For two years, an executive of a Countrywide Financial Corp. unit was successfully operating a mortgage leads business using data he stole from the company. He downloaded the records of 20,000 borrowers each week — until he was caught.
Rene Leonard Rebollo Jr. was a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending in Pasadena, California according to a criminal complaint against him. He earned $63,000 annually plus an annual bonus of around $2,000. He was also the “main cat” in a scheme where borrower information was stolen from the company and sold to mortgage brokers and lead brokers, court records indicate. Quality real-time mortgage leads are hard to come by these days with so many unscrupulous lead brokers. Make sure that you are buying leads from a marketing company that generates their own leads. Buying leads from a lead broker is risky.
For two years, an executive of a Countrywide Financial Corp. unit was successfully operating a mortgage leads business using data he stole from the company. He downloaded the records of 20,000 borrowers each week — until he was caught. Rene Leonard Rebollo Jr. was a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending in Pasadena, California according to a criminal complaint against him. He earned $63,000 annually plus an annual bonus of around $2,000.
He was also the “main cat” in a scheme where borrower information was stolen from the company and sold to mortgage brokers and lead brokers, court records indicate. Quality real-time mortgage leads are hard to come by these days with so many unscrupulous lead brokers. Make sure that you are buying leads from a marketing company that generates their own leads. Buying leads from a lead broker is risky.
I’m glad Countrywide caught this guy. They are a great mortgage company who seems to be holding on since BofA took them over.
Pingback by Mortgage Related News — October 3, 2008 @ 10:56 am
[...] a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending, a division of Countrywide, was nabbed and will face trial for stealing leads from Countrywide to fuel his side mortgage leads business. The criminal complaint is filed in US [...]
Pingback by Due Diligence is a Critical Step in Lead Buying | Lead Marketwatch — October 6, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Quite a scary article. I’m glad Countrywide caught this guy. Our mortgage offices in California and Utah have reported high conversions with their last few direct mail campaigns targeting homeowners with good credit and no equity who qualify for the FHA refinance product that allows over 100% refinancing. -
Comment by direct mail advertising — February 27, 2009 @ 1:53 pm