dashboy;
You can still use the fact that the did not respond to your correspondence to your advantage. (you could attest to such in an affidavit). That is dishonor any which way you slice it. As far as asserting a notarial protest, I have to stand on my earlier posts. Here is one of them pasted from the thread I recommended you read. Below it explains why and when a notarial protest is used.
Yes, the Notary Public Handbook authorizes notaries to perform protests for nonacceptance and nonpayment bills of exchange, or promissory notes. But I think the terms acceptance and payment may demand a closer scrutiny. I posted a definition of acceptance as it relates to bills of exchanges (according to Black's Law) earlier in this thread.
"Acceptance, as it relates to BOE's is: The act by which the person on whom a bill of exchange is drawn (called the "drawee") assents to the request of the drawer to pay it, or, in other words, engages, or makes himself liable, to pay it when due.
The above acceptance is in contradistinction to the matter whether or not a payee gleefully receives (commonly thought of as accepts), a note we may tender."
And it appears that nonpayment refers to a maker of a promissory note not fulfulling his promise (Payment = the fulfillment of a promise, or the performance of an agreement).
So if the drawee does not pay or "make good" on the BoE, than a protest is in order. And likewise, if the maker of a promissory note does not pay or "make good" on his promise, then it appears a protest would also be in order to hold the maker of the note to his promise. Here is the thread
here.