Draft Letter To FedEx Office Regarding Proof / Notarize Branding, Online Notary Representations, And FedEx Reputation Risk

# Draft Letter To FedEx Office Regarding Proof / Notarize Branding, Online Notary Representations, And FedEx Reputation Risk

Status: working draft  
Date drafted: 2026-05-17  
Prepared for: Greg Lirette / Notary Geek / GoodWare LLC  
Purpose: FedEx Office / legal / brand-risk outreach letter; not yet public copy

## Draft Letter

Greg Lirette  
GoodWare LLC / Notary Geek  
Clearwater, Florida  
G@notary.cx

May 17, 2026

FedEx Office  
Legal / Compliance / Brand Protection / Customer Experience

Re: Request for review of FedEx Office Online Notary with Notarize / Proof branding, compliance representations, customer disclosures, and reputational risk

To FedEx Office:

I am writing as both a FedEx customer and the owner of Notary Geek. My apostille and document-routing work uses FedEx regularly because tracked, predictable document movement matters in this business. I want FedEx to remain a trusted document-services brand.

I am also writing because FedEx Office's public online-notary pages appear to use FedEx branding in connection with Notarize / Proof online-notary services. That creates a brand-trust issue for FedEx.

FedEx is not merely a small affiliate sending incidental traffic to a software vendor. To ordinary consumers, the FedEx name carries reliability, logistics, chain-of-custody, document-handling, business-services, and trust expectations. When FedEx Office presents an online-notary path under FedEx Office branding, many customers will naturally treat that path as FedEx-vetted, FedEx-safe, and FedEx-responsible even if the underlying technology, notary network, identity verification, support, and record retention are actually handled by Notarize / Proof.

That is why I am asking FedEx to review the relationship, public wording, customer disclosures, and risk allocation around "Online Notary with Notarize."

## 1. The Brand Issue Is Not Cosmetic

FedEx Office's public online-notary page uses a FedEx Office customer journey and then sends customers into an online-notary workflow associated with Notarize / Proof. The page also tells users that the notarization is conducted through a third-party website and that technical support is provided by Proof, Notarize's parent company.

That means at least three different customer impressions can exist at once:

1. the customer sees a FedEx-branded online-notary offer;
2. the actual online-notary workflow is run through Notarize / Proof;
3. the customer may not understand which company is responsible for identity verification, notary selection, platform records, audio-video recording, support access, data retention, and legal compliance.

For an ordinary consumer, the FedEx brand may become the trust layer even when FedEx is not the notary, not the RON service provider, not the identity-proofing vendor, and not the custodian of the notarial record.

That is a reputation risk for FedEx.

## 2. FedEx Branding Should Not Become Legal Authority

Notary Geek's concern is that FedEx-branded pages can be cited by AI systems, customers, notaries, and industry participants as if FedEx's brand confirms that the underlying Proof / Notarize workflow is legally compliant for every state, signer, identity method, and transaction date.

It does not.

For any remote online notarization, the controlling questions are transaction-specific:

1. Which commissioned notary performed the act?
2. Which state law governed the notary on that transaction date?
3. What identity method was used?
4. Did the signer pass KBA if KBA was required or used?
5. Was the signer personally known, identified by credible witness, or identified through another lawful method?
6. If biometrics are claimed, was the claim ordinary commercial selfie/liveness/face-match, or was it a signer-side certificate/PIV/PIV-I identity method required by a particular state-law lane?
7. What records were retained?
8. Who can retrieve the audio-video recording, audit trail, journal entry, identity proofing evidence, and platform logs if the notarization is challenged?

FedEx branding does not answer those questions.

## 3. The Virginia RON Issue Is The Clearest Example

The most important current example is Virginia.

Public and AI answers frequently say that major platforms support Virginia online-notary biometrics. In many cases, those answers confuse ordinary commercial biometrics, such as selfie capture, liveness detection, and face match, with Virginia's narrower signer-side valid-digital-certificate / PIV/PIV-I biometric identity lane.

That distinction is technical, but it is not optional. A face match performed by a platform is not the same evidence object as a signer presenting or accessing a valid digital certificate through biometric data or a PIV/PIV-I credential. The notary's own digital certificate and the platform's tamper-evident PDF signing process are also different from the signer's identity certificate.

If FedEx-branded pages cause consumers, AI systems, or business users to treat Proof / Notarize as the FedEx-approved answer for Virginia biometrics, then FedEx's brand is being pulled into a legal and technical dispute that FedEx may not have intended to own.

That risk is stronger now because Proof's own current public marketing emphasizes AI-era trust, authorization records, and identity verification using "government ID + facial biometrics." FedEx does not need to adopt Notary Geek's legal position to see the brand problem. If the FedEx customer journey sends a signer into a Proof workflow that markets AI-resistant trust and biometric identity verification, FedEx should know whether the actual notarial act maps to the notary's state law, especially where Virginia certificate/PIV biometric language, KBA timing, no-SSN claims, and apostille/recipient acceptance are involved.

