Interestingly enough there is alot more research done on united first financial than I thought. What i would like to bring to your attention is like Eric said above, there are approximately 60,000 using the MMA. Common sense tells me that I would bet at least half of those people have researched the product as well. Seems to me like you’re calling them stupid. That’s rude.

“What i would like to bring to your attention is like Eric said above, there are approximately 60,000 using the MMA. Common sense tells me that I would bet at least half of those people have researched the product as well. Seems to me like you’re calling them stupid. That’s rude.”

I don’t know about “stupid”, but I would call them “gullible”, “too trusting” and “a salesman’s dream”.

The positive research done on UFF was commissioned by UFF. The industry rags that report glowingly on them are small publications with high UFF advertising content. The E&Y award was sponsored by E&Y, not investigated by E&Y.

If the MMA really worked, and I wish it did, it would be huge. Think about it for a second. They’re claiming massive savings. Everyone would be demanding it. It’s been over 2 years.

If you’re right and there are 60,000 clients, that’s not a lot to show for such a “ground breaking” product.

But considering UFF nets $1000 per sale, they’ve made $90 million.

Agents split $2500 per sale (assuming the entire $2500 is paid out). A conservative estimate is 10,000 agents. The mean average agent has made $15,000 on the MMA. Of course, a few agents have recruited well, and are doing great. As with any MLM, most agents are making next to nothing.

This is a bad deal for almost everyone involved, except a few agents and UFF themselves.

Investments fraud includes FAILURE to DISCLOSE or to tell the WHOLE TRUTH.

Reference the recent Citi, UBS, and Merril settlements for auction rate securities which had been IMO fraudulently sold as “cash equivalents” when those companies knew or should have known those instruments were not reliably cash equivalents over time without their support.

Wow, it’s eerily similar… Do the mma salesman claim a heloc debt is a cash equivalent?… that it’s not a mortgage?… even that it’s not debt? That it’s not risky? That it saves you money in NET? That it pays of your mortgage faster? Do they tell the WHOLE Truth upfront, before they “extract” their $3,500 swindle?

Sometimes the law holds people who assist in furthering the fraud liable even if they did not know about the fraud. There is an imputed duty of care, in that the purveyors of investment schemes are held accountable to known even if they are actually unaware. For example, as a matter of law someone who holds themselves out to be an “Agent” for another is accountable for illegal actions in which they participate even if they are unaware, as a matter of law.

To sustain a claim of fraud, it is required to prove each of the nine elements of fraud:
(1) a representation; (mma saves money)
(2) falsity of the representation; (it does not save money, it is a net financial loss)
(3) materiality of the representation; (money savings is the reason someone buys it – “pay off in less time”)
(4) speaker’s knowledge of the falsity of the representation; (intentional construction of the sales presentation, agent training, and marketing claims and intentional omission of the whole truth from those materials and presentations. Incomplete numerical comparisons that falsely and misleadingly show savings where none in fact exist)
(5) the speaker’s intent it should be relied upon; (they hold it out to be true, sophisticated software, run a simulation of customer’s own data, etc…)
(6) the hearer’s ignorance of the falsity of the representation; (it is somewhat complex financially due to the unnecessary heloc smoke and mirrors, etc… however proof of the falsity is obvious to educated professionals who take care and perform simple numerical calculations)
(7) the hearer’s reliance on the representation; (that’s the prime reason(s) the software is purchased, why else would someone pay $3,500 for “budgeting software” )
(8) the hearer’s right to rely on the representation; and (they are being sold the product by an “agent” who represents the principal.)
(9) the hearer’s consequent and proximate injury caused by reliance on the representation. (loss of $3,500, loss on arbitrage operations, both further compounded over time!)

IMO all 9 elements have been quite clearly satisfied.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/property/smoke-and-mirrors/2004/09/28/1096137225560.html

Carole,

I doubt version 4 will be any easier to follow than version 3. The irony is the only worthwhile transaction you need are the few that are directed to your mortgage. Everything else to do with your HELOC is just a smokescreen.

UFF is under no obligation to refund your money. They only promised that if you have the income and expenses you listed and signed your name to, and if you followed the MMA software directions, the MMA would pay down the mortgage as fast as your report said it would. They really only guarantee that 1+1=2. That I’m aware, the guarantee doesn’t cover upgrades, customer satisfaction, or anything of the sort.

UFF strongly suggests marketing within church groups. Your agent and fellow churchgoer probably knows very little about mortgages – very few UFF agents do. UFF has some very clever marketing that impresses a lot of people. Your agent may still believe that he/she did you a service.

For any hope for a refund, I suggest you contact the Better Business Bureau in Utah. Here is the UFF page there:

http://utah.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=139&bbb=1166&firm=22021100

They are up to 9 BBB cases now, though they have all been “resolved”. I suspect this BBB entry of the parent company is the only one they care about. I doubt UFF will care if you make a BBB complaint against your agent – agents are like human shields to a company like UFF. I believe your only hope is a BBB complaint against the parent company.

Do you have any promises in writing that were broken? Anything that refers to version 4? That will help, as your argument should be that you did not receive what was promised. That either version of the MMA is overpriced, inefficient and more difficult than prepaying the mortgage yourself makes the MMA a terrible purchase, but those points probably won’t get you your money back.

Good luck, and please update us on your progress.

Regards,
Craig Hansen

I Googled him, and I see he has already been prosecuted and convicted in another debt elimination scheme, but where is the link to UFF?

