Pros
Working from a home office.
Cons
I am ashamed to say I was gullible enough to quit my lucrative job and sign up under the bright lights and flashy linked in ads touting tales of the new revolutionary "DIRECT FLEX" Loan Officer position and state of the art MELLO app. I've always wanted to work remotely and get the hell out of California, so this was too tempting to pass up- not only is the pay up to 150 bps per loan but leads are provided. I do not have my own large referral base (which I made very clear in my multiple phone and then in person interviews) and hoped this would give me the opportunity to work part time on the incoming leads, and partially on networking to build that base. I was promised at least 3 live transfers a day (meaning an interested person that a CSR transfers directly to my phone to convert). On top of that, access to their abundant lead pools - which supposedly run ripe with low hanging fruit, trigger leads, loans that simply fell through the cracks since the inside LO's are so incompetent and new. Easy pickings for an experienced LO. Sounds great right?! After losing commission quitting my job, spending over $1,000 buying a new computer, getting a land line installed (which I was told was mandatory) and setting up my new at home office I find out on DAY 5 of training this was a complete lie. There are no direct transfers. I immediately text my recruiter saying why was I told I’d have transfers and now I find out that is not true? He gives a weak excuse about how that was the plan but not anymore. Cool, thanks for telling me! So in reality, you only have access to call out on the lead pools and get 3 "data leads" assigned to you each day. WTF is a data lead? I still don’t know but 90% of them were bad numbers or obviously the cheapest internet leads available that you'd never reach, the other 10% had no idea why you were calling and didn't own a home or have any interest in purchasing one. Not even close to being equivalent to 3 direct transfers. Still, who cares though management says after I voice concern on the first week - "the Real money" is in the outbound calls! These leads are “So easy my young Granddaughter could make money dialing on them” (A direct quote from my manager). Ok, I think - if there is any potential here I want to make it work, I’ve been successful at every company I’ve worked at and if his granddaughter can do it so can I! Fast forward 150-200 out bound calls/ day later for the next 2 weeks. In the meantime I hear other new Direct Flex Lo's complaining and quitting left and right. They now offer that I can COME IN to the office to get inbound calls. Does that not completely defeat the purpose of taking a remote position? Beyond being flat out lied to about the leads, MELLO is the most inefficient, backwards way of taking an application I can imagine. Somehow the leads system is even worse and if you need any assistance from IT don’t hold your breath. It took them nearly 2 ½ weeks of submitting “help tickets” to finally remove my cell phone number from my signature and auto populated emails. I guess I forgot to drink the Kool-aid – there is so much hype about this position and their technology and it is just plain disappointing. If you are considering this position please think twice about it, without a solid referral base it will be insanely difficult to make any money here. You guessed it! I quit within the first month and would never consider going back.
