London & Country

dunstonh

I know investment business is different but there are often times where you place business that doesnt earn you anything. Cash ISAs and NS&I being the two main examples. It doesnt stop you recommending them though.

I see no reason why mortgages would be any different.

payless

They make a point of effectively saying they are better than many advisers , because even though they are ""fee free" they do recommend direct rates - but are they really recommending them.. as the consumer posts here imply they were not recommended nor mentioned .

With cash ISAs and NS&I you are talking about recommending a different product class .. not the same product but from a direct route... its a bit like you telling all your clients to buy a HL branded product

jediknightwarrior

Again, just to show why my concerns are genuine have a look at Motley Fool here.


This has been lifted from the fool website: "The most visible aspect of the Mortgage Service is the range of mortgage products that feature in our best buy tables. These products are advertisements: London & Country provide us with a list of best buy mortgage products every week, and we advertise these products in our Mortgage Comparison Centre. All of these products are available through London & Country, and London & Country ultimately pay us for how many new customers our site generates for them."


and it goes on to say: "The rates we list in our tables may be exclusive and unavailable direct from lenders, so it's best to contact London & Country directly"


Sorry if I seem harsh however I see this has misleading advertising.

Shambler

After using L&C to find a mortgage for our house I have no qualms about recommending them to other people and have done so.

Their service was excellent, they found us a competetive mortgage and were always approachable by email and phone if we needed advice.

When they said that they would call us they did so punctually and all of the people I spoke to were very friendly.

I will definitely be using their services in a few years time when my current mortgage deal expires. :T

Dan_Collins_2

jediknightwarrior wrote: »

Again, just to show why my concerns are genuine have a look at Motley Fool here.


This has been lifted from the fool website: "The most visible aspect of the Mortgage Service is the range of mortgage products that feature in our best buy tables. These products are advertisements: London & Country provide us with a list of best buy mortgage products every week, and we advertise these products in our Mortgage Comparison Centre. All of these products are available through London & Country, and London & Country ultimately pay us for how many new customers our site generates for them."


and it goes on to say: "The rates we list in our tables may be exclusive and unavailable direct from lenders, so it's best to contact London & Country directly"


Sorry if I seem harsh however I see this has misleading advertising.

I think you have some valid points, but, there are far worse things going on in our industry and just outside regulation. The website would have to be passed by FSA rules via [EMAIL="L&C@s"]L&C's[/EMAIL] network or FSA directly and it is still online so it cant be that bad.

I agree that maybe they should drop the products that they will not recommend, its a hard one. I am in this to make money, so I do not advice on products that I dont get paid on and I am unable to quote them using my research tools. However when talking about my IDD I always high light that I cannot use a handful or lenders because they dont accept broker business.

I am sure your post has been seen by L&C and I am sure somthing will be done. Although I say its up to them what they do.

lethal0r

in any highly competitive industry, the most successful companies do what they can get away with, without breaking the law. theres a lot of money to be had in grey areas such as L & C advertising the FD direct deal.

so where you pick on L & C, your supermarket does the same thing, your mobile phone provider does the same thing, your car manufacturer does the same thing and so on... if they didnt then they'd be bust or bought out by someone else.

Dan_Collins_2

lethal0r wrote: »

in any highly competitive industry, the most successful companies do what they can get away with, without breaking the law. theres a lot of money to be had in grey areas such as L & C advertising the FD direct deal.

so where you pick on L & C, your supermarket does the same thing, your mobile phone provider does the same thing, your car manufacturer does the same thing and so on... if they didnt then they'd be bust or bought out by someone else.

But we are regulated so much we are easy targets!

jediknightwarrior

Thanks Dan.

Dan Quote: I agree that maybe they should drop the products that they will not recommend, its a hard one. I am in this to make money, so I do not advice on products that I dont get paid on and I am unable to quote them using my research tools. However when talking about my IDD I always high light that I cannot use a handful or lenders because they dont accept broker business.

