ValuAmerica has  come up a couple times before.  And they have not changed their modus-operandi.  They have developed a system that contains a database of vendors, and a platform that the abstractors can type their orders into & will send to the client in their format.  They "Sell" this system to vendor management companies.  And here is the pitch,  "We have an extensive database of vendors across the nation."  Our system will pick the vendor with the lowest fee for you, assign the order, track it for you, & when it is completed, the vendor will type the information into your format."  "Oh and you don't have to pay us, because we make the vendor pay $2.00 for every order they receive. "  "It is easy to get them to pay, because they are hungry for the work."  Now you may think that I am making this verbage up.  But I kid you NOT, these are some exact words spoken from some ValuAmerica sales force. 
PLEASE do not feed into this!!  I know some many vendors that have signed up & not gotten one single order!  I did work for a client that stared using ValuNet xsp & "informed" us that this is what we had to do....... I very politely told them no.  This is my business  & I run my business my way.  For several months I did not get one single order.  Then all the sudden I started getting work from them again.  I called, & made sure that they understood that nothing had changed on our side.  They said they know, that they were just going to get the work from us & type it in their office, but they wanted to use us because we gave better service & gave them a better product.  We get more work then before.
Abstractors!!!!!!  Please wake up!!!  YOU are the important cog in this wheel.  More and more clients are starting to see the disadvantages of "on-line searches".  The big vendor management companies have very few people that understand what a title search is.  I know that times are hard out there, but we have got to STOP groveling for work.  And stop listening to the bill of goods that companies are trying to sell us. 

Wanda Steudel
Accusearch Co