5/02/2023

Accused of Violating Trade Secrets in Mortgage?


 

trade secrets, and pipeline reports when they leave a company.
Everyone in the mortgage business is in flux.
Millions of layoffs and many mortgage companies filed bankruptcy or 
lost their warehouse lines.

Here is my advice on uploading your client list into the new company
CRM.
First when you share your information with the new company and the
contract CRM service assume they will sell all the information and
share it to others. Add some bogies and your own personal contacts
to test the later actions.

"My ancient Goldmine list never gets uploaded to new company CRM. My customer list of emails, phone, birthdays and children's names belongs to me.
We are really only talking about new customer information.
When loan officer parts ways (in this mortgage environment a million people have been laid off and hundreds of companies BK) never download the 1003's/ or download MISMO files etc as Federal law reaches over this. All CRM platforms can be locked by the lender to prevent downloading. A lender who fails to lock out down-loads acts as if they do not value the list.

I own patents for loan operating software. Mortgage companies use the same tools, there is no secret sauce in LOS or hashtagfintech software. All LOS operations are generally known. A software developer doesn't own coding language if their employer agreement says so... But we are not talking about software here it is about the names, phone numbers, emails that the lender can use to sell to lead generation companies, big aggregators, or their own future sales force."
C G Caroline Gerardo Barbeau

Warning to companies who have staff legal or pursue claims against Loan Officers, Loan Agents, Loan Consultants, licensed mortgage loan NMLS officers.
The plaintiff has to prove to the court that these are customer related trade secrets and the court like most people has no understanding of the loan process. Plaintiffs counsel has to prove there was theft, they have to show what a trade secret is under Federal laws and statutes. The secrets cannot be generally known. 
In my opinion the names, phone numbers and emails can be derived from MANY other sources: Meta, Linkedin, personal emails, and so forth. The plaintiff thinks that owning the contacts gives them financial benefit. It may in a few cases but generally the personal relationship is what drove the business. The plaintiff can and does sell the information to others and also distributes to employees to recapture leads and new business. 
Hmm the borrower mortgage client really ought to make a claim for privacy but they have no idea this occurs. Plaintiff filing could be responsible for both sides attorney fees and costs if not prepared.