I know many of you are mortgage guys and gals, but I also know that many of you are diversifying into the debt vertical, so I hope this is a little helpful.

As you know I spent the first part of the week at the USOBA conference, which was a small conference filled with, what seemed like only to be a bunch of attorneys who loved to talk about rule, regulations and cases they won. Unfortunately, there were zero sessions or discussions on how to work leads or lead management. There were a few sessions that preached, “do the consumer right and they will do you right” and “customer service should be a number one priority”, which in my opinion is a no brainer and just barely scratched the surface. However one session did stand out and I found very beneficial and I will share some the key points very quickly with you.

The session was lead by Robby Brinbaum of Greenspoon Marder, P.A. Robby discussed many of the do’s and don’ts of marketing from an attorneys perspective, which many times is very painful for a marketer to hear, but could save you thousands and thousands of dollars.

Here is the lowdown:

• As a lead buyer you are responsible for the marketing of your lead provider. Meaning you could be fined for the marketing tactics that were used to generate your stellar $5.00 debt leads. Fines are $10,000 for violations.

Types of marketing that can get you fined:

• “Reduce your debt by xx%”
• “Secret programs”
• “we can stop or reduce creditor calls”
• words like “eliminate”, “cancel” or “reduce”
• “One 10 minute call is all it takes”

This is why it becomes very important to see the creative that is used by your lead sources. Typically the cheaper more inexpensive leads are generated by these types of ads. A quick Google search and you find multiple violators that could be putting you at risk. Don’t think that the FDIC is not prosecuting companies either. The fact is that they are hyper sensitive these issues right now and people need to be extra careful.

The bottom line is that you cannot use partially true statements in your marketing or you are running the risk of getting hit by the FDIC. All you need is one consumer to complain and you have them auditing your whole business. Robby did mention one case where a company was marketing a 40% reduction and was able to fight off the FDIC in court by proving that on average that is what they truly saved their clients. To do this you need to have the proper documentation to prove that out of ALL the clients you serviced you save % you are marketing. This would include the consumers you couldn’t help save anything.

In any case a lead generator should not be using the techniques because they are putting themselves and more importantly you at risk.

Don’t settle for cheap leads and frankly don’t assume high cost leads are in regulation. Vet you providers or have your own attorney create an affidavit that relinquishes your company from  responsibility. If you do find that a provider is using these types of tactics it is important that you document the communication between your and provider and the written request to have the marketing eliminated. This will show the courts that you took proper action to eliminate the problem.

The bottom line is that you need to fully vet each marketing source prior to the partnership and then ongoing.

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