Measures???
Mr. Trinidad, Director of Operations, called me right back and once again brought up being overcharged on Closing X and demanded that I take their closing. I told them that I definitely will not take their closing and ended the call.
Even More Desperate Measures???
About 5 minutes after this I received an email from Mr. Trinidad. It stated that they somehow lost or didn't have any of my "notary credentials" and I needed to resend them. The email also left a vague threat that if they didn't receive these items soon that they would not pay me for jobs I already conducted for them. I found it interesting that 5 minutes earilier he was demanding that I take an assignment and now all my "notary credentials" have mysterious disappeared.
About 5 minutes later Mr. Trinidad sent me a 2nd email with copy and pasted "Terms and Conditions". This seems to be another attempt to justify him saying he has Employer rights over notaries. A little while later I received a 3rd email from FieldChoice. This one had yet another "Terms and Conditions" and requesting that I take another quiz on behalf of their client.
One last thing, Mr. Trinidad was correct about Closing X. I did charge more than I usually charge on that type of closing. After further review I found that when I arrived at Closing X one of the borrowers was not able to appear due to work. The other borrower was not comfortable signing alone. I had to make 2 trips and print the documents out twice so I did charged more for the assignment.
Question
Is this an act of desperation or can signing companies like "FieldChoice" demand you take their assignments?
What do you think?
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