Comments on: Misleading consumers in the marketing of United First Financial Money Merge Account

By: dbpete

dbpete — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:51:13 +0000

Well people, some of you are very cheap. I know that I can pay off my mortgage early by adding more principal. That has been known to every borrower since the first loan was made. However, very few have ever done it.
I am a mulit – licensed individual and was at the top of my highly esteemed class in all subjects except for foreign language, so please don’t insinuate that I don’t understand. This product is genuinely good. It provides the structure for a normal person to follow a plan to eliminate debt. Plainly and simply, that is what it is for.
I, too, at first thought that the price was quite hefty. However, there is a difference between price and value. After analyzing this system and calculating my own formulas and laying out my own spreadsheets, I have realized that I could counsel people on this method. However, if I were to personally counsel them and provide that support, it would cost them more than $3,500. The experts are in place. The cost is substantial, but it is well worth it. It will more than save a borrower many years of payments and multiples of that in interest costs. Further, the fee provide support for the life of the loan and you can transfer it to future loans if you sell this property. I have no beef with the amount that an agent is paid. Frankly, having independent agents reduces the cost of the plan since there are fewer fixed costs of overhead to the company. When your bank clerk sets up your CD account, don’t you think that the department head gets points toward his bonus and the bank officers tally the numbers looking at their bonus? There are levels of support in every business model and all are compensated somehow. The most efficient is a model like this. Less efficient models require hourly pay or salaries to the actual employees (who are less motivated to share the good ideas). The worst business models are the top heavy government bureaucracies that we have to deal with every day.
If someone is showing this plan to you, listen carefully. An open mind can learn much. A closed mind stews in its own ignorance. One caveat is that this is a plan to be used. It serves the borrower best when he actually uses it on a regular basis. However, if it happens to get set aside for a time, it can be resumed and will still have benefit. It is always up to the consumer to use any product that they buy. Some will buy boxes of frozen food and will throw half of it away after a year. Just because they are too lazy to cook, doesn’t mean that the food was worthless. Just like the U 1st account, it is incumbent on the borrower to make use of it or to enlist the help of a trusted friend or even their accountant to help them continue. The support available at the company should be enough for most people to be mortgage free in record time. Ten years from now, any one of you would be thrilled if you could pay $3500 to get rid of a mortgage. You will kick yourself if you are in the same position then as you are today. The trick is that time is your friend and you need to start sooner than later. New plans even allow the fees to be paid over time. How can you beat that?

By: Any way you slice it, the UFF Money Merge Account loses : Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:57:43 +0000

[...] help you pay off your mortgage in record time, all for the low, low price of $3,500. Unfortunately, it’s being marketed with lies, and the UFF proponents who comment here consistently repeat the [...]

By: Immediate Edge: Scam or not? : Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog

Immediate Edge: Scam or not? : Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:45:32 +0000

[...] the scam lies not only in the big price tag, but in the fact that this software is being sold with lies and deception. Consumers are being sold something they’re told will do what they can’t [...]

By: United First Financial: Don’t believe the hype | Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:46:38 +0000

[...] tells you to do a fancy money shuffle each month. And it’s been shown time and again that this shuffle saves you only a few dollars per month at most. Which isn’t nearly enough to offset the $3,500 cost of the [...]

By: Craig Hansen

Craig Hansen — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:33:18 +0000

Michelle,

1. “Enable” is simply supplying the means to do something. The MMA doesn’t do that. You already had the means to accelerate your mortgage. The MMA supplies nothing you didn’t already have.

2. This is where you and your fellow agents prove yourselves to be weapons-grade stupid at math. One argument for using the MMA is to make use of money that would otherwise be sitting around, not working for you. Fine, says Tracy, if you have $3000 sitting in a checking account providing liquidity (which alone is a good thing), that money could be “cancelling”, at most, $15-$20 per month of mortgage interest. Those are your savings due to the MMA, at the cost of $3500 plus the interest on that (cancelling even your monthly savings above) for the life of the mortgage. All the rest of the income and expenses are the same in the MMA and non-MMA scenarios. The same money can be applied to the mortgage as extra payments. You don’t need the MMA, because it’s easier to prepay without it.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:01:07 +0000

We’ll go line by line as you did with review…

1.) “Enable” doesn’t mean what you are insinuating…that someone can’t achieve something without using the product. Quite simply, it means to provide an opportunity or means to accomplish something, which this product does.

2.) This “money shuffle” isn’t calculating interest on a $3,000 balance of a checking accout (which is your example above), but a mortgage of several thousand dollars in interest charges. Are you kidding me??? You’re misrepresenting this product completely by using this example.

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:02:15 +0000

They want you to think it’s “on steroids” but the truth is that it’s expensive and time consuming, and only puts you FURTHER BEHIND because of the $3,500 fee. You could use a simple spreadsheet (or go without) and you wouldn’t need any assistance because it’s so simple.

As for the guarantee from UFF? Not worth the paper it’s written on, in my opinion. See here: http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/2008/09/10/the-united-first-financial-limited-guarantee/

By: Gfunk 3000

Gfunk 3000 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:31:13 +0000

Your system? What is your system again? Putting extra money towards your principle? This concept and system is “your system” on steroids which achieves the desired goal of owning your house and being debt free much faster. I doubt you offer a guaranty and assistance when needed.

By: Tracy Coenen

Tracy Coenen — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:12:07 +0000

Gfunk – The consumer can save the $20,000 in interest PLUS tens of thousands more if they pay extra on their mortgage every month, just as UFF will tell them to do (except my method is free and actually saves them more money).

By: Gfunk 3000

Gfunk 3000 — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:02:30 +0000

The virgin one account has received awards for being the top account service and top mortgage service from industry publications in the UK from 2002-2006 and there are a lot of positive remarks as to how the account has helped people. As for UFF some of the people who are selling the product might not be financial guru’s, but on the flip side there are a fair amount of people in the mortgage, and financial industry who are using it to their advantage. The reason they are using the product to their advantage is because they are financial guru’s in their respected fields and understand the full power of the product and the concept. I would ask you to do a little more research on UFF because you can spend the $3,500 to take $20,000 off in interest, but that only happens once. With this product you are constantly reducing your debt and will have the product for the rest of your life for the one time fee. There are people who have been $300,000 in debt but are now debt free because of the software. UFF has also received a share of awards from the industry. The company started less than two years ago. I would ask you to look a little closer. This is a genuine product.