{"id":16610,"date":"2011-08-09T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=16610"},"modified":"2011-08-09T09:45:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T16:45:00","slug":"mortgage-junk-mail-hall-of-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/mortgage-junk-mail-hall-of-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage Junk Mail Hall of Shame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Almost as soon as my mortgage was recorded in the public record, I started getting a delightful new breed of junk mail delivered to my home: Mortgage junk.<\/p>\n<p>These particularly sleazy companies employ a number of really shady practices in thier mailings, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Putting the name of my mortgage broker on the envelope<\/li>\n<li>Misleading phrases like &#8220;Payment Information Enclosed&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Including details about my mortgage in their letter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are some particularly eggregious examples I&#8217;ve received in the last few months.  Click on the envelope to view the letter that was enclosed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 5px auto; width: 600px; font-size: 0.8em; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-01-letter-sm.png\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" rel=\"lightbox[16610]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-01-envelope-600x260.png\" style=\"border: 0;\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail - Click to read the letter\" alt=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" width=\"600\" height=\"260\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oh boy!  My interest savings program!  The letter contains this delightful warning at the top: <span style=\"text-decoration:underline; font-weight:bold;\">NOTICE OF INTEREST OVERPAYMENT<\/span>  Not misleading at all!<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 5px auto; width: 600px; font-size: 0.8em; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-02-letter-sm.png\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" rel=\"lightbox[16610]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-02-envelope-600x260.png\" style=\"border: 0;\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail - Click to read the letter\" alt=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" width=\"600\" height=\"260\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ooh, it&#8217;s both &#8220;Urgent&#8221; <em>and<\/em> &#8220;Time sensitive&#8221;!  Better open it right away!  The letter in this one claims it is an &#8220;Important Notice&#8221; and demands that I &#8220;Complete and Return.&#8221;  How about no.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 5px auto; width: 600px; font-size: 0.8em; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-03-letter-sm.png\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" rel=\"lightbox[16610]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/sleazy-loan-junk-03-envelope-600x260.png\" style=\"border: 0;\" title=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail - Click to read the letter\" alt=\"Sleazy Loan Junk Mail\" width=\"600\" height=\"260\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>These guys were the least sleazy of the bunch.  At least they put it right on the envelope that they&#8217;re not actually affiliated with my lender.  And in the letter they were nice enough to describe their service as an &#8220;Optional Payment Change.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately my mortgage broker (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mortgageporter.com\/\" title=\"Rhonda Porter\">Rhonda Porter with Mortgage Master Service Corp.<\/a>) was proactive, warning me before I even finished signing all of my paperwork that these types of mailings would be coming my way, and were not actually coming from Mortgage Master.<\/p>\n<p>If I didn&#8217;t have such a helpful broker or if I had been a more typical first-time buyer (one who hadn&#8217;t been studying the housing market for over six years) I might have easily been duped by one or more of these ploys.<\/p>\n<p>How are these kinds of misleading solicitations even legal?  Do you know anyone who has been duped into buying mortgage-related &#8220;services&#8221; that they don&#8217;t need by something like this?  Curious to hear your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost as soon as my mortgage was recorded in the public record, I started getting a delightful new breed of junk mail delivered to my home: Mortgage junk. These particularly sleazy companies employ a number of really shady practices in thier mailings, including: Putting the name of my mortgage broker on the envelope Misleading phrases&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[206],"tags":[305,798,211,81],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-16610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-banks","tag-junk-mail","tag-loans","tag-mortgages"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mortgage Junk Mail Hall of Shame \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/mortgage-junk-mail-hall-of-shame\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Mortgage Junk Mail Hall of Shame \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Almost as soon as my mortgage was recorded in the public record, I started getting a delightful new breed of junk mail delivered to my home: Mortgage junk. 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