The fact is, financial scams and MLM’s run riot through congregations like pink-eye at a daycare. You’re even more likely to be hosed by someone from your congregation than you are at an “investor’s club,” which is saying something! Conmen will always seek out a ready collection of trusting suckers. Despite my a-religious nature, one of my closest friends is a very serious Reverend, and such scams and the way they propagate is something that his church has trained it’s ministers to identify and deal with, just as they would with family and personal problems in their parishoners(sp?). In conversation he’s quite spirited and caustic on the impact that such schemes wreak on families and friendships.

I found this site while trying to get more useful information about United First Financial. Some of the posts have been useful, but some are just negative outbursts.

First of all, I read so many posts that call this a scam. What is everyone’s definition of a scam? Are some people confusing the word “scam” with the word “over-priced”?

For example, I was in an upscale store last week and I saw a women purchasing some newly released designer items. I saw a women’s designer bra with a price tag of $150.00, a designer handbag for $2000.00, and designer shoes for $900.00. All of these items could be purchased at WalMart at a cheaper price. Is this a scam?? These “designer” items are advertised in glossy magazines! Are these designer items really better than the WalMart items? Is the designer store over-charging and scamming their customers?? Are the glossy magazines and the designer store’s salesperson participating in the scam? If a customer buys and then wears a $150.00 designer bra for three days and then attempts to get a full refund, will that customer get her money back? No, probably not.

In addition, is WalMart scamming customers too? Isn’t it possible for us to make our own clothes and shoes and handbags? Can’t we go on the Internet and find FREE instructions on how to make your own bras, shoes, and handbags? Isn’t it possible to find the materials to make these items for a really cheap price? Go to Yahoo or Google and try, it’s easy!! I just really think there is a difference between “scam” and something being “over-priced.”

In addition, “over-priced” could mean “over-priced” to ME, but my neighbor could think the same thing is worth every penny spent.

Everyone seems to agree that anybody with a home loan can send in additional payments in an effort to pay off a home loan faster. That is easy, right!

But what if I send in an extra $300 this year and another extra $1000 next year, exactly how much money in interest will that save me and exactly how much time gets reduced off of my 30 year loan? Who can give me that answer at 8PM on a Sunday night? Who can I call Monday morning and how quickly can my question be answered? Somebody out there, please direct me to someone that can answer my questions, right now TODAY? Give me a phone number to a specific person that will answer these questions for FREE. FREE!

After you give me that phone number, I am going to give that phone number to all of my friends, family, and co-workers. Let’s see how quickly all of the calls get directed into a voicemail. How long before the number gets disconnected and the person disappears. Imagine all of the complaints that will happen as the phone number gets spread to everyone around the United States and people begin to get busy signals and no one responds to hundreds of voicemail messages.

Eventually the person WORKING that FREE info phone number is going to have to charge a fee. If a real, live person isn’t doing the math to figure out the numbers I want, I need to learn on my own how to do it with a mortgage calulator or buy some type of computer program. Just because United First Financial charges $3,500 doesn’t make it a scam. Is it over-priced? Maybe, maybe not…. It just seems like expensive, designer software that costs $3,500.

Somebody mentioned that there is a similar product for far less that $3,500 and therefore the $3,500 is a scam. Let me ask you a question. If you buy a brand new 2009 Ford today and then a week later you see it advertised for $2000 less at another dealer, did your salesperson and your dealer scam you? I really would like to know if the cheaper option is exactly the same as the $3,500 software?

There are price differences for almost everything we buy, but it is up to the consumer to shop around. It is not a scam if the consumer does not shop around, is it?

As for the “money-saving” claims, we already ALL agree that making extra payments will reduce the loan balance, the interest charges, and the length to payoff. In the end, the amount of money saved depends on the amount of extra money the consumer sends in to pay down the loan. Could someone direct me to the location on the United First Financial web site where their “money-saving” claims are NOT TRUE. If somebody wants to keep track of all of that and other credit card payments using $3,500 worth of software, how is that a scam? How else are you going to keep track of it?

As for the home equity line of credit, what is the big deal? People use home equity lines of credit to buy boats, cars, jewelry, fur coats, vacations, pay college tuition, plastic surgery, nose jobs, breast implants, lipo-suction, re-modeling and additions to homes, and many other things! In this situation, somebody is using a home equity line of credit to reduce the interest charges on a homeloan? Hello? So what?!

One of the posts mentioned that agents do not have a license and have no training. A license or training to sell software that keeps track of loans and payments? Everyone is saying how easy it is to do all of this on your own without buying $3,500 worth of software and now somebody says the agents do not have a license or training? A license for what?

Someone else mentioned that the agents do not have the software or have a home loan themselves therefore it is a scam. A gas station clerk can sell diesel gas to a truck driver but not personally own a vehicle that uses diesel fuel. Right? Is the trucker going to ask the clerk if the he/she owns a vehicle that uses deisel fuel? If the clerk says, “No” is the trucker going to say “This is a scam, I am calling the Better Business Bureau?”

Another post mentions MLM. MLM? If it is a legal MLM organization, what is the problem? After the company receives the $3,500 from a customer, who really cares how the money gets divided as long as it is legal. When you buy your groceries everyweek and spend about $150 – $250, what happens to that money? The cashier gets paid minimum wage and the supervisor gets paid more than the cashier and the Store Manager gets paid more with a bonus and the district manager gets paid more with a bigger bonus. Is that a scam?