Reply: I totally agree, it is a very hard one. However, I think a company of their size has to be transparent, otherwise, what example does it set for the rest of the industry. If they do this and get away with it, what is to stop every broker including products in their marketing material which they will not even consider when making their recommendations and where does this leave the consumer? How can they have any trust in the service offered?

Unless the direct only / commission products are clearly highlighted it is very confusing and I believe very misleading for consumers.

Dan Quote: I am sure your post has been seen by L&C and I am sure somthing will be done. Although I say its up to them what they do.

Reply: I guess time will tell. I know that if I had taken a mortgage through them and then found out that one of the best buys on their website would have been better of me financially then I would definitely be making a complaint.

lethalOr: in any highly competitive industry, the most successful companies do what they can get away with, without breaking the law. theres a lot of money to be had in grey areas such as L & C advertising the FD direct deal.

so where you pick on L & C, your supermarket does the same thing, your mobile phone provider does the same thing, your car manufacturer does the same thing and so on... if they didnt then they'd be bust or bought out by someone else.

Reply: and some even over step the boundaries provided the profits will be greater than any potential fines / complaint settlements.

Dan_Collins_2

jediknightwarrior wrote: »

Thanks Dan.

Dan Quote: I agree that maybe they should drop the products that they will not recommend, its a hard one. I am in this to make money, so I do not advice on products that I dont get paid on and I am unable to quote them using my research tools. However when talking about my IDD I always high light that I cannot use a handful or lenders because they dont accept broker business.

Reply: I totally agree, it is a very hard one. However, I think a company of their size has to be transparent, otherwise, what example does it set for the rest of the industry. If they do this and get away with it, what is to stop every broker including products in their marketing material which they will not even consider when making their recommendations and where does this leave the consumer? How can they have any trust in the service offered?

Unless the direct only / commission products are clearly highlighted it is very confusing and I believe very misleading for consumers.

Dan Quote: I am sure your post has been seen by L&C and I am sure somthing will be done. Although I say its up to them what they do.

Reply: I guess time will tell. I know that if I had taken a mortgage through them and then found out that one of the best buys on their website would have been better of me financially then I would definitely be making a complaint.

lethalOr: in any highly competitive industry, the most successful companies do what they can get away with, without breaking the law. theres a lot of money to be had in grey areas such as L & C advertising the FD direct deal.

so where you pick on L & C, your supermarket does the same thing, your mobile phone provider does the same thing, your car manufacturer does the same thing and so on... if they didnt then they'd be bust or bought out by someone else.

Reply: and some even over step the boundaries provided the profits will be greater than any potential fines / complaint settlements.

Can we get out of the habit of over doing a thread and subject. We need to be clear about who and what we are saying when talking about companies.

L&C are not doing anything wrong, they are too big not to be seen by the FSA etc so lets leave them (FSA) to regulate.

On a whole I think our industry is over regulated and the issues that have always been around are still not being tackled, they are being looked at but it is still going on.

The every day broker trying to earn a living and give the best advise possible are paying for the brokers that get away with murder, but it is a small % of broker that are naughty!

I think we should let L&C get on with it and for a company of that size I think they get a good feedback.

Thats not a dig at you Jedi, the whole forum. We can all get carried away on some subjects.

Ps. I am not after a job at L&C, just think we need to be fair and put things in to perspective!

Mortgageman

Dan_Collins: Thank you for your very balanced and sensible posts.

Until we read this thread, we always thought that including deals that are available direct in best buy tables would be something consumers would value. To be honest, there are commercial reasons that mean including such deals sometimes disadvantages us. We never, in our wildest dreams, thought that including such deals could open us to any criticism - along the lines of jediknightwarrior's posts.

We have taken on board jediknightwarrior's comments, and are working on the tables to enable customers to tick a box and exclude any mortgages where we would be able to assist with the application process. We have been able to change this today on our transactional site https://www.lcplc-online.co.uk/BestBuy.aspx, and are working on adding the same functionality to the best buy table on our core lcplc.co.uk site.

We will never be too big to listen to constructive comments, and I hope that this action tangibly demonstrates this.