August 2nd, 2023 10:52 AM by Jim Merrill
There has been a huge uptick in trigger lead solicitations since mortgage rates moved up last year. When loan volume decreases and revenues decrease some mortgage companies start utilizing any tool to increase market share. One of these tools is purchasing trigger leads from the credit bureaus.
A Trigger lead is generated when a credit report is pulled. This “triggers” Experian, Trans Union and Equifax (the 3 national credit reporting agencies) that a consumer is shopping for a mortgage. The credit bureaus then take the consumers information and sell this to other lenders.
Soon after the information is sold to other lenders a consumer may be bombarded with phone calls, emails and mail solicitations. Some unscrupulous lenders will call consumers claiming to be a processor working on their loan to try and obtain borrower identifying information such as date of birth or social security number. Never give your information out to a random mortgage solicitor calling from an unscrupulous company. I do not hire processors or any other staff so the only point in contact for the loan will be me…on every transaction.
When I pull credit reports on my clients, I always leave off the phone number and email address to avoid this information passing on when the trigger lead is sold. As a consumer you can protect yourself with the following 3 options to opt out of the trigger lead cycle:
1. Register at optoutprescreen.com. This will opt a consumer out of unwanted solicitations for five years and it costs nothing. It does usually take one to two weeks for it to take effect so the earlier this is done, the better.
2. Sign up at the Do Not Call Registry, donotcall.gov. This is also free and should take effect within 24 hours, however a borrower may have already ended up on a trigger lead list prior to registering so could still receive calls for up to 31 days. Being on the DNC list does not mean all calls will stop. A consumer can still get calls for political reasons, from charitable organizations, survey calls, collection calls and some that are labeled “information calls.” Some lenders have used this last one as a loophole to get around the DNC registry. They will claim they are not trying to sell a person anything, but they are just providing information as to other options available which is utter nonsense.
3. Sign up at DMAchoice.com. This will stop loan offers and other offers from coming to your physical mailbox. There is a $2 cost for this.
Mortgage rates have stayed stable over the last month. Nothing too dramatic to report. Please subscribe to my free rate analysis page at https://www.axelmortgage.com/DailyRateLockAdvisory if you would like to keep track of market trends.
If there is anything I can do for you or anyone you know I look forward to help. As always, my family and I thank you for the continued support and referrals.