Identifying Your Customer
There are wrong ways and there are right ways to identify your customers.
Wrong ways include:
Personal Knowledge
Do you know the customer as a friend, co-worker, neighbor or relative with whom you’ve had shared experiences? Is this customer personally known to you because you have known them over a period of time and in a variety of situations? Your personal knowledge of the customer serves as proper identification because you are absolutely sure of who the customer is. If you have any doubts about the customer’s identity, you should ask for satisfactory evidence.
Satisfactory Evidence
There are two types of satisfactory evidence defined in the Pennsylvania Notary Public Law – acceptable identification and credible witness. Acceptable identification is a current, government-issued identification card that includes a photograph, signature or physical description, and a serial or identification number. The identification card must be issued by a federal, state or local government agency. Most commonly used identification cards are current drivers’ licenses, passports, permanent residence (green cards) and identification cards issued to government employees.
If the identification card does not prove the customer’s identity to your satisfaction, you must ask for another form of ID that meets the requirements of the law. If the customer is not personally known to you and cannot provide an acceptable identification card (satisfactory evidence), then you can rely on the testimony of a third person known as a credible witness.
A credible witness must be personally known to you, must personally know the customer and must appear before you along with the customer. You must administer an oath or affirmation to the credible witness who must swear to or affirm the identity of the customer. The oath or affirmation you administer to the credible witness is not recorded in your register as a separate notary act and you cannot charge a fee for it.
PAN recommends that you record the name of the credible witness who identified the customer in the Remarks column of your register.
Wrong ways include:
- Accepting a hand-written note that the person is who they say they are.
- Accepting an expired driver’s license.
- Accepting a non-government-issued ID.
- The customer does not have ID and they tell you to trust them.
- The customer isn’t present but you’re told to notarize because the boss (or someone else) says it’s okay. They will vouch for the absent customer.
- You aren’t paying attention to what’s going on and you just stamp and sign.
Personal Knowledge
Do you know the customer as a friend, co-worker, neighbor or relative with whom you’ve had shared experiences? Is this customer personally known to you because you have known them over a period of time and in a variety of situations? Your personal knowledge of the customer serves as proper identification because you are absolutely sure of who the customer is. If you have any doubts about the customer’s identity, you should ask for satisfactory evidence.
Satisfactory Evidence
There are two types of satisfactory evidence defined in the Pennsylvania Notary Public Law – acceptable identification and credible witness. Acceptable identification is a current, government-issued identification card that includes a photograph, signature or physical description, and a serial or identification number. The identification card must be issued by a federal, state or local government agency. Most commonly used identification cards are current drivers’ licenses, passports, permanent residence (green cards) and identification cards issued to government employees.
If the identification card does not prove the customer’s identity to your satisfaction, you must ask for another form of ID that meets the requirements of the law. If the customer is not personally known to you and cannot provide an acceptable identification card (satisfactory evidence), then you can rely on the testimony of a third person known as a credible witness.
A credible witness must be personally known to you, must personally know the customer and must appear before you along with the customer. You must administer an oath or affirmation to the credible witness who must swear to or affirm the identity of the customer. The oath or affirmation you administer to the credible witness is not recorded in your register as a separate notary act and you cannot charge a fee for it.
PAN recommends that you record the name of the credible witness who identified the customer in the Remarks column of your register.
