BPO Shenanigans...

To enlighten others, to vent your anger, or both. :-)

So last week I got an interior lock box with no key.  I contacted the company multiple times with no reply.  Then I called the company direct and they explain they are closed on Sat./Sun.  Ok well its noon on Monday and the first message was sent on Friday.  Now the POC has conveniently placed a key in the lock box and they ask how fast I can get it done.  I respond with 24 hours but I'll try to get it in by the end of the day.  5 minutes later I get an email that the order is due in 2 hours and to call the company if I can't make this time.  And its sent by the same rep I just got off the phone with!  I call back and then what do you know, no answer repeatedly.  Screening my calls.  Priceless.

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  • John - Just one of many reasons why I do not BPs anymore.

  • Once upon a time, long, long ago, before all this "foreclosure madness"  the BPO's and selling a REO was "hella nice" to include in your RE portfolio.  Now,  after I ask where my check is, they say....You were supposed to Invoice for that.  When I said "Did, and I have a time receipt".  They say, I didn't get it and I don't get a check.  No reply, or response.  All over a $75.  BPO.  Not doing them anymore.  Just not worth it!  Good luck y'all

  • thanks for the heads up on Mainstreet, John G.
  • Do not work with companies that are so irresponsible....too many good ones out there

  • I wouldn't stress about it.  My attitude with access issues for interiors is they get done when the listing agent or asset owner can be bothered to take my call and give me access.  The key is to keep contacting the BPO company and update them on what is going on.  Most BPO companies will happily extend the deadline when there are access delays.  Sounds like these clowns are trying to exploit an access issue to perhaps claim that you didn't meet the "deadline" and use it as an excuse to cut your fee for being late. 

    • That's pretty much my attitude and experience also, John. I even quote 2 different interior prices - a higher one if I have to make an appointment. One of my clients now states up front if the property is vacant and on lockbox when asking for my fee!
      • Cece,

        Definitely I agree with you.  I'm more hesitant to accept a $75 Interior from a company such as Mainstreet than a $65 from other companies that advertise the Interior as lockbox prior to acceptance. Lockboxes let you maintain your own schedule, the extra $10 turns negative once you start working around other people's schedules.

  • I quit doing interior BPOs back in October of last year thanks to Green River Capital and being jerked around by them. 

    BPOFulfillment still owes my for 4 exterior BPOs and 1 property inspection. It's been over 90 days on the exteriors and 5 months for the property inspection. What's funny (or not so funny) is that of the 4 that they still owe me on was a batch of 10 BPOs. They already paid for 6 of them. So I'm wondering why they didn't pay all of them at the same time. 
    BPOFulfillment (Mainstreet) was bad with their information. Since I work in a primarily rural and mountainous area, a lot of their orders had wrong addresses. So I was always going back to them requesting the parcel number to the property. Once they even emailed me back the wrong parcel number. What a fiasco that ended up to be.
    I have one other BPO company that still owes me for 5 BPOs. I had sent them an invoice and some lady from accounting called and left a message saying they pay after 90 days. Well it is after 90 days.
    Once any BPO account becomes 120 days delinquent, it is court time for the them. I quit playing the run around game with these BPO companies months ago.

    Needless to say, I have quit doing BPOs. The real estate market has turned around enough that I no longer need to do BPOs to supplement my income. 

  • I don't do interiors at all anymore exactly for this reason. The last one, about 2-3 years ago, was a second opinion for an REO. I call the broker that's going to be listing it and ask if it's rekeyed yet. She says "I don't know. It's all the way across town and I'm too bsy to check. Why don't you go by and check and call me when it's rekeyed."

    Now I just do exteriors but there's still issues there. Got one Wednesday, due today. No MLS history and I'm in a non disclosure state so no help from tax records. They do not allow us to estimate so even though I know the floor plan I request property details. They send me a screen capture from a prior BPO. I see it's the wrong property. There's a Road, Place, Court and Way for this street name. Order is for Place but data matches MLS for same number on Court. I know it's wrong because data shows a garage and subject has none. I notify client by email and through portal. No answer. Three notes and three emails over six hours and I finally get a reply "I already sent you the info.

    I finally get them to understand they have wrong property data and get them to send the right data and in email with correct property details they remind me the BPO is due 2:00PM today and if it's late I don't get paid. I told them due to their delay I would either need an additional 24 hours or the fee increased to a rush order fee. No reply so I emailed again and said if they are not willing to extend due date or increase fee to cancel and reassign. I could have easily completed it by the original due date but it's a mater of principle.

    I'm at the point I only do the easy ones that are real close to my office for the better paying clients on really slow days. It's barely worth doing BPOs anymore.

  • First of all, we BPO agents need to make it clear to these vendors that they must make it MANDATORY that the listing agent be available at all times especially when it is a short sale and the homeowner is not available and out of town.  I recently had a interior BPO I called the POC they told me I could not get in tell after the weekend when the homeowner got back.  They apparently were in the middle of moving to another place.  Ok, so the weekend came and gone on top of that, Monday I had to go pick up the key at the POC office because they did not have it in the lock box.  So I drove to the house and wouldn't you know, the keys did not work? I called the office and they swore up and down they were the right keys...Really, then why won't they work?  I told them I would give them 10 minutes to come and bring me the right ones or I would leave and report them.  Then, all of a sudden I get a call from the homeowner who said they would come by with the same keys.  Anyway, the keys they brought were different and opened the security gate but not the entry door.  So, I had to keys to the entrydoor which I could not get to and the owner had the keys to the security gate I could not open? Is that not fishy or what??? Then after I did my pictures and left, the POC calls and asks how fast can this get done.  I told her it's done when I'm done with it! I finished it and gave it a higher value than what she listed it for (it actually was worth more) and now they won't be able to close, that will teach her to play games with me.  The moral of this story, is that most listings today are already secretly in contract during the pre-marketing and by the time the agent puts it on the mls its ready to open escrow and close soon and the BPO was for the purpose of giving the final ok to close on the loan.  These unethical agents are keeping other agents from making offers and have their own buyers lined up. BANKS ARE STUPID AND CONTINUOUSLY GET FOOLED, when they don't request the listing agent to also provide them with outside broker offers during the first 30/45 days of marketing which is when the propertry is HOT ON THE MARKET and the action really happens before they accept an offer.  Otherwise, it is always the listing agents clients that when the bids.  When I do BPO's I always put a comment in it saying that the property will sale in a reasonable time frame as long as the listing agent is willing to work with other agents, or the listing will linger and become stale hoping that this will shed light to the banks to be more pro-active on their listings and how the listing agent performs.

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