I had an interesting experience with a mortgage broker the other day that I would like to tell you about. My husband and I are looking into doing some property investing and decided to allow an “Investment Specialist” into our home.
He spent the next two hours telling us why investing in property was a good idea and why we should move ahead with this Idea (we had already told him several times that that is exactly what we wanted to do!) He continued to do his “sales spiel” while we listened bored out of our brains. All we wanted to know is how it could be done, what our plan would be and how much it would cost. But OH no that was something he could only tell us at the next visit (really??).
I told him straight up that he was boring me and that we just wanted him to put a plan together for us to see in black and white what we could afford. Both my husband and I asked him if his service had a price and he assured us that it was all free and that they derived their income through commissions only.
Next he wanted us to sign all the documents he needed in order to look into our figures and give us a plan. (It had now taken 2 1/2 Hours!!!) I said NO, I was totally over it but agreed to catch up with him the week after and he assured me it would take 1/2 hour to fill in the paperwork and he would be gone.
Monday came around and I was busy but we knew we had to meet with the broker again so we reluctantly invited him in and sat down to another “sales spiel” that I stopped mid-sentence with a “hold it right there!! This is supposed to take 1/2 an hour and we really do not have time for more!
He then reluctantly gathered all the paperwork he needed from us and got us to fill in the documents he needed, such as privacy disclosures etc. Once these documents were signed he proceeded to try to sell us a program that would save us “300,000” on our home loan and we simply could not live without (it was basically a time management/money management program) for $4,000!! No thank you we said which he was not happy with because we really did not understand the advantage of the program! Next we just had to sign a document allowing him to draw $400 from our credit card before he could look into our loans.
WELL, we both said “excuse me, we both asked you directly if there was a fee to pay and you said no!” he responded that he had been visiting with us under another banner the other day and now he was representing xx Mortgage broking!! We were not impressed and asked him to leave!
We had just wasted 3 1/2 hours on a sales man and were rather angry. But we live, and we learn and the one thing I learnt from this is how to be better at my job and the importance of honesty! Had he disclosed from the beginning that he charged a fee, we would probably have gone further with him (even though he was annoying) but that little mistake cost him a large sale!!
SO HONESTY IS ALWAYS THE BEST POLICY!!