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Opt Out of Uninvited Mortgage Offers

You can protect your personal financial information and avoid receiving unsolicited phone calls.

Picture this: You apply for a loan from a local mortgage company on a Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, you're getting unsolicited phone pitches from out-of-state lenders who seem to know a lot about your personal finances:

Your credit scores.
Your outstanding credit card balances and other revolving credit accounts.
The approximate market value of your home and how much you owe on it.
Your home address and obviously, your phone number.

Thousands of loan applicants around the country are receiving uninvited pitches such as these, sometimes just 12 hours after getting a mortgage quote.

The nation's three largest credit bureaus who sell this information to lenders defend their right to sell applicants' personal financial information. The biggest problem, however, may be the confusion that overnight "trigger" marketing brings to the mortgage business. Your local lender or broker quotes you one rate and estimated fees. But now one or more outside lenders -- whose reputation for honesty or service you know nothing about, and who are in possession of your personal financial data without your permission - intervene and offer a lower rate.

Are the rate quotes real? Or will they morph into costly bait-and-switch deals weeks or months from now? You really can't know. But what you can do is remove yourself from all potential trigger list come-ons by opting out. Much as with the federal Do Not Call program, you can opt out of pre-screened offers by going to http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ or by calling this toll-free number: 888-567-8688.

Source: WashingtonPost.com