Business Directory for Business Information | Richmondjwj.org

Your lenders are spying on your clients

As mortgage brokers we are always in jeopardy of losing our customers to the lenders we work with.

We deal with our clients for a short amount of time, but the lender is in constant communication with them for years. And whenever your customers are asked who their mortgage company is, they will usually answer the name of their lender.

Some lenders are better at stealing our clients then others.

As a real estate investor I have had loans with several different lenders. One of my properties had a loan from a lender called JB Nutter. This was a small bank that did a very poor job of marketing itself to its customers. I would hear from them 3 times a year. Once to send me a coupon book for the year, another to tell me how much interest I paid that year for my taxes, and another to tell me about how much money was in my escrow account.

They never once tried to offer me a refinance.

My current mortgage for my residence is with Countrywide. These guys know their stuff. They mail me a statement every month. And in every statement is an offer to refinance or get a line of credit, or insurance. They are always politely selling something. And if that weren’t enough, they mail me every couple months or so more offers to refinance or tap some equity. But at least they are not as sneaky as World Savings Bank.

One of my investment properties had one of their loans. They now have hooked up with the credit bureaus so that whenever someone with one of their loans gets their credit checked by a mortgage company or lender, they get notified. I like getting my credit checked every 3 months, and with my own mortgage company all it takes is a couple keystrokes of my computer. Imagine my surprise when I got a call at home from a World Savings rep asking me if I was thinking about refinancing. He told me he knew I had my credit checked by a mortgage company and that they were ready to give me a better offer then whatever I was getting,

They have a whole division of telemarketers who do nothing but call their loan holders who are getting their credit checked by other mortgage companies. So even if you get a client a World Savings loan, and that client comes back to you later for a refi, you are now going to have to compete with World Savings for this customer.

Pisses you off doesn’t it?

And you can bet that now that one lender is doing this, others will follow suit,.

So what do we as mortgage brokers do about this?

Simple, we form close relationships with our clients, that basically makes them immune to any sales pitch by any other lender or mortgage company. I call it the “silent force field”. We need to use every tool at our disposal to make sure that once a person becomes a client we never let them go.
Read the rest of this entry »

What Investigative Reporting Entails

The field of investigative reporting involves bringing to the fore facts and figure that affect human interests and fair governance. This means conducting in depth research, looking at public records, doing extensive interviews, as well as checking and rechecking of facts before publication. Whether print or television, investigative reporting is essentially “watchdog” reporting. This means reporting crimes, unfair practices, injustice, as well as other human interest aspects like environment, disease, and so on.

Investigative journalism can move public opinion and instill fear in those treading the wrong path. Slave trade, gun running, terrorist activities, drug trafficking, money laundering and so on are brought to the notice of the world by investigative journalism.

An investigative journalist must be unafraid, determined, patient, watchful, fair, as well as dog minded to be successful. The questions a journalist seeks answers to are: who is responsible for the wrong doing; what methods were employed; what are the consequences; what can be done to correct the wrong; can the wrongdoers be brought to book?

The keys are to dig up the first lead, tip, or hunch. Then sniff around for facts. Form an investigative hypothesis. Next, like a detective, gather evidence that will prove undeniably the hypothesis. This will involve interviews, documents, records, proofs, and intense paper work. Organize the information and write the report. Check facts, check chances of libel, and the laws. To be good at your work it is advantageous if you are familiar with the law, know the procedures, can conduct quick and accurate research, follow the money trail, and dig out facts.
Read the rest of this entry »

Trying to define criminal law

We hear about law everyday whether we realize it or not. It’s in our Government, in our work, and even in our houses. One type of law is Criminal law, which is also known as Penal law. This is “The body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses.”

Inside of criminal law there is four major theories of criminal justice:
- Punishment
- Deterrence
- Incapacitation
- Rehabilitation

This form of law is essential in many cases because it can distinguis between crimes from civil wrongs. Criminal law has been around for ages, and is seeing as the fundamental system of regulating the behavior of individuals and groups relatively to what is defined as the social norms. This differs between civil crimes, where the difference is between two individuals and their individual rights and obligations under the law which is ruling the entire society.
Read the rest of this entry »

Titanic Precautions

Many movies have been made about the tragic story of the Titanic. Arrogance and ignorance was definitely present during its maiden voyage, which was Titanic’s last voyage.

Many warnings were given, but unfortunately, the warnings were not taken seriously. On April 14th, 1912 Titanic received six warnings that icebergs were present in their perimeter. On the night of April 14th, Titanic struck an iceberg and ultimately sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

For other entities, what happened to the Titanic does NOT have to happen to them. Many have learned from the mistakes that Titanic had made.

There are several examples that follow and form a parallel to what happened to Titanic and how an entity can learn from Titanic’s mistakes.

1. The Titanic only had 16 lifeboats, which was not nearly enough to save everyone on the ship.

Only about 60% of the entire lifeboats’ capacity was utilized! Does your company have a disaster plan in place? Are your computers, especially your servers, being backed up on a regular basis? Many servers are now being backed up on a daily basis and sometimes on an hourly basis.

When I was working at a Helpdesk, one of our afternoon gals was named the “Backup Queen” because she took EVERY major server backup VERY seriously. The company was very lucky to have the “Backup Queen” because there were several instances where our most critical server had crashed and lost information. Fortunately, information restoration was quick and painless due to the machine being backed up on a regular basis.

We were very lucky to have someone who took the initiative to handle the server backups. Is your company that lucky? Yes, doing backups can be VERY unexciting. However, losing valuable data can be very exciting, but in a negative way.

2. The crewmen in the lookout tower, or the “crow’s nest,” were not issued binoculars to better search for icebergs.

Employees were not given the proper tools to use to do their job. Is your company using the right software for the job? Are you saving money on upgrading your operating system and software, but are losing customers? If you are losing customers, you’re NOT really saving any money at all.
Read the rest of this entry »