If I buy software for $3,500 and it keeps track of what I want it to keep track of, should I be afraid because it is being sold by a MLM salesperson?

There was another post that mentioned the Better Business Bureau (BBB). I was so happy to see the link, because I was going to check them out with the BBB. They had 9 complaints and they were all resolved.

I am still confused? Why are people still saying this is a scam? Does it make sense to simply call this expensive, designer software for $3,500?? Is that a better description than scam???

“In this situation, somebody is using a home equity line of credit to reduce the interest charges on a homeloan? Hello? So what?!”

No, the HELOC just gives an illusion of saving interest. It saves, at most, $25 or so per month, and are usually cancelled out or exceeded by the interest on the $3500 fee. The bulk of the savings are from simple prepayment that never needed the HELOC in the first place.

This is the crux of the scam argument – the HELOC or CC used by the MMA have next to nothing to do with the savings – they’re just there to look impressive. The architecture of the MMA is based on a lie.

Lie to get someone to spend $3500? That’s a scam.

“Does it make sense to simply call this expensive, designer software for $3,500?? Is that a better description than scam???”

No, “scam” is a better fit.

Eric, if you “send it 3 or 4 times a normal mortgage payment” from your HELOC, you just created a new debt 3 or 4 times the size of a normal mortgage payment.

You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. With good timing of income and delaying expenses, you might save a few bucks.

UFF are the ones making the extraordinary claims. Let them demonstrate clearly, with all money movements out in the open, how to beat a simple DIY approach.

But first, they need to demonstrate they can beat a simple DIY approach at all. You can find examples of UFF agents losing at Fatwallet, Scam dot com, and most recently:
http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/united-first-financial-money-merge-accounts-scam-or-legit.html

Start reading UFF agent James Barnes’ challenge of August 18th, and JimmyDaGeek’s answer on August 19th. This one is nice because it buries the new “you can’t beat the MMA for multiple debts” claim.

Tracey,

How are your book sales going? Riding on coat tails.

Craig said:

«But first, they need to demonstrate they can beat a simple DIY approach at all. You can find examples of UFF agents losing at Fatwallet, Scam dot com, and most recently:
http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/united-first-financial-money-merge-accounts-scam-or-legit.html

Start reading UFF agent James Barnes’ challenge of August 18th, and JimmyDaGeek’s answer on August 19th. This one is nice because it buries the new “you can’t beat the MMA for multiple debts” claim. »

Craig also said:

«I also recently posted a conversation I had with a UFF agent and his upline to Scam dot com. In those emails, I used simple (and free) online mortgage calculators to beat the MMA claims, and the agent agreed with my numbers, until it got really embarrassing for him.

http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=46373 »

———–

Craig, these must be two of the most funniest threads I’ve read about the UFF system/scam.

I wonder if anyone still believes in the miraculous capabilities of that bogus software app.

Best Regards,

Pedro

I just had a few moments to read some of the threads where a UFF was challenged.

I think I am still missing the point. Where is the scam?

In the challenge, the DIY approach beat the numbers from UFF. But wasn’t money and time saved from using the MMA product? It seemed like money and time was saved, but not as much time and money as the DIY approach. The software did what it was supposed to do, right? So where is the scam???

For example, I have the ability to wash and wax my car. However, I could pay someone to wash and wax my car. The local car wash could claim that I could save time and money by getting my car washed and waxed at their car wash for $100.00. Sounds like a good deal to me, right?

Maybe, maybe not. Someone directs me to a web site that says getting your car washed and waxed for $100.00 is a scam……you could do it yourself and put the $100.00 in a savings account and let it earn interest until you retire! The local car wash didn’t tell me I could save $100.00 by doing it myself, so they are scamming me out of my $100.00. Does that make sense?

Would that be crazy or what? Just because a business charges someone money for doing something you could learn to do on your own doesn’t mean it is a scam does it? Even if you could do it cheaper on your own, the customer has the option to not buy the product or service, but to call the business a scam is not right, is it?

Just because the customer does not understand interest rates, mortgages, HELOCS, and they don’t know how to use a mortgage calculator doesn’t make them dumb people that got taked advantaged of. If these customers buy a $3,500 product that helps them pay off debt sooner than normal, why should they be looked upon as if someone took advantage of them.

A homeowner could have learned to do it themselves for FREE, but they did have the time or the desire. Why should they be viewed as poor, un-educated customers that were taken advantage of?? They could have saved a lot more money if they learned it themselves, but they decided to pay someone else to do it and they still saved some time and money [but just not as much money if the learned/did it on their own for FREE]. Where is the scam?? How is that a scam??

Kevin is probably repeating himself b/c his basic question is never answered – only the same responses come back: “you can do it yourself” “Higher rate to pay off lower rate”, etc.

I NEVER posted UFF promotional materials because I don’t have any. I did provide a link to my personal analysis they ran – a pdf file. For people to judge as they wanted to. I also provided a link to an NBC local affiliate news story (the video) about them reviewing this product and saying it worked.

Those were both removed (multiple times) w/o anyone actually being able to see them. I’ll say again that it doesn’t help your case when you remove data that appears to counter your argument.

