Unscrupulous Short Sale Processing Companies – Agents Beware
General September 9th, 2009
It all started when 400 leads within one city delivered once a month DIDN’T sound too good to be true.
I just spent the last couple of days trying to get a refund for one of my real estate agents…yes…I’m now chasing down refunds, so I guess that makes me the refund manager or something.
Here’s the deal, the agent in question…(I won’t mention any names) was drawn into a sales pitch that for $1,390 buy in and $595 a month she would receive 400 short sale leads monthly within an exclusive territory. Too bad the agent down the street received the same leads. (Did I mention that the list had apartments in there?) Anyways, the weak leads weren’t my problem…as she explained the story to me all kinds of red flags went up. I usually don’t lose my mind…but this time I did. One of those scrupulous short sale processing companies got a hold of one of MY agents…I wasn’t going to have any part of that.
So, I went through all the material she received, and the website. Are you kidding me? Let’s start with the company in question mimicking the Federal Trade seal, using the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief title and Program 3648 as their slogan….that’s just to start. See anything wrong with that? Well the FTC and other government agencies do.
What was it that really what got me so fired up? Could it be that they required my agent to use random disclosures, their company business cards (stating- program 3648 certified representative) and then trained them how to defraud the lender…are you kidding me? Oh! I have proof! And there’s more, it went on and on…and really, it’s too bad, because the overall concept was fabulous. It’s a shame…I hate to see a good business plan go to waste.
The short of it, that’s ending up long. I sent the CEO a little friendly email (O.K. not so friendly) and all hell broke loose. He gave me a courtesy call and all I kept hearing was that in deed the program was created for the good of the people and that they weren’t doing anything wrong. When I mentioned a couple of state laws they were breaking, they didn’t even know there were such laws. When I mentioned you can’t mimic government programs…they were clueless. (You can change the nose on Mickey Mouse, and it’s still Mickey Mouse) Even my three year old can understand that! Over and over….”we are just a short sale processing company.” Here’s a pointer; when you start mandating how an agent practices real estate – “you” are practicing real estate – making you no longer “just short sale processing company”. When you break state laws it’s called Cease and Desist from the DRE and when you start breaking federal laws it’s a $100,000+ fine and possible jail time from the FTC. No really, I do want to keep the shirt on my back.
Whew! That’s a lot – the moral of the story is she got her money back…but I fear for the others that have already fallen into the trap and weren’t so lucky.
Nooo! I’m not going to mention the name of the company…but I can tell you, they won’t be around long, local and government agencies are all over it. So I suggest staying away from anything that mimics government programs – or you to, could be big trouble sooner than you think.
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