Banned in Minnesota Today: Trigger Leads
One of the better pieces of legislation to come out the East side sausage factory this year is a law banning the sale of what are known as "trigger leads" (more on this here, and here.)
[The] new law prohibits consumer reporting agencies or any other business entity from selling or exchanging with a third party information that a person’s credit history was requested in connection with a mortgage loan application.
In other words, until today, any time you applied for a mortgage, or had a mortgage lender run your credit report, that information, along with whatever other data was available in your file (credit score, current address, telephone number, loan balances, etc.) was immediately sold [Edit for Clarification: Sold by the credit repositories - Experian, Equifax, Trans-Union, not your lender, who has no control over this], over and over again, to all manner of sketchball lenders from coast to coast, which would then use that data to solicit you for a loan, often using shady tactics ("your lender asked us to call you because our rates are better" for instance.)
Though we have always recommended shopping for a mortgage lender to work with, this should be done on your terms, rather than having your data indiscriminately sold to whoever will write the check. Trigger leads are a breach of consumer privacy, and absolutely one of the more onerous practices the credit industry engages in. Good law.
Mortgage Privacy Law Summary [leg.state.mn]