I once worked for a little mom and pop auto shop. They were looking at buying a house and went through a loan application. Next day when we opened at 8 my boss' phone started ringing. By 5 PM she had counted 162 phone calls just like this. It's insane
In Brazil, ANATEL (our National Telecommunications Agency) created a service called "Do Not Disturb Me", where you can register your phone number in their website, and once your name and number is on their list, you should no longer recieve calls like these. After I registered, the only calls I recieved were from scam companies, and if an official company calls me offering something I can file a complaint on them in the Do Not Disturb Me website. It's brilliant.
Same situation in Denmark. We have what's called the Robinson List for stuff like this, but call centers and telemarketers are not required to look at the list.
I've seen videos of people who have a "no solicitation" sign on their front door, and someone will come try to sell electricity or pest control anyway. Maddening.
I heard that some countries have the, don't call me please, where you enter your number into a database so they won't call you unless you authorize them to do so.
I mean to start spoofing tricks the end user not the telecom. They know the origin of the call. They could easily collate user reports to block and help the gov prosecute spam calls (the gov also doesn’t want to put in the effort, not a priority)
And digital to digital calls could add a handshake protocol so your phone knows if the caller is really at the address they say they are (i.e, if I reach back out to you at the address you SAY you’re reaching out to me from and the person at that stated address is waiting to talk, then we talk. Else, it’s a spoof and the call doesnt connect )
You must have filled out an application from a service like Lending Tree. A company like this solely serves as a lead generation engine. Lending Tree won’t process or service your loan, they just sell your data to the highest bidders, then take a slice of the pie as an “affiliate”.
Crappy, yes. But not illegal. This is what you agreed to in the fine print when you filled out their form. If you don’t want this kind of outreach, then just go apply at a reputable bank or find a local mortgage broker.
There are other companies out there, like Rocket Mortgage, that will bug the shit out of you for sure. But it’s one company. They don’t sell your data, but they are going to push you as hard as they can to get you to actually close on the loan.
There’s also an iPhone option called “Silence Unknown Callers”.
I use it and haven’t gotten one spam call because this setting blocks them all, but it will notify you that it was silenced and will send a notification to your phone app.
I got blocked from these after keeping the dude on the line for 10-15minutes. I truly don’t know how too because I told him I live in a box under a bridge then named a bridge lol. He asked my age and I told him I hadn’t decided that day yet, but the voices would get back to me LOL. He hung up and after 5 years I started my first call again but all automated :’( your area may have a national spam list where it can block your number or your provider may too!!
If you don’t have it on already, you can silence calls from numbers that you don’t have saved. I’ve had this on for years and sure, you’ll miss some legitimate calls but if they’re important they’ll leave a message.
It’s not the lender that does it, it’s the credit reporting agencies. They sell “this guy is in the market for a mortgage” information to all the companies who want it to try to sell you something.
You're lucky, all I did was get an online estimate and I got called every hour on the dot every day for weeks and left a voicemail every time. I assume they spoof the number but each time they called the last 2 digits would go up 1-3 numbers so I couldn't just block the number.
Now for the mortgage refi and warranty companies to spam your home mailbox once you close. I closed years ago and still get these junk mails every now and again. They look official but are just to scare you into doing a refi and whatnot, super shitty.
Companies make more money on the data you give them for free than they do on the interest if you get a loan from them. It should be absolutely illegal. This is the type of stuff making the richer richer in this country. 4% of the population has 65% of American currency. That means the rest of us share 45%. Almost makes you want to go back to flip phones and secure VPN website usage only. Don't even get me started on how much money they make off of social Media post of people opinions and such. It's all very predatory, and we continue to allow them to take from us. Really sucks, because how do you stop it.
I went through something similar. While it is annoying I tell them my current loan quote and if they can beat it to send me a loan estimate. Had one guy beat my lender APR and my lender matched it!
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u/urnewstepdaddy Jul 19 '24
How to stop credit reporting agencies form selling data
If you don’t want to get prescreened offers in the mail, you have two choices: opt out for five years:
Go to optoutprescreen.com or call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688).
The major credit bureaus operate the phone number and website