Have you ever applied for a mortgage and then all of a sudden you begin getting other mortgage companies calling you up, emailing you or sending you a ton of junk mail? How do they just all of a sudden know that I’m ready to buy a home or refinance? What I discovered is really shocking.
When you apply for a mortgage and allow the loan officer to pull your credit report from the 3 credit bureaus, (which the credit bureaus charge for) the credit bureaus sell this information to other mortgage companies who are looking for people just like you. They sell them all the information they have on you so they can call you up and make you an offer. They rationalize it away by saying that it will be good for you to get approached by other mortgage companies who might have better deals. That’s wonderful if I would know about that up front and maybe I would give them my permission to do that. But I don’t want to fight off all of these salespeople. And I’m annoyed that the credit bureaus are making additional money on top of what they are charging to supply me for my credit report. Do a Google search for “Mortgage Trigger Leads” and you’ll find many companies who sell these leads, some for over $100/lead. I just have a gut feeling that someone paying $100/lead is going to have to make that up some where along the line.
There is a solution but you have to be proactive and register to opt out of the system. If you don’t opt out they assume that it’s OK to do this to you.
Here’s the site www.optoutprescreen.com that you need to go to in order to opt out of this madness. It says it takes about 5 days so make sure you do it before you start looking for a mortgage.
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December 7th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Tim:
Mortgage trigger leads are a really bad idea. I’ll try to make a positive comment about them: A customer receives lots of calls from various mortgage companies when the “trigger” happens. At least a consumer will have access to a myriad of lending institutions to get competitive information.
In reality, the originators who buy mortgage trigger leads are generally on the “fringe” of the business and don’t have the experience to get a consumer good terms. They probably won’t offer good financial advice.
The best way for a consumer to get mortgage indormation is to get a referral from 1-3 trusted sources. Call those referrals and negotiate a “mortgage brokerage fee”, then deal with whomever you feel has your best interests at heart.
December 16th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Thanks Brian,
Yes, “fringe” is a nice way of putting it.