If you have ever applied for a mortgage and then been buried in calls within 24 hours, you were not imagining it, and you did nothing wrong. Here is what actually happened and how to stop it.
These are called trigger leads. When a lender pulls your credit for a mortgage, the credit bureaus are permitted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to sell the fact that you are shopping. Other lenders buy that list and start calling, often the same day. It is legal, and it has nothing to do with your loan officer sharing your information.
Step one, opt out of prescreened offers. Go to optoutprescreen.com, the official site run by Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion. You can opt out for five years online in a couple of minutes, or permanently by mailing the form available on that same site. Do this a few days before you apply if you can - it takes a short time to take effect.
Step two, register with the National Do Not Call Registry at donotcall.gov. That covers telemarketing generally rather than trigger leads specifically, but it is free and takes about a minute.
Being straight with you about what this does and does not fix. Opting out stops the credit bureaus from selling your information for prescreened offers. It does not stop every call. Companies you already do business with can still contact you, and some callers ignore the rules entirely. What it does do is cut the volume substantially, and it removes the specific pipeline that causes the flood right after a credit pull.
Why I am telling you this. Trigger leads are how a lot of lenders find customers, and some of the calls you get after applying with me will be from competitors who bought your name. I would rather you knew how the system works and had the tools to shut it off. If someone calls claiming to be from your lender and asks you to confirm your Social Security number or bank details, hang up and call your loan officer directly on a number you already have.