The one thing nobody is responding to is the way the HELOC is used. The way it’s described is that you move all of your normal banking into it. It has to be a very specific type of HELOC to work – one that has these characteristics (as provided by the agent):
-Must be an open ended Home Equity Line of Credit
-Must have an interest only payment option
-Must be attached to the primary residence in a second lien position
-Must be a variable rate

These things are ALL part of making the HELOC work to your advantage – more than “borrowing money at a higher rate to pay a lower rate loan.” This is the stuff that no one responds to on here – the actual details of the program’s application. I’m not going to go into the details of why those things are there b/c I doubt there would be any thoughtful responses. BUT there was a lot more data provided about the need for the HELOC and how it’s used that ANY response on here has dealt with.

I’m, like Kevin apparently, reviewing their claims and the SW. I have not bought (so I don’t need to justify the purchase) and I certainly don’t sell the product.

Pedro,

Yeah, I know I kind of only gave two silly options in my hypothetical example. [I only made the choices like that because that is how a lot of customers make decisions. We can call customers and UFF agents stupid idiots all day long, but just look at the choices the majority of Americans have made. A salesperson can only educate a customer if the CUSTOMER WANTS to be educated.] Yes, if I added your third option, I agree 100% that consulting with a financial advisor makes the most sense.

However, I hope we all see one of the main issues. You said, “a third option only becomes evident as soon as a UFF agent contacts a customer.” How is it that the UFF agent is getting to the customer BEFORE the financial advisor gets to the same customer?? How is it that the UFF agent is getting the customer’s attention BEFORE the financial advisor?? This really needs to be explored!!! Some people prefer to post things like, “scam, stupid, idiot, etc.” However, there are some valuable lessons here about “how to sell and get a customer’s attention” and “a customer’s behavior towards price.” In this situation, the customer does not care about spending the $3500 and UFF agents are getting to customers BEFORE highly trained people like financial planners/advisors and mortgage professionals. Why doesn’t the customer care about spend $3500? Why aren’t the “smarter financial people” not being consulted for debt solutions?

The UFF agent is good at getting to the customer first, right?! After the UFF agent gets the customer to look at their debt situation, what is the UFF agent supposed to do next? A UFF agent [or any salesperson/business owner] is supposed to charge the highest price the maket will bear without lying, stealing, cheating, or breaking the law. It is the customer’s job to shop around and look for the lowest possible price for a solution to their problem. A great salesperson/business owner will know that there are cheaper alternatives to what they are selling [know your competition] and this salesperson better have an answer to handle that objection. As long as the salesperson handles the objection without lying, stealing, cheating, or breaking the law, the salesperson will have a clear conscience. Yes or no? Am I seeing this part correctly?

Here is the answer to the question you asked me. When a UFF agent analyzes a customer’s situation, it is the customer’s job to find other solutions and compare prices. If the customer decides to return to the UFF agent and says, “I think I found a way to do this on my own without paying the $3,500.” The UFF agent should compare the calculations and if the customer was able to calculate out a plan they can follow on their own without paying $3500, then the UFF agent should acknowledge the customer’s FREE plan as an option. If the UFF and the MMA product has anything else to offer over and above the customer’s FREE plan, at this point the UFF agent should detail the extra stuff the customer will get for $3500. If the customer does not see value in spending the additional $3500 above their own FREE plan, then a sale will not happen. The customer will walk, right?

Correct me if I am wrong, please. I do not know of any industry sales positions that require the salesperson to direct a potential customer to all of the places the customer could find the same product/service at a cheaper price or for free. A salesperson’s conscience should be clear if they are not lying, stealing, cheating, or breaking the law.

I agree, “awareness” is really the main issue. The customer’s “desire to be aware” plays a part too. As salespeople we can preach and demonstrate products/services all day long, but if a customer does not WANT to be aware of cheaper or better ways to do something that is an issue the customer must deal with in the end.

In the end, it is awareness. It is the customer’s duty to find alternatives. The salesperson’s duty is to try to get the highest possible price the market will bear without lying, stealing, cheating, or breaking the law. A UFF agent should feel comfortable acknowledging a customer if they are able to show better, more effective calculations on their own. There is nothing wrong if UFF has found a market for a $3500 product where the majority of their customers do not wish [or don’t have the time] to be aware of FREE solutions. This is a capitalist country. A business offers their products/services in competition with other solutions. A business will stay in business long-term if they are offering the consumer long-term VALUE.

If there is no value in the UFF product, it will disappear shortly. However, with today’s economy, there seems to be a huge market for people wanting to get out of debt. It looks like people have no problem spending $3500 for a debt payoff solution and they are not concerned with searching for cheaper alternatives.

Tracy, I find it interesting how you can say “Every time you’ve responded here, you’ve provided a link to UFF propaganda, and this time was no different. ” when in actual fact I provided NO LINKS in my posting at all.

You come off sounding like the broken record, stating things (multiple times) that I have not done. Even if I HAD posted a link to an NBC news broadcast (which I referenced), how can you say that was UFF propaganda? Did they pay the station to review the product, try it out and then lie to an entire network viewing area?

