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#180928 - 04/19/04 03:44 PM Lender Websites
Anonymous
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Are there any regulations in regards to mortgage lenders having their own personal websites? I have not seen this before. Do lenders typically have their own websites that contain logos of the bank etc.?

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Lending Compliance
#180929 - 04/19/04 06:11 PM Re: Lender Websites
Bear Collector, CRCM Offline
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Bear Collector, CRCM
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,830
District of Columbia
Many of our mortgage bankers have their own websites. It is actually part of our mortgage website, where you can click on "mortgage bankers" and go to each lender's home page. On the page is the name of our mortgage division, the Equal Housing logo, and a bio about the lender along with some testimonials from happy clients. (We tried testimonials from unhappy clients, but it just didn't have the desired impact! Just kidding!)
We told the lenders early on that they could not provide links to real estate companies or other service providers because that would be a potential RESPA violation, so these are pretty much information-only pages.
BC
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#180930 - 04/19/04 07:18 PM Re: Lender Websites
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
Supporting a series of pages built on a standard template is much easier than the DIY alternatives. Did you threaten these lenders with bodily harm if they set up their own sites outside of the bank's domain?
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#180931 - 04/19/04 07:37 PM Re: Lender Websites
Pale Rider Offline
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It sounds like BC has good control over his lenders. Our IT people wrote into their policy that employees could not maintain bank-related websites not under the control of our bank, so as far as I know, none of our lenders maintain their own.
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#180932 - 04/19/04 09:17 PM Re: Lender Websites
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
Quote:

so as far as I know, none of our lenders maintain their own.


How often do you search for unauthorized sites and any other undesirable material referencing your bank?
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#180933 - 04/19/04 10:05 PM Re: Lender Websites
Pale Rider Offline
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under the Lone Star
Probably not often enough Richard, but thanks to Andy Z. I did learn how to identify links to our bank's homepage and in turn, provide those links to our IT people so that they could determine compliance with their policy. The initial investigation found one residential lender operating her own website, which was quickly shut down.
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Societies that do not find work in and of itself "pleasing to God and requisite to Man," tend to be highly corrupt.


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#180934 - 04/20/04 03:00 PM Re: Lender Websites
Anonymous
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So how can I check for links to my bank from other websites?

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#180935 - 04/20/04 06:26 PM Re: Lender Websites
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
You do an "advanced search" with Google and enter page addresses you want to test in the "Page-Specific Search" fields. Start with your home page and then move on the top level pages in your product sections.
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#180936 - 04/20/04 11:47 PM Re: Lender Websites
Andy_Z Offline
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On the Net
Excerpt from an Internet policy I wrote: To determine link popularity, visit AOL, HotBot, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, Go, Northern Light, FAST and Google for example and enter “link:sitename” (without quotes) in the search field. "Sitename" would be changed for each of your Uniform Resource Locators (URL). For example, to find out how many Web pages link to the Bank Name site at www.bankname.com, enter:

link:http://www.bankname.com
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