A broker who contacted Mortgage Introducer said he has stopped using Mortgage Intelligence because its ‘non-compliant’ advertising campaign in local directories such as Yellow Pages was a ‘slap in the face for brokers’.
He accused Mortgage Intelligence of using the adverts to take leads from his locality back to Bournemouth and then sell them back to advisers in the various regions for processing.
He said: “The only way we can stop mortgage clubs from taking business from ourselves is to stop using them for packaging until they stop advertising for leads in our individual areas. They should decide if they want to compete with us or package for us.”
The advert, which Mortgage Introducer has seen a copy of, was printed in the 04/05 editions of Yellow Pages for Sunderland, Durham and Scarborough. The adverts do not state the APR when advertising specific solutions for those with mortgage arrears, CCJs, etc and make no reference to the FSA.
The broker said Yellow Pages confirmed to him the final amendment date to book the adverts was 22 November 2004; therefore after ‘Mortgage Day’.
But Sally Laker, managing director Mortgage Intelligence, explained: “This broker is referring to the final amendment date which is for final adjustments to the advert. However, our advert was submitted and accepted by Yellow Pages prior to 31 October 2004. This, together with adverts for directories in all the preceding months, would have been issued prior to 31 October 2004 but still in the public domain for one year and the transitional rules specifically allowed for this situation.”
“Also, we are not taking the bread out of the mouths of brokers. When we started, we looked to provide leads for brokers locally
