Recently I was approached by a person working for a mortgage company who claimed to be looking for Real Estate agents in the Nashville area to handle their buyers buying in Tennessee. I asked him if these were people that were getting their mortgages through his company, and if so, what where they expecting from me as an agent. Very simple, he said, you just pay us $25.00 for the lead, and then 10% of the commission at closing.
Am I missing something here, or are these maggots getting paid their fee's for writing the mortgage, and then expecting ME to pay them as well?

The company is First Century Mortgage, and the person that approached me's name was Bob Stanley.. www.firstcenturymortgage.net

Is this what our industry is turning into?

Update: Yesterday (3/25/09) I received another email from a person claiming to be looking for an agent in the Nashville area that she could refer a client to who was interested in buying a home in the area. Her name was Darlene Patty, and claimed to be a Real Estate Agent however; when I called the number she left, it was again First Century Mortgage. I replied to her email questioning her affiliation with this mortgage company, and within an hour, received a phone call from First Century Mortgage. The person calling was wondering why I sent the email, and when I asked if I was speaking to Ms Patty, was told that I would be transfered to her supervisor. This time the person on the other end of the phone said she had to put me on hold for a minute in which case I hung up. Within about 3 minutes, the same lady called me back and apologized for putting me on hold and wondered why I didn't want to wait, and why I hung up. When I asked her where Ms Patty was, I was told that I just didn't understand the program, and asked who I had spoken to previously. At that time, I explained that I wanted no part in their program, and to please remove my phone number and email address from their data base, and then hung up again. She again called back within about 2 minutes to inform me that she had spoken to her boss, and he had agreed to eliminate the 10% fee at closing, and that I could just pay them $25.00 up front for any leads that they sent me. I again informed her that I was not interested and to please stop calling me. Each time she called, I was placed on speaker phone without my consent, and when I would ask a question, would receive no response from the other end of the phone, only the voices of other people in the background. It was as if they wanted all to hear what I was saying. Each time I hung up, when she called back she apologized and said she was trying to take me of speaker prior to me hanging up.