I highly doubt that.

ok the nbc story only confirmed that this scheme works the software does what it is too do period I am more concerned that the uff agents in orlando FL are posing as sub teachers stealing phone numbers from student roles ,and targeting them as potential agents it would appear the adults are not falling for this over priced spreadsheet.

well both my teenagers in high school have recived phone calls from an agent who wanted to hire them as a sales force untill they turn 18 then they can be independent agents i spoke with this man who first told me that he was a retiree then told me he was a coach at a high school not in my area then finally admited he was a substitute teacher with the orange county public school system this is the way he would have gotten my childrens names and phone number I would say this practice is somewhat unethical.

no no he wanted them to go out ,and make sales calls he would pay 100.00 comission on each sale i do have his name and I will have a very lengthy conversation with the district in the morning even if he got the kids to give him the phone number for what ever reason would be inappropiate

“I must also say that I had not heard of this company I have however used the method of pay a couple of hundred more on the house every month an low ,and behold you have paid it off early ,and you saved some interest I can use my credit cards for free if I pay them off each month I always thought I just had common sense with this new software I won’t have to think anymore!!”

If you bought it, I’d say your common sense escaped.

I will say, it’s unfair for arguments sake that only one side of the argument is being linked. It’s only fair that this NBC local affiliate news story is able to be posted, because afterall, it’s not from United First Financial, it’s from the news. If that’s propaganda, then so is any link from scam.net or wherever else people are pulling things from. All I’m saying to the moderator is, this is a discussion so be fair to both parties and let them share their news links and even thier analysis with you if they like.

Is it too much to ask for math from people who sell a mortgage acceleration product? Forget videos, forget “I’m going to pay my mortgage off in…” claims.

Post examples, not summaries. Show us how this wonderful mortgage accelerator achieves these wonderful claimed results without increasing monthly payments.

All I really want is all the money movements for even one month. Income, expenses, transfers between accounts, and dates on all of it. Let’s see one example month. I know the MMA software won’t give an example month, so how about a UFF agent post their transaction records for one month? No names or account identifiers required.

Higher commissions that are spread between more uplines.

All mortgage accelerators are equally pointless.

Are they all MLM? So a guy instead of buying one for $3,500 can get the same thing for $325 and get the same results?

John,

I doubt all are MLM, but that doesn’t make the product any more appealing.

“So a guy instead of buying one for $3,500 can get the same thing for $325 and get the same results?”

Better yet, pay $0 and get better results.

craig, where do i get the DIY im not familiar with that. thank you

This truely is the Bottom Line! Wisdom has spoken! also a DIY is sorta like a FYI, thanks for the update, I get it!

His 2nd sentence says it all…”I did some quick research and came to the conclusion…”

Quick research with preconceived notions by cynical minds typically leads to inaccurate conclusions…case in point.

You want research? How about a little organization called “Ernst & Young” i.e., forensic auditing and in depth analysis prior to awarding a company the prestigious honor of “Entrepreneur of the Year” That’s right the founders/owners of United First Financial have been awarded the EoftheYear in the Financial Services sector and are up for the national honor hosted by Jay Leno in November of this year.

You did research? PLEASE…Is the world still flat in your mind?

AD Expeditor! I thought I remembered that name. Remember this from October 2007 on Scam.com?

“…I will be checking back during the first quarter of 2008. By then, we will all have seen/heard national news reports on the validity of this specific repayment method, and in particular the success of the UFF product and service…and there will STILL be those who interpret it otherwise.”

http://scam.com/showthread.php?p=447155#post447155

It’s a little past the “first quarter of 2008”. Where are the national news reports on UFF?

Thanks for the link to wikipedia. It will help get a deeper understanding.

Kevin, I wasn’t trying to be witty, either. I’m beyond surprised that you don’t know this stuff. You’ve been trying to debate this product for the last 10 days, and only now do we realize that you are starting from ground zero when it comes to understanding mortgages. That puts you on par with many UFF agents, but most of the ones we hear from have some basic knowledge of amortization. It’s often wrong and has been skewed by UFF redefining terms like “effective interest rate”, “compound interest” and “front-loaded” to brand new meanings, but at least they’ve heard of this stuff.

I mean, you even tried to throw numbers around. They made no sense at the time, and now I know why – because you don’t understand interest or amortization tables.

Why do you argue against this being a scam? How would you know?

If UFF really gave a hoot about their clients, they would teach this stuff to their sales staff. They don’t. What they do teach is misinformation. They only care that their sales staff can fill in a MMA application and complete a checklist of forms, photocopies and (of course) the certified cheque to include with the application.

The certified cheque (to UFF) is #1 on the checklist.

Shouldn’t people question and challenge everything to gain a better understanding? At some point in life, everyone will be remedial or at a basic level in something. Are you saying that these types of people should not question or challenge things for a better understanding?

You are making it sound like arguments and challenges are negative things. Experts love the challenges and arguments. You are holding yourself out in the public as someone who exposes scams and fraud.

What type of person do you expect to visit and contribute to your site? Only other experts? People who know nothing and don’t challenge or question anything? People who know nothing and just agree because they are afraid to ask basic/remedial questions?

I have learned a lot about UFF and their MMA from this site and other sites. However, I had to swim thru a lot of stuff to get the understanding I wanted.

Are you really surprised that people exist who know nothing about mortgages? I’m on par with UFF agents? Ok? I guess that means that everyone in the USA that does not understand anything about a basic mortgage is “on par with UFF agents”? Ok? What is your point?

My only reason for searching for more information was because of UFF’s sales and marketing techniques. I study advertisement and marketing that people respond to and we try to understand what makes people respond and buy. We noticed UFF because their sales and marketing is good at hiring agents AND getting a customer’s attention.

When we searched the internet to find more UFF promotional material, we found info that said UFF was a scam. This blog says they found a new pyramid scheme. We found that to be interesting, becasue UFF did a great job of getting lots of “credibility.”