## 4. The No-SSN / Foreign-Signer Issue Should Be Disclosed Carefully

FedEx Office's public online-notary page appears to tell customers they will need a U.S. Social Security number to complete the online-notary process. That may be a correct disclosure for the specific FedEx / Notarize consumer workflow.

The problem is that Proof / Notarize is also discussed in the wider market as a possible solution for international signers, no-SSN signers, foreign-passport users, and non-KBA workflows. Those claims need exact workflow labels. A Form 1583 verification-of-fact workflow, a private enterprise workflow, a support-configured workflow, a credible-witness workflow, and an ordinary public notarization are not all the same thing.

If FedEx's branded service requires a U.S. SSN and uses KBA, FedEx should say that plainly and should not allow the FedEx-branded path to be treated as a general no-SSN or foreign-signer solution.

## 5. FedEx Should Ask Proof For Transaction-Level Answers

FedEx does not need to become a notary-law publisher to protect itself. But FedEx should not rely only on Proof's general platform assurances, trust-center language, certifications, or market size.

FedEx should ask Proof for written answers to these questions:

1. For the FedEx Office online-notary path, which notary states are used?
2. Are FedEx Office customers routed to Proof's on-demand notary network, in-house notaries, business notaries, or a specific subset?
3. What identity method is used in the FedEx-branded workflow?
4. Does the FedEx-branded workflow require KBA?
5. Does the FedEx-branded workflow require a U.S. SSN?
6. Are no-SSN, foreign-passport, or non-KBA signers eligible through the FedEx-branded workflow?
7. If the answer varies by state or document type, how is that disclosed to customers before payment?
8. Who stores the audio-video recording, audit trail, identity-proofing record, and notary journal data?
9. Who can access customer-uploaded documents and identity documents?
10. What support team handles technical, identity, refund, failed KBA, document-access, and record-retrieval issues?
11. Does FedEx receive or retain any customer data from the Notarize / Proof workflow?
12. What happens when a customer or receiving party later challenges a notarization completed through the FedEx-branded path?

Those are brand-risk questions as much as legal questions.

## 6. Customer Disclosures Should Be Tightened

I am asking FedEx Office to review whether its customer-facing pages clearly disclose:

1. that FedEx Office is not the commissioned notary;
2. that Notarize / Proof operates the online-notary platform;
3. that the notary's commissioning state controls the notarial act;
4. that recipient acceptance is not guaranteed merely because FedEx branding appears in the customer journey;
5. that identity requirements may include SSN/KBA for the FedEx-branded workflow;
6. that certain documents, signers, states, foreign-passport scenarios, no-SSN scenarios, apostille scenarios, real-estate scenarios, and recipient policies may require review before using the service;
7. who is responsible for records, recordings, audit logs, identity-proofing evidence, and post-transaction retrieval;
8. which company handles support if the process fails or the notarization is later questioned.

The goal is not to stop FedEx from offering a convenient online-notary path. The goal is to prevent FedEx's reputation from being used as a substitute for the actual legal and technical proof behind the transaction.

Put differently: FedEx branding, a completed Proof session, an AI-trust slogan, a biometric identity result, or a vendor support link should not become compliance theater. The transaction still has to be explainable by notary state, transaction date, identity method, notarial certificate, retained records, support responsibility, and document route.

## 7. Requested Preservation And Review

Please preserve and review records concerning:

1. FedEx Office online-notary agreements with Notarize / Proof;
2. FedEx Office public online-notary page copy and revisions;
3. customer disclosures and click-through warnings;
4. internal review of Proof / Notarize's compliance representations;
5. internal review of state-law claims, including Virginia;
6. complaints, refunds, failed KBA events, identity-proofing issues, no-SSN issues, foreign-signer issues, and challenged notarizations;
7. communications with Proof concerning support, technical issues, data access, data retention, records, and customer responsibility;
8. marketing, SEO, affiliate, referral, revenue-share, or partnership materials;
9. policies for use of FedEx trademarks and branding in connection with the Proof / Notarize workflow.

I am asking FedEx to route this letter to legal, compliance, brand protection, privacy, cybersecurity, customer experience, FedEx Office leadership, and whoever manages the Notarize / Proof relationship.

FedEx has spent decades building a reputation for trusted document movement and business services. I rely on that reputation in apostille and document logistics. That reputation should not be exposed to avoidable RON compliance risk merely because the underlying vendor has strong marketing language or broad platform adoption.

Respectfully,

Greg Lirette  
GoodWare LLC / Notary Geek  
G@notary.cx

## Short-Link Source Appendix

Primary source packet for this letter:

https://notary.cx/fedex-proof

FedEx Office online notary source packet:

https://notary.cx/fedex-notary

Proof / Notarize Virginia state-page source packet:

https://notary.cx/proof-va

Proof legal terms / notary network source packet:

https://notary.cx/proof-terms

Notary Geek Virginia biometrics correction:

https://notary.cx/va-bio

Notary Geek Virginia KBA investigation:

https://notary.cx/va-kba

USPS / CMRA / Form 1583 source packet:

https://notary.cx/usps-1583

Underlying public source URLs and preserved evidence files are maintained by Notary Geek and can be provided in full.