Avoid Banks Competing For Your Business

When banks compete, you are the one who loses. You may not be sure of this and how it all works so we're going to explain. Home buyers need to be more aware of the schemes that companies like LendingTree.com pull. LendingTree.com claims that they are a free service and they do not charge you for the service of helping you find the best Mortgage offer. What you don't know is that when you use Lending Tree to sign up with a Mortgage company to refinance your loan, there will be a fee of $1300 that you have to pay.

Lending Tree disguises it because they don't want you to know that you are actually paying for their service. They say that it is free but if you sign up for refinancing with one of their lenders, you will see a $1300 fee on your bill which goes to Lending Tree for making the hook-up. Not exactly free is it? The reason why Lending Tree is deceitful about this is that they claim they have no fees yet once you sign up for a particular company, that company will bill you and will include the Lending Tree fees.

You can see this for yourself on their website. Look at the bottom of the page for the link called "Licenses and Disclosures". This text will explain to you how Lending Tree really works and how they make money. In addition, you will read about how the state of Massachusetts actually sued LendingTree.com for their false claims. Here is a portion of that text:

"LendingTree, LLC is not charging you a fee to arrange a Mortgage loan from the Mortgage Lender. If you choose the traditional LendingTree, LLC path, LendingTree, LLC will be receiving a fee of up to $1,300 from the Lender for arranging this loan. The amount of this fee will be disclosed to you on the Good Faith Estimate you receive from the Lender you select."

Basically what this means is that while they do not charge you for using their site, if you choose a loan with one of the Lending Tree lenders, you will pay them a flat fee of $1300 which is called a "Computerized Loan Origination Fee". These fees are sneaky and deceptive from companies like Lending Tree because the Mortgage owner does not actually realize they are paying for it. Some may not mind paying the fee if they knew about it but all people should have the option of choosing if they want to pay for this service or not. Disguising it like a free service is wrong.

The problem with this is that LendingTree.com is not the only company to do this or to use these Computerized Origination Fees, although they are probably the most common. In fact, there are many loan and Mortgage websites on the Internet that don't actually have anything to do with Mortgages or lenders. They are just acting as a middle man to sell your name and information to the lenders for a "finder's fee". While there's nothing wrong with setting up a site to provide information or a service to people, it is deceitful to pretend that this service is free and then secretly charge a fee.

You can protect yourself from sites like this on the Internet and learn all that you can about your Mortgage and refinancing options

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