additional comments on
"There is a New Mortgage Broker Association in Town"

1. BobH says:

   May 17, 2018 at 9:02 am

   This is a reply to the comment by Alex Ramirez. While I agree with you that the wholetailers aren’t violating any laws or are ‘threatening the welfare of consumers’, there’s a big difference here. As all of us know, the acquisition of clients is probably the costliest part of doing business. The wholetailers (and subsequent servicers) essentially ‘steal’ the lead that we spent so much time and money acquiring, then solicit them. To me, this is no different than if a mortgage broker competitor were to hack into your computer or break into your office and steal your client data. Ethically, this is privileged information and the lender and/or future servicer has no right to use this data. Ideally, I’d like to see brokerage contracts with wholesale lenders (which would be binding on servicers as well) prohibit the use of client data by anyone other than the mortgage broker.

   If the wholetail lender and/or servicer wishes to compete for origination business, they can solicit clients like everyone else and pay the costs associated with reaching these clients. Taking broker’s clients and directly soliciting them is essentially theft.

2. Alex Ramirez says:

   May 17, 2018 at 6:09 pm

   BobH–To address:”The wholetailers (and subsequent servicers) essentially ‘steal’ the lead that we spent so much time and money acquiring, then solicit them. To me, this is no different than if a mortgage broker competitor were to hack into your computer or break into your office and steal your client data”– The response in my professional view is based on a very equivocal exegesis. The way it was worded and formulated is based on a preconcieved notion of “stealing”. My entire point is that we first have to determine whether any guidelines, business ethics or lending laws,MSR rules were violated. Which you agreed to that there are not. So it is a false premise to begin with the notion that a consumer being solicited in a dynamic market economy somehow constitutes “stealing” “plundering” another producers business. We have to make actual distinctions of what constituents “illegal business practices” “anticompetitive behavior” versus simply the ability to legally solicit future business. Also, at what point does “data acquisition” become “only mine” and what metrics can be used to measure and make actual distinctions between ones own lack of “client retention” versus simply “aggressive” sales tactics and actual vindictive targeted illegal behavior? Than there is also being able seperate ones characteristic of self entitlement versus accepting the risk of future business retention. Forcing others to implement “client retention” policies based on outrage activism doesn’t generally translate very well into intelligent policy.

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