Hurricane Helene began destroying homes and lives last week, hurdling up from Florida and eventually setting North Carolina and Tennessee in its destructive sights. As a card carrying member of the International Association of Field Service Technicians (IAFST), my focus has never been upon profits, but people. Even before landfall, I began reaching out to our Membership and ensuring that they had their affairs in order whom were in the path of the Hurricane. And as we switched into a post tropical storm event which included the massive flooding where I live and the near total submerging of Asheville, North Carolina, the IAFST continued to follow up with both previous and current IAFST members. The National Association of Mortgage Field Services (NAMFS) membership took a markedly different approach. Instead of taking the time to call their own members and ensuring that Labor, whom pays the bills of these profit based behemoths, they chose to threaten chargebacks for not completing work on time.
Profits before lives has been the decade long mantra of Eric Miller, NAMFS Executive Director. In a time of high inflation; with extreme price hikes in rent, food, and energy, Miller’s continued $110,000+ annual salary has done nothing but increase. Even in the face of the loss of hundreds of members and as NAMFS is at its lowest level of membership since its founding, Miller has continued his monetary demands without any input from the rank and file NAMFS membership.
To truly understand the scope of greed and insanity, read through the below exchange between an inspector and the regional order mill they were dealing with,
Contractor: The road is gone, no way to get to the address.
Order Mill: Roads don’t just disappear. You need to do the inspection!
Contractor: You have the photo! There is no fucking road left!!!
Order Mill: Then you need to get out of your car and hike to the property and inspect it as per your work order or we will charge you back for getting another inspector to provide the inspection.
The inspection paid a whopping total of $5.90 payable after 60 days. This is not a typo. This is the mentality of NAMFS order mills. They do not care. I would go as far as to say that NAMFS order mills pose a clear and present danger to Labor when it comes to forcing Labor into harm’s way under threat of seizing what little money they owe. We have seen this time and time again!
To put into perspective how bad it is up here, where I live, and throughout the Western North Carolina region, these floods have changed the literal geography. The last time the water rose so high, so swiftly was in 1916. As opposed to flat lying areas where hurricanes normally impact, these are mountainous areas. It will be weeks before we have an accurate death toll which, by the way, is rising daily. Asheville, North Carolina, a once thriving community, now literally has no cell phone service. FEMA is having to rush in Starlink receivers so that people may actually call in or out. Moreover, though, as the NAMFS order mills continue their demands of forcing Labor to perform life threatening inspections for less than $6 each, the reality is people are going to die. From what I can tell, the deaths are acceptable, provided that Eric Miller’s salary is paid.
