First, they do it in the form of a breaking news story. Yes, those of us with common sense know better, but it still pisses me off that they are trying to fool people.
Second, they mention the government bailout in a feeble attempt to make you think that they’re somehow part of it. Again, most of us know better, but it still pisses me off.
Finally, although the major part of our credit crunch was people buying homes they couldn’t afford, didn’t all of the home equity loans people were taking out play a part. It seems to me that the commercial is encouraging people to engage in the same behaviors that helped caused crunch in the first place.
Thak you for posting this. I was going to post pretty much the same thing I just never got around to it.
And I agree that you would have to be mind numbingly stupid to fall for this shit but still.
Also there’s another one out there that says “If your last name starts with the letter A - L you can call today. All others can call tomorrow.”
Yeah right. It’s so tempting to call them and say my name is Zybe Zymbe and see what they say.
Thanks, that gave me a pretty good laugh. I’m guessing the call center staff are about as clueless about that as they are when you hear a well known personality endorse some product and say something along the lines of “Tell 'em Dave sent ya”.
Gives me a shiver. Like those ads for PayDay loans, if you don’t pay it back out of your next cheque it jumps the interest rate to something astronomical.
What does it say about a society that allows the mighty to take advantage of the weak? Did there not used to be checks and balances in place to stop this sort of thing?
Has anyone seen the other commercial in this vein, which features a woman standing in front of what is obviously a green screen shot of the White House interspersed with footage of Obama.
Ask Rangel and Dodd, et al. They stood in the way of regulations to curb this sort of excess, because it would have meant some people couldn’t get a loan to buy a house they couldn’t afford. And if you stand in the way of that, you’re a racist.
I mentioned it in another thread about whether or not presidential speeches are copyrighted, since the commercial was obviously using footage of Obama to give the impression that their service was either a government program or was somehow endorsed by the government.
I remember that. That’s another one that makes me mad. Actually, ever since the first stimulus package got pushed through I’ve been seeing a few ads implying that they’re part of it or a part of the new stimulus.
I went to the FTC website with the intention of reporting this very commercial for deceptive business practices. Of course, the FTC being the difficult to interact with bureaucratic organization that it is, I couldn’t figure out how the hell to do it. If anyone has more patience then me, please, by all means report these douchebags.
You use the Consumer Complaint Wizard. However, it’s not particularly apt for this sort of complaint, as “a mortgage company is lying about something completely unrelated to mortgages” is not one of their standard options. I haven’t gone all the way through the wizard, but I think you can ignore the standard options and just submit your complaint further on.
I think, though, that this sort of complaint will be fruitless; the FTC Act is pretty specific about what’s illegal in mortgage advertising. The FHA, which underwrites the mortgages that Lend America is hawking, is well aware of them, and if they feel unable to cut them loose, I doubt anyone’s going to rein them in.
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