I am sure that many of you have already heard about those online mortgage places where you can have “lenders compete”. You may even have heard some of the horror stories about how many unsuspecting borrowers to be filled out their forms, expecting to be contacted by up to four lenders (as the site says), only to be hounded for days, even months by what seems like an endless supply of lenders.
Well, if you are thinking about filling out on of those forms, here is a great reason to think again…IDENTITY THEFT!!!
Yes, these lead farm sites have more drawbacks than you may have suspected. Lending Tree, certainly a household name by now, was found to have had several former employees downloading the data from Lending Tree’s database and reselling that information. The data was then sold to other mortgage companies.
Doesn’t sound too bad, right? After all, it is just being sold to other mortgage companies, so the worst thing that can happen is months of seemingly endless phone calls, right?
I wouldn’t rest easy if I had my data stolen from Lending Tree’s database. Why? Other mortgage companies have had employees who were found to be using stolen identities to commit mortgage fraud. In fact, some mortgage companies were set up for that exact purpose.
Just what data was stolen? Names, addresses, social security numbers, phone numbers, emails, income and employment information, maybe more. Scared yet? This has been going on for two years apparently.
Of course, Lending Tree is downplaying this as much as possible, which you can see in their FAQ page. Here is what a letter they sent out stated…
Dear LendingTree Customer:
We want you to know that some loan request forms our customers sent to LendingTree may have been seen by lenders without our consent. These lenders then used the forms to market their own mortgage loans to our customers. While we don’t believe that the forms were used for any other purpose, we want you to know what happened and what we did to correct this situation, as well as what you can do to monitor your credit records.
What Happened and What We Did
Recently, LendingTree learned that several former employees may have helped a handful of mortgage lenders gain access to LendingTree’s customer information by sharing confidential passwords with the lenders. When we learned of this situation, we quickly contacted the authorities, and LendingTree is helping with their investigation. We promptly made several system security changes. We also brought lawsuits against those involved.
Based on our investigation, we understand that these mortgage lenders used the passwords to access LendingTree’s customer loan request forms, normally available only to LendingTree-approved lenders, to market loans to those customers. The loan request forms contained data such as name, address, email address, telephone number, Social Security number, income and employment information. We believe these lenders accessed LendingTree’s loan request forms between October 2006 and early 2008.
What You Can Do
Again, we don’t believe any identity theft or fraudulent financial activity resulted from this situation. However, we suggest you get a free credit report. Look for any accounts you didn’t open and/or inquiries from creditors that you didn’t initiate. If you see anything you don’t understand, contact the credit bureau. If you see anything suspicious, you may want to file a fraud alert with the bureaus. For more information on how to do this, please refer to LendingTree’s Guide to Protecting Your Credit and Identity.
Where to Get More Information
We regret any inconvenience and apologize for any unwanted mortgage calls you may have received. For more information about this situation, and for more information on what you can do, please refer to the Questions & Answers Sheet.
Sincerely,
R.L. Harris
Now, if that doesn’t get you stop filling out those online rate quote forms in your quest to get the lowest rate and fees, I do not know what will. And as an expert on Identity Theft issues, I can assure you that if your data is used for Identity Theft purposes, you will not begin to fully understand the inconveniences LendingTree just created.
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