Okay I guess I'm first - here goes about the article.  I have to respond to the vendor managers, etc. just like I did to the abstractors - don't assume anything - always call with an inquiry rather than an accusation.  These are things that you need to know about us abstractors:

1)  Office Staff - with no price increases in 5 years, and in some instances, price reductions, the first to go with many abstracting businesses, including those with multiple employees, was the office staff.  Many are utilizing them to also do light duty work such as recordings, etc.  Office staff also have other outside duties like bank deposits and post office runs and package deliveries.  Most of us simply cannot place a full-time person in our office anymore.

2)  Cell Phones - I have repeatedly asked my clients if something was so important why didn't they call me on my cell with a response of "oh we don't have it as your main number."  To further respond, I have 1 rural county - Rockwall County, TX that does not allow cell phones to be turned on in the records building.  Collin County, TX has prisoner transfers inbetween the walls where the records are kept and there must be some kind of security involved that scrambles and disallows calls coming through while we are in the building - at least that is a thought that has crossed our minds because many of us have not either received the call at all in that county or it never rang and we walk out hours later seeing that there is a message.  There is one time that I purposely will not answer a cell call - when I am on a majorly dangerous highway.  I will call back when arrive at my next stop.  It is not to be rude or disrespectful to the company, it is to protect my own safety and well-being.  Too many accidents happen on the highways when people are on cell phones - and I actually don't hear some of them come in while in the car if I have the radio on and it is in my purse.

3)  Amount of Counties and Being Stretched Thin - We have had to take on more counties because vendor management companies are in-housing work and taking too much work from us.  This is different for different counties and states.  Sometimes it is not because we don't have the time to do the order - it's because we won't drive 1 hour each way for one $50.00 order or beter yet one $15.00 order, the more rural counties you go out.  That doesn't cover gas and time.  We have to hold them even though some of us will do them with just one order if the volume from this particular client in other counties warrants this kind of service.

4)  Honesty - This amused me along with some of the responses.  Again, this is where I say a presumption has been made before the facts concluded.  And I first said this to the abstractors who said companies purposely aren't paying.  Maybe looking at the whole picture of what we deal with on a daily basis may put the word "honesty" back into your pocket.  Let's say I have 5 title searches in 2 counties.  One would assume that I could finish those within a day.  Now let's throw in what us abstractors' deal with on a daily basis.  Every day that I go to Dallas county there is at least 1 accident both coming and going to the courthouse.  Many of these accidents shut down the highway and my normal drive time of 40 minutes has now increased to 2 hours, if I am lucky.  Let's see then I go in the building and find out the computers have been down for an hour and they don't know when they will be back up.  Luckily they go up in an half hour but now the copy line is backed up and they are telling us we cannot even get our copies till the next day.  Now the next county I go to has decided to shut the county doors for 3 hours for a party for one of their employees, please come back after 3:00 it says.  Now is this an every day occurrence - add this in one county one day and another county the next and there is a lot of our plans of honesty to produce down the drain.  We have counties that open and close at different times for meetings and lunch and all have different holidays.  Counties that used to be open till 5:00 in the last year or so are closing at 4:30 and closing during lunch hours.  As far as finding out too late that a search isn't going to be complete - well we find out too late we can't get into the courthouse or the copies or down the highway.  These instances happen so often that if I called my client every time, I wouldn't be able to do any work, I would be on the phone all the time.

As far as billing 2x, I have done that accidentally before - never on purpose - all my invoices display the work order # and my invoice number and fully describe the work done - is easily caught as a second invoice for the same work.  I can't remember why it happened - just know that I was having trouble with my accounting program and my computer.  As far as getting to the courthouse and raising prices, sometimes you have to, some searches are a mess - but my client is called and I don't continue nor charge the new charge without a call back that it has been approved.

In honesty the other way, I have made agreements based on certain criteria and have come to find out many times the company has been majorly dishonest thinking I will never find out.  Many of us abstractors have approached companies asking about other abstractors doing work and being lied to.  Many post have said - the company just needs to be honest what is the big deal.

5)   Flexibility in Pricing - We are at rock bottom pricing to begin - at the same or under the prices of 5 years ago.  We have no profit margin to give in to anymore cost reductions.  Our insurance, both car and E&0 have increased tremendously, parking fees, gasoline and supplies.  That is why we call when we have an aweful search.  I cannot search an order that will take me 3 hours, not counting drive time, for $50.00.  Let's get to the point of being in "reality" first. 

6) More Abstractors then in Past - I don't believe we have more abstractors.  There is just less work from each individual company which has led abstractors to market their services to more companies leading the companies to believe there are more abstractors.  There are not - I have 3 friends that have gone out of business in the last year with others to follow shortly I have heard.  So I don't know what is going to happen to all those orders that cannot be done in-house.  The orders being done properly in-house was never an issue with me - it can't be done - at least in my state.