Logged into EML this morning and found this:

Warning Please Read Below
Because of the current market conditions eMortgage Logic and its clients have noticed an increase in fraudulent behavior across the nation. Collusion is defined as an agreement, usually illegal and therefore secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage.

Examples of Collusion -

Accepting and using comps given to you by a third party with the intention of gaining a certain value, whether payment is or is not received from the third party.
Allowing your value to be influenced by any third party information.
Allowing someone other than yourself, to inspect the subject of and/or complete the BPO you accepted.
Soliciting a tenant or homeowner for business while on an inspection of a property for our company.
If you have been approached by someone trying to influence your value by means of comps or compensation, please report this activity to your BPO Coordinator immediately. If you are found to have participated in an act of collusion by eMortgage Logic or our clients, your profile will be immediately disabled. In the future you may notice an Anti-Collusion Statement prior to data entry on some of your orders.

We got this one a few months ago too...

I get this sometimes and have to click agree before filling out certain forms for EML...

Got this several months ago when I was working at another company could just be a reminder.

Vinman

I covered this base, a long time ago. If I sense there is a "buy and flip" in progress, I comment accordingly. As for the comp packages, I'll ask the agent if they sent the same copies to the lender. If they say yes, and I see they're bogus comps, I comment accordingly.....just trying to stay ahead of the curve.....lol. Local agents know me well. They know my values will be within the market range. I've also made them aware of one company that requires us to use only active listings, and none under contract. They're well aware of how that can change values.

I hve had a client question my values and the provider in question here sent me comps to look at. It was a drive by on a million dollar property and they sent me comps and said the client wondered if I would consider using them....Isn't that exactly what they are warning us about?

Spot on.......I see no difference. They have a target number...we don't. They should quit being so cheap and order a 2nd opinon BPO....end of discussion.....lol.

So what am I supposed to do when EML sends me a QC fail with a list of comps from a prior BPO and asks me to reconsider my value?

They did that to me last month. They sent comps they found on the tax rolls that sold very low in terrible condition, to find out they were flipped right after for fair market. I argued with them and they accepted my comps. I try to only accept condo conversions from them.

That happened to me last Friday. The prior was an exterior and it was overpriced by 80,000. The prior agent did not see all the interior damage or dated interior like I did. Just explain the difference between your comps and the prior comps.

Not the same thing at all. The BPO provider is sending you comps from a previous BPO and trying to determine why there are inconsistent values between BPOs. As much of a pain in the fanny as that can be, it is not what we are talking about. In the two cases I was discussing, no prior BPO was on file. The client was pulling comps, sending them to the BPO provider with a request for me to use them. My thoughts were that they had a predetermined value nnd were trying to pull me to that value.

The only times I have seen something similar...the company sent me addresses of other solds and asked me to consider if they were possible comps. I checked them, and commented on if they were or were not good comps. I was under no obligation to use them.

Last time they did this to me, the client sent them to the BPO provider, who in turn forwarded them to me and asked why I could not use them.
They sent four, two I was using, one was pending(could not use per THEIR requirement) and the last one they sent to use? The subject.

Beautiful. They sent four, three of which were in play already.

SMG- I was replying to Grexleys post.

Most of the time its that easy, but sometimes they put a lot of pressure on you to change your value. Either way, they are giving you comps.

I like eMortgage. For a lot of reasons I think they're one of the best companies out there. But when I see a big warning about collusion it just comes off hypocritical. I've never gotten any real pressure from an agent to hit a value or select certain comps. But I've gotten extreme pressure from many BPO companies to do so.

Grexley
I know. Another big mill asked us to "reconsider" our value. Hate that word. They liked the prior BPO better. We also get plenty of comments from the listing agents. " I got a cash contract for xxx, please try to come in at that value. Inflated repair quotes ( Hands over ears, don't tell us!)Ugh.

I think the mill doesn't want to have egg on their face. They get pressure from the bank to show a sense of consistency. While appraising 101 has the philosophy of never having a predetermined value of a home, mills and banks alike have a tendency to throw that out the window. Not to mention if a mill has too many discrepancy reports, that could cause two problems.

The first is the mill's reconciler will have too much work on their hands, and secondly the excessive inconsistency could cause the mill to loose a customer or two. So the onus is placed back on the BPO agent to alleviate either circumstance I feel.

Someone on here (I don't remember who) said it best a few months ago. They said that the mills often want us to put a square peg into a round hole. In a picture perfect world we could do that, but we obviously don't live in such a place.

My $0.02