Following Trigold’s announcement that its ‘total to pay’ filter may have a technical problem, Alan Lakey, senior partner at Highclere Financial Services, drew further doubts on the validity of the service.
He said: “After searching for the best self-cert deal for a client on the Trigold system, it showed a Woolwich product as the most suitable.
However, after submitting the application I was told by the lender that the product had been withdrawn months ago. Because the deal was still on the system it has set my client back three weeks and wasted my time as well.”
Lakey went on to add: “Another broker had a similar experience when using Trigold. Only after submitting the application to the lender were they told that the deal had stopped. In both instances Trigold has shown products that no longer exist.”
Bill Safran, chief executive officer at Trigold said: “We will seek to remove any product that is no longer available but with so many deals on our system we are dependant on lenders to inform us of any changes.”
Woolwich confirmed they would be looking into the matter.
In a similar incident Mortgage Brain was criticised for continuing to promote an expired West Bromwich deal. Paul Smith, director of Provident Solutions Ltd, informed Mortgage Brain’s chief executive Mark Lofthouse that the deal no longer existed but a week later no action had been taken to remove the product: “If a chief executive can’t get their system corrected and accurate then there is little point in any mortgage broker bothering to phone these companies to point out the errors,” said Smith.
However, Lofthouse confirmed: “Mortgage Brain is not able to withdraw verified products and will point this out to the lender so that they can withdraw it.”