Our first actions were to question those against UFF. Those against UFF must have great reasons why with examples and alternatives.

You said, “Why do you argue against this being a scam? How would you know?” Hello? You are right, how would I know? That is why I am on this web site. Yes, I threw numbers around. Why wouldn’t I? We are not trying to impress anyone, but trying to gain a better understanding.

It sounds like we are most likely on the wrong web site. This appeared to be a site that welcomed challenges and arguments as something positive. It also appeared to be a web site that welcomed first-time home buyers who know nothing about mortgages.

The average person will never be in a position to use calculus or algebra, but the average two or three income household will be in a position to get a mortgage. They will be sold a mortgage even if they do not understand that mortgage, because they need a home.

Unfortunately, we do not have to know mortgage basics to get a mortgage. You are in the public eye as a fraud authority. Part of your job is to alert and convince others that something is a scam. Nobody is going to just take your word for it. You are taking the easy way out by just throwing your hands up and saying, “….you don’t know mortgage basics so forget about it!”

Why do this site if you are not going to do it right??!! You are going to get arguments and challenges from people that have little or no knowledge. This is an opportunity for you, because there are lots of people that have mortgages and know nothing about mortgages. They could fall into a scam and you are letting them by unprofessional responses.

Tracy and Craig, it is such a refreshing breath of fresh air, just dripping thick with common sence, it is like cutting to the truth with with the sharpest and finest blade ever known to mankind, you folks think good, but better than that the explainations are great, it must be frustrating when a person dont or wont get it, listening to real reason like this is great reading, besides learning, having a correct answer at the exact right time is the best, knowing for real, and truely knowing you are right and can even prove it, how can a person dispute a thing so clearly put. Do you guys right or comment on any other things besides this particular type of thing??? oops! my mistake i went back to the top of this and Tracey you have a book on corporate fraud! I also read about the author, and just like on Waynes world, when they were before the mind and music of Alice Cooper, i say the same, I am not worthy!!! you folks are fun on this here blog….now i am missing the news. thank you, again great to hear great sence , and backed up opinion.

That’s awesome you used wikipedia. That’s as reliable as the e & y award. I’m not sure how much you know about them, but do know the reason they show up almost first on “google” everytime you type something in is not for vaildity 🙂 And, another tip, if you’re researching something, google isn’t always the answer….anyhow, continue on….I wish we could whine this much about gas. Oh wait, we do, we just keep buying it anyway.

I’m not sure if you’re endorsing my sarcasm or not or just repeating what others have said, but what I was saying is that e&y isn’t reliable and also that wikipedia isn’t either. I’ll educate you: just because it ends with “pedia” doesn’t mean it’s an acutal enciclopedia nor that it is reliable

Craig – they ignore more than that. They take advantage of the truth behind time value of money, yet obfuscate the meaning to suit their claims.
$100 compounded for 30yrs at 6%/yr interest will become $600. So $100 paid today, at the outset of a 30 yr mortgage, will knock off $600 due at the end, or ‘cancel’ $500 worth of interest. Now, many MMA agents will use this fact to claim “so the interest you pay is 500%” For that matter, simple calculations show me that for a fixed 30yr mortgage at 6%, the interest you pay over the 30 years happens to be 115% of the value of the original amount borrowed. So what? Is a dollar 30 years hence the same dollar as today? Hardly. Inflation to the dollar, compounded with any raises in income (above the inflation rate of course) mean you are paying back with cheaper dollars. The 115% is a figure no one actually calculates for any other purpose than to further confuse the innumerate.
Joe

Why is it that we’ve not read a post on any of these “bash-blogs” of someone using the service/software who is dissatisfied and has asked for a refund? I’ve been using the MMA for over a year…it has performed as promised. My mortgage statements bear out the results guaranteed in the initial analysis.

After using the service for 3 months, my wife and I became certified representatives.

We have 84 clients who have purchased the MMA and all are satisfied. People are using this as a budget tool to track income and expenses…to become financial responsible…no magic bullet…just a tool to manage their money flow and use their money more effectively.

Why not do this on your own? Why pay $3500? Because very few actually do it on their own. Seen the news lately…is there a mortgage crisis in the US? If it were as easy as you make it seem Tracy, why do the statistics show otherwise? Perhaps with your income, it’s easy…but NOT for most average American families struggling to make ends meet and looking for a better way to manage their money.

If you think $3500 is too much…don’t buy it!

Get over it people…it’s just another product on the market place…not a scam. It’s unfortunate that agents misrepresent its capabilities…inadvertently or intentionally…but that happens with every company offering a product or service to the public.

To answer the earlier comment on refunds, yes there are more than you do know and there are other reasons they refund money, besides people saying “oh, I changed my mind” because THEY signed the contract. Lots of that comes down to read what you’re signing! That goes for alot of things in life and comes with consequence if you don’t. As far as the “1 or 2 day right of rescission”, that is incorrect. It is 3 days I believe at least for V3 it was and I think they carried that over to 4. Also, that rule doesn’t go for “certain states”, it’s for everyone in the program. My bottom line is, if you’re going to properly go against something, do it with correct information. United First isn’t the most honest company, I agree with you on that in some aspects, but walmart isn’t fair either if you’re looking at it that way, I mean they charge $2.50 for juice! Some people might think thats cheap. It all depends on perspective. Like “ad expeditor” or whatever their name was said, it’s people’s choice to do it. Some see it as a great opportunity, and that works for them. Really, just let those people be.

