lowball

Barbara Andersen, an attorney whose frustrations with an allegedly lowball estimate on her home prompted her to file the original suit, said in an email that the court "is disregarding" the reality that people give credibility to Zestimates and use them for their own purposes.

He explained the strategy: The company lowballs settlement offers to claimants who hire lawyers, and if they file suit instead of accepting the offer, Allstate fast-tracks the cases for trial and litigates "aggressively," even if its costs exceed the alleged damages.

A new auditor lowballs in order to become the incumbent auditor and capture this future rent stream.

Many utility analysts and industry insiders say that public numbers about trades are severe lowballs, because many trades are done through private contracts or intrautility (where a utility trades credits among different stacks, all of which it owns).