Posted by Reverse Mortgage of America - Jessica on 4/30/10 10:33am
Msg #334297

a wonderful way to start my friday...(a rant)

the company i currently work for has no useful tools to quote fees on a file. with the new respa guidelines in place, i longed for something that made quoting fees easier. at long last, i created my own title calculator using excel. it was so handy that my clients asked if they could use it, which i allowed. then the revisions in the fees started rolling in. almost weekly i was updating the calculator and sending the revisions to my clients, even for states that they weren't currently doing business in. after 3 months of countless hours of work trying to keep it updated, i stopped offering it's use to my clients and asked that they request fees from me. it may seem strange to take a useful tool back, but i couldn't account for it's accuracy from week to week and when fees are misquoted, my clients feel that i should cover the difference because they used my calculator. it's use was being abused and i was no longer comfortable putting time into it any longer.
so it was surprising to me when a pushy processor (the same processor that threatened me for not notarizing a document her way) told me her supervisor "demanded" he get an accurate title calcultor by the end of business today. awesome! i guess my only saving grace is that my supervisors were on my side when i told them i was not comfortable releasing the calculator for public use. it's also month end, so i could waste my time on the calculator or fund the files in their pipeline today. what a wonderful way to start my friday.

Reply by desktopfull on 4/30/10 10:57am
Msg #334302

Brings to mind that saying "No good deed goes unpunished."

Reply by Reverse Mortgage of America - Jessica on 4/30/10 11:27am
Msg #334311

Re: agreed! n/m

Reply by PAW on 4/30/10 12:21pm
Msg #334324

From the way I read it, you were acting as a software developer. And as such, provided the software for use beyond your own personal use, thus accepting liability. That's why every software product, even freeware and shareware, have licensing policies and usage disclaimers. Without the license and disclaimer, you may be held liable, even for its misuse.

The liability issue grew too large for me such that I had to close the doors on a profitable company that I had started when I lived in NH. (I ended up selling all rights and properties to another software developer.)