Criag,

I also noticed AD Expeditor also mentioned the link between UFF and US Bank in that same scam.com thread here:

http://www.scam.com/showpost.php?p=446718

It’s a good thing he posted that in Oct. 2007 since UFF came out with a letter in Feb 2008 to agents stating that mentioning the link between the two (UFF and US Bank) would be grounds for termination. (See fatwallet “Numbers don’t lie” thread).

So first you said it could be illegal, then you say it’s not….so what is it according to you, illegal but not? Ha ha okay? And yes, it is a form of business for agents. I’m not sure what you do know, but alot of agents go out and actually have offices for it and….coworkers, other agents possibly below them. That’s their business and it works for them. Yes, the owners do make alot of money, as do owners and founders of other businesses. And, surprise surprise, their goal is to make money, hence why they started a business. The founders of United First aren’t my favorite people, but they have worked pretty hard to get to where they are now. My advice to you is if you ever do plan to actually take legal action (which you would have by now besides just write a bunch about it) have more of a platform besides “$3,500 is too much *whine, it’s not fair!” That won’t fly. Do a bit more research on it. There are plenty more places to go besides the internet and…dare I say it wikipedia.

You’re not really spelling anything out if you’re saying maybe it is maybe it isn’t. That’s called uncertainty. Also, what I was saying that is if you’re actually out to do good and show that United First is a bad company, use more examples than how much it costs. A big reason as to why no one has actually been able to prove United First of wrong doings is because they dwell so much on the price not what else they’re doing besides that. I’m not sure people such as “tracy and craig” know, but they are doing things that need to be paid attention to that isn’t right now. Sorry to say, I can’t say something but I can urge others to do a little more.

When I was talking about business owners, I was talking about the principles of United First Financial, NOT about agents. Simply what I said about agents is to them, they have an office, people under them, and they think that that is a business. Just listen to their voicemails.

Hello Tracy,

It seems that you have tried to educate yourself in regards to the Money Merge Account through research of websites and articles, etc. My question to you would be what are your qualifications to grant or debunk financial advice or software? There are several mistakes that I noticed in reading your article which clearly show that you truly don’t understand the difference between compound interest and daily simple interest. I have 22 years working for the banks and real estate and mortgage Brokers in the area of finance. Anyone that understands the difference would clearly be able to calculate what they are truly paying in interest on a conventional mortgage program and realize that they are not paying 6% for instance. As an example if I wrote a 30 year mortgage at 6% on a $200,000 loan the actual amount that a customer would pay towards interest is 83% in the first year, 81% the second, etc which is why utilizing a Line of Credit that uses Daily simple interest to accelerate you through the amortization of a mortgage or other debt works so well.

As far as MLM is concerned, I want you to realize that every company in America uses some sort of MLM. Some of the largest and most productive companies in this country were founded on the pricipals of MLM. Anytime you would like to talk as to how and why it works, let me know.

Walt, if you actually have that amount of time in the business, then you know the claim of 83% is a number with little meaning. In the first year of the ‘classic MMA example’ mortgage, in fact 83% of the payments made go to interest, and 17% to principal. So what? I have a HELOC, with a rate so low that I’m not making principal payments at all. For this loan, 100% of my payments go to interest, and will do so until I decide otherwise.

Let me ask you this, if the same $200K mortgage had only a 3% (fixed) interest rate, according to your math the customer pays 59% the first year. Do you and the other agents still advise MMA or does sanity take over and perhaps suggest that building cash in 3-4% CDs might even be better?

On boards like this, it’s tough to really question one’s intelligence, I don’t know you, and likely never will. But I continue to question people motivation and intentions. I know the math. I know just where you pulled the (meaningless) 83% number from. And I know the response you hope to see from the potential victims, er, clients who react emotionally to these hyperbolic claims. Because “6%, but in your bracket 4% net” doesn’t speak with the same urgency that “83% the first year” “A full 116% over the life of the loan” and “those $250 shoes will really cost you $1500”.

Have a nice day.
Joe

I have read a ton of these postings and I am considering purchasing an aceleration product.

What no one has answered or posted is specifics and with my analysis, there are some questions that I could use help on answering.

I understand paying more toward a mortgage each month will get it paid off sooner. That’s a no brainer.
What I do see is the difference between an Open Ended loan (A line of credit) and a Closed End loan (Your typical mortgage)

I also agree that 6% is 6%.
What I see is timing and manuvering my dollars to make the best use of them each and every day.

For example, if get my paycheck and leave it in my checking account until I spend it, it gets me next to NO interest. What would be the value of those dollars put somewhere else for the time they are in the checking account? Seems like a lot to calculate. But it’s logical that if I could find a way to park them on my mortgage and cancel interest that it would get me some return greater than 0. Wouldn’t it be the same return as the interest rate on my mortgage?

That seeems to be the big claim made by these mortgage acceleration products… and it seems to be valid.

The other argument they make is that the equity in my home is dormant money. My house is worth what it is worth regardless of how much I owe on it. And if they foreclose on me the bank will take the entire home, not just part of it.
So they say, using the HELOC is a way to tap into the dormant money and put it to work.
The example given was that a large amount of money deposited in an account now, let’s say $2400 at 5% interest, would have a greater value in 12 months than if I deposited $200 a month for 12 months assuming the same 5% rate. I don’t even have to run those numbers because obviously I get interest on the whole $2400 in the first month and that interest compounds for the next 11.
So if the software prompts me to draw a large amount of money and pay it to principle on my first mortgage, it make sense that it will get me greater results than if I paid an extra $200 on my mortgage each month.
And since I am trying to find out the magic in the math, I am thinking there is validity in the interest cancelation theory.

