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Remember the days before the Do-Not-Call Registry? Sure you do. Enjoy dinner, a quiet evening with the family, relaxing with a good book, or dozing in the lazy-boy in front of the tube. You could have it all as long as you were willing to put up with a seemingly endless string of solicitation calls. You hated it; I hated it; everyone but the telemarketing people hated it. And then, magically, we discovered that we could turn off most of it by simply adding our telephone number to the national Do-Not-Call Registry. Now it’s not complete. Your politicians ensured they could still call and charities are allowed to call. But it’s pretty good and, if for some unfathomable reason you haven’t registered your phone number, call the Registry’s toll-free number at 888-382-1222 or jump on their website at www.donotcall.gov.

But wait. There’s more. It’s kind of a “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” situation. The shark, in these waters, is called “Trigger Lead.”

The shark is released and starts hunting the moment your mortgage broker or lender requests your credit report. The initial request is necessary. Your loan officer needs that credit report to access your credit scores and establish your debt-to-income ratios. Both are needed to develop solid scenarios and process your application.

When the request is processed by the consumer credit reporting companies (Equifax, TransUnion, Innovis, and Experian), they may place your personal information on a prescreened list – the Trigger List.

Within hours the list may be sold to hundreds or thousands of companies. This is something completely out of the loan officer’s hands. The loan officer didn’t authorize it and is absolutely powerless to stop it.

Within hours you’ll begin to receive phone solicitations about mortgage products and within days you begin to receive mail solicitations. Chances are these contacts are from companies you don’t recognize. However, one thing is certain; these companies will initially woo you with some pretty attractive mortgage packages.

When those calls and letters come, and they will come, be alert to “bait & switch” propositions; offers that have a quasi-official tone, as if there were something “official” about the offer; offers of impossibly low rates; offers of no closing costs; and telemarketers who are asking for pin numbers, passwords, your mother’s maiden name or your social security number in the initial call. All of these and many more may be indicators that you’re being contacted by some of my more unscrupulous brethren. Be careful.

What can you do? Just as you were able to turn off the unsolicited telemarketing calls by submitting your telephone number to the Do-Not-Call Registry, you can prevent the credit bureaus from placing your information on the “trigger lists” by “opting-out” of the process.

You can opt-out by visiting www.optoutprescreen.com or by calling the toll-free number 888-5-opt-out (888-567-8688). When you call or visit the website, you will be asked to provide personal information including your name, home telephone number, social security number and date of birth. The information will be protected and will be used only to process your request to opt out of the prescreened or trigger list programs.