The Debt Trap
My best friend has had a rough and tumble winter this year. He’s been about 2 or 3 months out without paying his mortgage and has tons of people sending him mail wishing to be his friend and pull him out of debt. I thought this was peculiar on how they should know such embarrassing knowledge about his monetary welfare. They have neat little form letters with mustached men in black and white photos copping a cheesy, choose-me smile. They go on in the letter professing how they feel for him and how they would like to give him loans to cover his defaulted loan to avoid bank foreclosing.
He gets kind of upset when he gets this mail, he feels a little like they are trying to patronize him at the same time insulting his intelligence. I mean there are notes left on his door that are probably legitimate offers, but it does paint an image in my mind of a man crawling on his hands and knees while the vultures circle about.
I came to this concept because firstly: how do they expect to pay off a loan with and why do they think he’s not going to default with them as he did with the bank payment?
I guess they are getting a prospective lead in this case — he needs the money. But someone who probably needs the extra money may not exactly qualify as lead material. In fact, much of the market of those who face potential foreclosure and not in any position to pay another loan.
I don’t profess to be an expert in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure debt lead management but I am curious to see some hard figures to see if this sort of canvass marketing campaign really works. Our Leads360 software would be a good feedback tool to find out if they really pan out in the end. But I also feel that this may get dicey in the ethical field since — it kind of hit home with me.