Ring, Ring. DING- new text message, RING RING. Email Notification. DING… DING… RING.. TEXT… What in the world!!!! You literally just finished a consultation and loan planning with YOUR trusted professional and now your phone is ring sounding alarms and ringing like crazy with scripted text and call center reps trying to convince you that they have a better deal, or sometimes even as sneaky as making you thing they are working with your trusted professional. How do you avoid this?
With a projected $1.64 TRILLION in single family purchase mortgage transactions in 2022 and a projected $1.34 TRILLION for 2023 (according to FannieMae), there is no question that a lot of Americans are acquiring new mortgage loans and that will continue into 2023. Although $1.34 trillion is a still a huge volume of loans, many companies and loan officer will be scrambling in 2023 to acquire business and make up for the past several months losses and reduced refinance volume. Many companies that during the purchase and refinance boom of the past two years hired warehouses full of low paid call center loan officers will be facing layoffs, or needing desperately to get loans in the door to keep their doors open. There are also many smaller companies who will be throwing money wherever they can to scoop up potential clients as well. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? So what are those desperate measures?
Trigger Leads. A trigger lead was created by the credit bureaus, Experian/Equifax/TransUnion, as an alert when your credit is pulled to flag that you are looking for a particular type of loan. Mortgage, Auto, Personal loans etc. are all valuable transactions and the credit bureaus make money selling this information to any company that is willing to pay for it. So unless you have taken the precautions to avoid it, the moment your trusted mortgage professional completes a hard inquiry on your credit, the fact that you are searching for a mortgage loan is sold to EVERY company willing to pay for it… and your phone goes crazy!!
The risk in engaging with a trigger lead buyer stretches beyond just a potential low budget, stressful transaction to potential exposure to fraud. Unsolicited offers could come from anywhere and there are deceitful lenders out there as well as many predaters just waiting for an opportunity to steal your identify. So to protect your self and your mortgage experience, do the following before and during your application process:

• At least 30 days before applying: Visit optoutprescreen.com to opt out of prescreened offers and donotcall.gov to place your name on the national do not call registry. This may not eliminate the contact, but it will significantly reduce it. If after you are registered on the do not call list and you are contacted by a restricted company, you can report it. Companies that illegally call numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry or place an illegal robocall can currently be fined up to $43,792 per call according to the FTC website.
• Do not engage with any unsolicited contacts for your loan process without notifying your loan officer and asking if the person calling is truly connected to their team and/or company.

Following these guidelines and working directly with YOUR trusted mortgage professional can help ensure that your mortgage loan process remain peaceful.