Thought you would like this one...Today I went to Forsyth County, Winston-Salem, once was my "home" county for over 20 years. Since my move back to the Piedmont, I have gotten some of my old work back from the guys (attorneys) I worked for for over 13 years  when I went out on my own. I have a box in the attorney section where several other paralegal/abstractors have boxes where post-recorded documents are sent back, attorneys leave work to be recorded and title companies and the Register of Deeds staff leave memos of Seminars or other info that they would like to share with the legal real estate community that have boxes there. I would guess that there are 200 metal legal size boxes stacked up there in the front of the Deed Vault. I guess this fella is too new to remember me, even though I was only gone 2 years, as I got his "Flyer" in my box for Title Abstracting Services. I showed it to several other abstractors in there, (they didn't get one so I guess he know them!) and they were shocked! Note that the other 10 counties that "Joe Newbie" listed as covering are at least 50 minutes to 1 and half hours away from Winston-Salem (Forsyth County).  I changed his name address etc, but I don't know him anyway and hope to never to because I might hurt him.......Here goes: Top of Flyer:

             NEED HELP WITH YOUR TITLEWORK?

                               "Joe Newbie"
                               510 Schmuck Drive  
                               Winston-Salem, NC 27107
                                Cell-----------
                               Office---------
                               Email: joenewbiejr@yahoo.com
                               Fax:--------------------------

Counties Covered: Alamance, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Rockingham, Randolph, Stokes, Surry, Wilkes and Yadkin. Other Counties can be accommodated on an "as needed" basis. (That's the other 89 counties of the 100 in NC, I assume)
Turnaround time: 48 hours (from the time I receive the search request)

(Ok, here is the kicker)
Prices:                   Update and record                  $15.00
                             Current Owner Search            $25.00 in Forsyth/  
                                                                            $35.00 out of county
                             Full 30 year search                  $40.00 in Forsyth/
                                                                            $55.00 out of county
                             Document retrieval                  $10.00

Other services available, Prices negotiable (for real?)
References available.

The other abstractors I showed this to, between all three of us we have about 65 years experience. We noticed that "experience" part was lacking in the flyer. How do you compete with this crap? I guess you just hope and pray that your folks are going to go with you for the long and sometime rocky haul and that your past performance in doing quality title work will keep you in good stead. Just really freaked us out...and made us mad.  Thanks for the opportunity to vent..this is just wrong.
   
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