by using computers." Mortgage applications are usually completed by mortgage brokers or lenders' in-house loan officers, rather than by borrowers themselves, making it difficult for borrowers to control the information that was submitted with their applications. A stated income loan application is done by the borrower, and no proof of income is needed. When the broker files the loan, they have to go by whatever income is stated. This opened the doors for borrowers to be approved for loans that they otherwise would not qualify for, or afford. However, lawsuits and testimony from former industry insiders indicated that mortgage company employees frequently were behind overstatements of borrower income on mortgage applications. Borrowers had little or no ability to manipulate other key data points that were frequently falsified during the mortgage process. These included credit scores, home appraisals and loan-to-value ratios. These were all factors that were under the control of mortgage professionals. In 2012, for example, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman reached a $7.8 million settlement of allegations that a leading appraisal management firm had helped inflate real estate appraisals on a wide scale basis in order to help a major lender push through more loan deals. The attorney general office's lawsuit alleged that eAppraiseIT, which did more than 260,000 appraisals nationally for Washington Mutual, caved to pressure from WaMu loan officers to select pliable appraisers who were willing to submit inflated property valuations. Several commentators have dismissed the notion of "predatory borrowing", accusing those making this argument as being apologists for the lack of lending standards and other excesses during the credit bubble. Predatory servicing is also a component of predatory lending, characterized by unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices by a lender or another company that services a loan on behalf of the lender, after the loan is granted. Those practices include also charging excessive and unsubstantiated fees and expenses for servicing the loan, wrongfully disclosing credit defaults by a borrower, harassing a borrower for repayment and refusing to act in good faith in working with a borrower to effectuate a mortgage modification as required by federal law. Legislation In many countries, legislation aims to control this, but research has found ambiguous results, including finding that high-cost mortgage applications can possibly rise after adoption of laws against predatory lending. United States Many laws at both the Federal and state government level are aimed at preventing predatory lending. Although