From a buyer who recently applied for a mortgage:
Buyer: I’ve had about 40 calls since 7am this morning for mortgages.
I didn’t take any of them and most of them are leaving VMs and texts saying they got notified by Experian that my credit was pulled for mortgage purposes and they want to help. Not sure why and how Experian is sharing my information. I am sure there is a fineprint somewhere.
Lender: It’s not uncommon these days unfortunately. It’s called a trigger lead. Very annoying thing the credit bureaus do.
Here is some info:
What is a trigger lead? When a borrower applies for a mortgage, the three credit bureaus take that information and sell it as a “mortgage lead” to any lender that is willing to pay for it. The “mortgage lead” has the borrower’s name, contact information and the date they applied for credit on it.
Why would someone buy a trigger lead? A trigger lead is a really good indicator that someone is in the process of refinancing or a purchasing a home. A lot of lenders feel this a great opportunity to try to steal the transaction for themselves.
Why is it so bad right now? With interest rates going up and refinance activity going down, most lender’s pipelines have begun to disappear. In response to that a lot of them are buying trigger leads right now.
Why doesn’t your bank do something about this? Unfortunately we do not have ability to block or restrict the credit bureaus from selling this information. This activity is not illegal, it’s legal for the credit bureaus to sell it as they are the owners of the data.
What can we do to help borrowers avoid this? They can remove their information from being sold as a trigger lead. They can do this over the phone or through a website provided by the credit bureaus. Web link here: www.optoutprescreen.com or phone here: 888–567–8688. This must be done before they apply for credit and can take up to 5 business days to process so this may not work for everyone.
