According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, cold-calling for mortgage business had returned over the past couple of weeks and did not appear to be going away. The biggest problem intermediaries have is that the unsolicited calls and e-mails are in breach of Financial Services Authority (FSA) rules as automated dialling machines are used.
The source said: “From personal experience I have been cold-called at home a couple of times for mortgages recently, once by an automated dialling machine which left a message on my home number, the other time by a call centre that was obviously not in the UK or EU. Both were certainly breaching FSA rules with the depth of information they were asking for in the cold-call, which offered to get me a better mortgage without going through the appropriate FSA status disclosure. I think this might be the tip of the iceberg in terms of lead generation firms breaching FSA rules.”
The company, which had reportedly been offering the mortgages from the automated line was questioned and apparently hung up when asked for its address so its actions could be reported. The instance has been reported to the FSA, though the regulator claimed it was unable to take action without further details.
Colin Brown, of Nationwide Finance, expressed his disappointment at organisations’ decision to utilise cold-calling.
He explained: “This is all part of the process as it is common and difficult to compete against. Mortgage intermediaries do get fed up as things are kept tight since regulation came in, but if you look at Yellow Pages’ advertisements, they’re not kept to regulatory standards, and cold-calling is common practise.”
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