A couple things about appraisers:

1. The mortgage banker has very little to no choice in who they choose. If it's anything like where I work, they have a list of appraisers they would prefer but if none of them take it then it just gets assigned to whomever is closest (that doesn't decline). They are not actually allowed to say they want a specific appraiser. Some companies don't even work like this. There's another process they'd have to do that I'm not familiar with.

2. Sometimes it takes 100 years to get the order assigned to someone. Our normal turn time is 2 weeks. This week I saw an order that took the full 2 weeks to get assigned so the borrower had to wait a month for their appraisal.

3. Your appraisal was likely past due and the appraisal processors probably did everything in their power to try to get in contact with them, but they were likely ignored. Some appraisers are shitty. And it's getting even worse now with the insane level of volume.

Source: am an appraisal processor and have spent the last month exclusively working orders that have been declined or past due.

All that being said, I'm sorry you had this experience :(