I'm sick of bait and switch advertising!

[PullMyFinger]

This topic really p!sses me off. I just checked on some mortgage rates and found a nice low 30 year rate with no points, with an advertising date of 2 days ago. I started doing some math and found out that I could roll my first and second mortgages into one and refinance for less than the cost of both of them together. Now here is the best part, the rate that has been posted for the last 2 days was only available for 2 HOURS! It's nice that they took the time to change their web site and notify all of the rate search engines during that 2 hour period but then they didn't change anything after the window of opportunity was up, what a load of crap. I refuse to do business with companies with such blatantly deceptive advertising. BTW the name of the finance company is Madison First Financial. Rant over.

 

[Vic]

Ok, first, I'm a mortgage loan officer, 8 years experience.

Second, while you think you have ranted against a dishonest company, all you have done is display your lack of knowledge regarding the mortgage rate market. Yes, they should be faulted for not updating their rates on their website more often. However, mortgage rates don't just change daily, they change by the minute. Rates are as volatile as the stock market, and just as hard to catch the "best of market." Last fall, when rates were also low, I locked a customer into a rate that was only available for 15 minutes! As for recent events, the bond market is sliding and the 30 year fixed has gone up more than a quarter percent of rate in the last 2 days. That's the nature of the market, so sorry.
Imagine how it is for us on the inside. I have customers that I begged to lock on Wednesday when rates were best and some chose not to. Guess who those people who chose not to are blaming now? Who are you blaming? You got it.

 

[PullMyFinger]

PSYWVic,
Since you appear to know me very well, please explain how a post about shady advertising practices indicates that I don't know how the mortgage industry works. That's a mighty big ASSumption on your part. I am painfully aware of how the mortage rate market works. I've bought and sold several houses in the past couple of years, and I've gone through all of the lending bs that that entails. And I realize that the rates can and do fluctuate on a minute by minute basis. My point was that this company decided to take the effort to quickly advertise a nearly impossible-to-get rate and proudly display it not just on their web site but also on the rate search sites and then decided that it would be too much work to go and advertise the actual rate (which had been current for 2 days). Like I said, shady. And don't jump to any conclusions, I never said I was blaming them for missing out on lower rates, I wasn't even looking for mortgage info until Friday. I was blaming them for falsely advertising rates on Friday which had been dead for 2 days.

What this lender is doing is nothing more than say an auto dealer who advertises a car in a newspaper for $15,000 when the car currently sells for $20,000 everywhere else. And when a customer comes in to by that car at the lower price, the dealer could just say, "oh, that was what we sold one of them for 2 weeks ago, we just didn't feel like updating our newspaper ads".

Too bad to hear that your customers are too stupid to take advice, but that's the nature of your business, so sorry.