Anyone who knows me knows my passion for seeing people experience freedom from debt and financial stress. They also know that there are few things that anger me more than programs that promise to solve all your financial problems for one low fee.
Naturally, when I received an email from some guy wanting to tell me about this amazing program (United First Financial’s Money Merge Account) that will shave years off my mortgage, the red flags went up. I became even more alarmed when I realized that the “Money Merge Account” isn’t really an account at all, but web-based software that can cost up to $3,500 to access.
What does the software do?
In the end, nothing different than what prudent people have being doing for decades for free - using their discretionary income to pay down their home mortgage principal. Of course, this software encourages you to do arguably foolish things like taking out a home equity mortgage to try and speed up that process (even though many people may not realize they can’t even qualify for a HELOC until after they’ve spent the $3,500 for the software).
But, to be fair, I asked the guy to send me a demo of the software. He indicated however, that the only way I could have access is if I did “a demo call” with him. When I told him that I don’t have the time to sit through a demo call and that I would only review the product if given full access on my own time, he chose to pass.
That’s not very encouraging from a company that claims their product is changing lives. I’m not sure what kind of sales training they’re giving these guys, but that pretty much killed it for me.
Turns out I’m not the only one. Check these links out:
Personal finance author Dave Ramsey gets into it on air with a completely clueless (you almost feel bad for her) lady trying to pitch this program.
Listen Now.
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine article encouraging consumers to avoid this program.
Read Now.
In the end, if you’ve got $3,500 to spend, don’t send it to United First Financial. If anything, go buy a $50-$100 personal finance program like Quicken, which does essentially the same thing, and send the rest of that $3,500 in to pay down your mortgage. My guess is, five years from now, you’ll be reaping a lot more rewards from that than from signing up for the Money Merge Account system.
