I am serving a non profit in Bulgaria working with Ukrainian refugees. In order to comply with Bulgarian residency and VISA requirements, I needed to re-apply for both after six months. This means lots of documents, including a FBI background check that must have an Apostille. I decided to use US Virtual Notary because my coworkers suggested the company, instead of burdening my US friends to do the process that I had done preparing to move to Bulgaria. My experience with the US State Department Office of Authentications was good, efficient, and all the people I contacted were extremely friendly. US Notary was quite efficient in taking my money, but bungled the initial zoom appointment. They thought I was asking for a notary, but I wanted an Apostille, and paid for it, which is much more expensive than a virtual notary. I was told to have two form of picture ID for the appointment by email confirmation, and then they told me during the appointment that I needed to have a copy of the FBI document, I did not have that, and being in rural Bulgaria with no printer, it was not easily corrected. They told me to mail in my FBI background check, and then corrected themselves and said because I needed an Apostille, they did not need an anything as it was already taken care of with my uploading of the document to them. I needed the Apostille within two months of applying through US Notary. They did not communicate for a month. I emailed to see the status after a month, and received a curt reply that it takes 4 - 6 weeks. I emailed at 5 weeks, and had no answer. I emailed at 6 weeks, and was told to email the "authentications manager" so I did that, and was told that the document should be ready that day for shipping. I received no email or call as to if it was finished. I called the next day to see what was up, and the "authentications operator" told me that I needed to email the authentications manager. I told her that I had done that and she told me that was the only thing I could do, I asked loudly to please talk to someone and was hung up on. Then I received an INSTANT email telling me I was screaming at the operator and if I did not behave they would refund my money and destroy my documents. The email lied and said I had been sent an invoice, it had not, I searched all my boxes numerous times a day (spam, promotions, social and primary) They then sent a picture of the completed Apostille. I asked them to resend the invoice, and it was dated the day I called. I paid the postage, which was supposed to be international overnight, and when I paid I was told it would take 10 days for it to arrive. I asked for confirmation of receipt of payment. It was confirmed, I then wrote a negative review on Google, and received an INSTANT email after I had been charged $161 dollars, and it was cleared and confirmed that because I wrote a negative review, they would refund all my money and destroy my documents. They also told me they refused to communicate with me further, and gave me an email for their "legal" department. I emailed their legal department, and no response. Not only is this cruel and unnecessary, it is illegal to destroy federal documents. It also causes me great harm and may jeopardize my service as I will have to return to the states to start the entire process all over. This may incur THOUSANDS of dollars, and take me away from vulnerable people that I am serving. read more