tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35127054.post7586477377499781950..comments2023-04-02T12:45:11.781-04:00Comments on Reputation Garage: Sub-prime Reputation = Failure to consider the "long tail” of customer relationships. (By Paul Allen)Jarvis Cromwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13006024126749967129noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35127054.post-60951909630329610462007-06-26T02:34:00.000-04:002007-06-26T02:34:00.000-04:00Thanks, Paul, for the excellent post!Checking in f...Thanks, Paul, for the excellent post!<BR/><BR/>Checking in from Maine, where <B>"An Act to Protect Maine Homeowners From Predatory Lending"</B> was signed into law on the 11th of this month. The mortgage industry in Maine, as in many other parts of the country, has gotten well out of hand, and I am happy to say that the State is responding. As both a homeowner and as a co-owner of a mortgage company, I am very pleased to see some much-needed regulation coming into view. What's legal is not always what's ethical, and those two seem to be drawing closer as a result of the mess that is the mortgage industry. At least, here in Maine.<BR/><BR/>This past fall, I worked for a very short time in a mortgage company that was not a 'predatory lending' shop per se, but its primary business was with sub-prime borrowers and the primary source of leads was from credit score 'trigger leads'. These are generated when a person clicks on the 'Get your FREE Credit Score' button that you have all seen so frequently on your browsers. True enough, you don't have to pay to obtain your credit report, but the companies that provide said report immediately turn around and sell the person's information to a wide variety of salespeople. Over and over again. This would explain the proliferation of calls from telemarketers (many of them 'mortgage brokers')that begin within 24 hours of the person's 'free' inquiry. Again, what is legal is not necessarily what is ethical. <BR/><BR/>A confluence of events and conditions - not the least of which was my frustration with my former employer regarding the company's practices - led me to open New England Mortgage Company with a friend of mine. Our idea, at the outset, was to base our practice on integrity, honesty, and straightforward dealings. Shocking, yes, but we thought this simple foundation would make us stick out considerably from the pack, and would allow us to offer a service that we feel is actually a service, and one that we enjoy coming to work to promote and maintain.<BR/><BR/>While getting things going in the winter and early spring of this year, we read a number of articles about the Sub-prime debacle, about transparency (see Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html for a great example), and about an Integral approach to business (http://www.wie.org/j28/). Add in a steady flow of the Reputation Garage's posts (full disclosure: my brother, Jarvis, is a Reputation Garage Trustmeister and founder)and we upped our elemental ideas about integrity to include 'radical transparency'. <BR/><BR/>Your last paragraph hits it on the head for us and what we are trying to do. New England Mortgage Company is exactly that new breed of hyper-transparent broker that you mention. That is our goal.<BR/><BR/>I apologize for going on a bit, but I am very excited about your post and its parallels to what our mission is. For those that are interested in reading a bit more please feel free to visit http://www.newenglandmortgagecompany.com (the "About the Industry" page may be of special interest).<BR/><BR/>Thanks again for the post. I look forward to the next one....<BR/>Lance CromwellLance Cromwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07194431918204724471noreply@blogger.com