London & Country

Dan_Collins_2

Mortgageman wrote: »

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.

I am a bit like Luke Skywalker, bringing balance to the force!! LOL

I cant think of a better way to end that thread than with your reply, its fair and you have proven that you will listen to peoples opinions, hat tipped!

jediknightwarrior

Hi Mortgageman,


Thank you for your reply.


Firstly, please let me reiterate that my posts were not intended to criticise you for including direct only products but to highlight that customers had no way of knowing which products these were.


I appreciate that this sometimes place you at a commercial disadvantage, however, hopefully you can understand my concerns. I think it is great that you have chosen to keep them on.


Adding a tick box allowing customers to view only the products which can be applied for online is great, however please forgive me, would the wording not be better as "Show only products which can be applied for through L&C" or "Excluded products not available through L&C" (I understand the later is a big ask!). Otherwise, customer may still think that they can apply for these through your telephone service?


Thanks again

Dan_Collins_2

jediknightwarrior wrote: »

Hi Mortgageman,


Thank you for your reply.


Firstly, please let me reiterate that my posts were not intended to criticise you for including direct only products but to highlight that customers had no way of knowing which products these were.


I appreciate that this sometimes place you at a commercial disadvantage, however, hopefully you can understand my concerns. I think it is great that you have chosen to keep them on.


Adding a tick box allowing customers to view only the products which can be applied for online is great, however please forgive me, would the wording not be better as "Show only products which can be applied for through L&C" or "Excluded products not available through L&C" (I understand the later is a big ask!). Otherwise, customer may still think that they can apply for these through your telephone service?


Thanks again

Mr Jediknight, I think you are pushing it a little! The website must comply with strict rules set out by the FSA already. Mortgageman has not mentioned what wording he will use, I am sure it will be plain and easy to understand. The public are not that thick?

jediknightwarrior

I disagree Dan, I think they should make it totally clear and I'm surprised they have not amended they wording here.

http://ftadviser.com/FTAdviser/Mortgages/News/article/20080409/dafd6d3c-0639-11dd-a9b2-0015171400aa/Lenders-put-squeeze-on-intermediaries.jsp

IMHO, I think this is only going to get worst and L&C will have to review their business model.

jediknightwarrior

Nice to see L&C have acknowledged the growing issue here. Just wish there website was a bit clearer. (sorry for banging on!)

Hopefully, the situation will reverse, however, in the meantime it would be nice if Martin added a note in his sponsered guide.

Dan_Collins_2

I cant see anything about L&C in the link.

However I hope your going to contact the writer as she states that Natwest have never offered mortgages via a broker. This is wrong and missleading!

jediknightwarrior

Agree with you re Natwest. That did jump out when I read it the first time.

I'm talking about this quote:

‘If you look at any category of loans, whether it is first-time buyer products, two year fixes or trackers, the market leaders are nearly all direct-only,’ says Richard Morea of mortgage broker London & Country.