I was in the field the other day, expecting a phone call from my next appointment, when my earpiece rang. I answered and had this bizarre conversation:

"Hi, this is Bill."

"Hi, this is (don't recall the name) at Lend America and I want to know if you can do a comp check for us and give a range of values for a property?"

Surprised, I said - "I don't do comp checks, it violates our standards. If I were to give you a value or range of values that would be an appraisal and I could lose my license if I did that without doing a full appraisal. Are you aware of that?"

She answered, snottily, "If I knew that I wouldn't have called you!"

I said, "Of course you knew that. You work for one of the largest mortgage companies in America. And when I hang up, you're going to go to the next appraiser on your list and keep on asking until you find some idiot who thinks that if he helps you, he might get an order. But you can't use him because you have to use your own appraisers and they don't do comp checks, that's why you think you need us."

"No, I'm not!" she said defensively.

"Of course you are, you're going to keep on asking until you find someone who's willing to risk their license and break the law and never even get the order."

Her answer was ridiculous, "You need to come down off your high horse..."

I continued to light her up, "No, you should be ashamed of yourself, asking appraisers to put their license and livelihood on the line just because you don't know how to do your job."

At this point she had enough, "Oh go fly a kite," was her final response and she hung up.