For example, if I draw $10,000 on the Heloc and pay it to my first mortgage on the 30th of the month, my mortgage company will apply those dollars to reduce my principle balance by that amount for the next month. I choose the 30th because on a closed end loan, any prepayment is not applied until the end of the month. The interest calculation is base on the end of the month balance x rate.
Now that $10,000 is effectively canceling the 6% interest I would have paid on that money.
But now I have a $10,000 balance on my heloc at 6%
They say the benefit is that when I get paid on the 1st of the month that I will not leave my money in checking, but instead apply it to my Heloc. The interest on a heloc is charged based on the end of the day balance. So I want to agree because when I deposit my $4000 net pay on the 1st, I now will only pay interest on the remaining $6000 for that day. I see that I will still have to pay my bills and I will pay them from the Heloc, thereby increasing my balance again… but while the dollars are parked in the heloc, am I not getting a 6% return?

I have been in commission sales all my life and I have had good months and bad. When I have had good months I never paid additional principle because I was afraid I might need the money when I had a bad month.
This seems to take away that problem because I can park the money on the Heloc, get the return, and if I need the money I can just draw it from the Heloc.

Seems like I would have been much better off if I would have.

Can anyone with some sound finance background tell me if I am looking at this math correctly and shed light on another/better way?

Craig, the logical extreme would be this; An agent ropes in someone who just closed on their mortgage, and finds the client has the full mortgage amount available right in their savings/checking. They then brag that MMA was fully responsible for turning a 30 year mortgage into one that lasted only one day! And they take credit for the $232K in saved interest.
3 years? This means they paid $100/mo for MMA to tell them to send all their money to their mortgage. And the HELOC shuffle certainly couldn’t have much savings in so short a time.
Joe

On the other hand, the sting of pissing away $3500 that you’ll never see again might be decent negative-reinforcement aversion therapy. Never mind that you could probably get the same behavior modification by having your spouse bludgeon you with a thirty-dollar claw hammer every time you think about putting a worthless purchase on your credit card.

I went to a presentation and I admit it was very interesting, but left feeling as though I didn’t fully understand how it worked. I wanted to seriously research the product and company. After research and reading articles like this one I have come to the conclusion that if it is too good to be true then it is.

Thank God for freedom of speech. On the “Do it yourself” thread of reasoning, beware! The creators of Subway are smiling all the way to the bank everyday after the naysayers said “Why would people pay $x for something they could clearly do on their own and cheaper”.

Dan, I’d like to reply directly to your comment – I really would, but I can’t top Joe’s response. Feel free to read it again (it is that good) and just pretend I wrote it. I certainly wish I had.

Bravo to Joe Taxpayer.

Y’all,
I’m honored that Joe and Tracy responded to my entry. Thank you for taking time to discuss. Hopefully the internet will remain “free”.

Perspective. A truly budget conscious person might consider the extra $2.00 to have Subway make the sandwich a waste.
Principle. Everyday we make choices to PAY other people to do stuff we could do on our own. I could easily go to the library and find the information contained in Tracy’s book for FREE. In fact doing the research on my own would probably benefit me more. Yet thankfully the market accepts and is large enough for Tracy’s book. Sales will depend on whether readers will find the information of value and tell their friends. I hope you are rewarded financially for your efforts Tracy.
Joe. You voluntarily pay the subway guy the posted price. UFF agents do not hold a gun to “hoodwinked” people’s heads. Yes there are 7! ways to assemble the sandwich if the “hoodwinked” sandwich eater knew math.Thankfully Subway leaves that truth out of their advertising(chuckle,imagine the line behind that guy!).P.S. Burger King spent $$ on creating the taste of the Whopper. The same ingredients placed in different order make a difference in the taste. Perhaps Subway could increase its price on the Italian sub by constructing it a certain way.

I’m getting hungry. Let’s discuss this over lunch.

Thank you for this website!

I just got solicited this morning by a “Friend” to join this scheme. He had also hostily asked me months ago to ‘unsubscribe’ him, as I was sending anti-Obama info to him.
Now all of a sudden he shows up today on my screen “Hey You” with the two websites for UFF, thank God I smelled a rat.

Thank you, this is the second “friend” in so many months with a scheme, the other was for a travel MLM. So much for friends, hardwork is the only way I have ever got ahead. Continue the good detective work, PLEASE!

It still is the old saw “If it sounds to good to be true it proably is!”

This is great stuff, getting to the truth of things. I have done research of what is out there and got a couple out of ufirst. 3,500 is a lot for this snake oil, and psycological deception for a sorta logic sounding air to it, but not to those who have the capacity for reason, there is another one out there called anagram, who sells the business of selling the software and you make your own price, they want $5,000 to hook into their service, and they want $150 for each sale you would produce on top of that, besides what you would need to charge, so there is at least $150 plus what you think you need to get out of a customer. i have found a place, it is a company that sells all kinds of software, and you can have it in you hands physically, and tangable, the stuff is the same as ufirst and all these others for a whopping $49 up to $79. Thank you also tracy for this particular blog, and also enjoy craigs input always.

Feel free to pass my contact info out to anyone and everyone that believes UFF may work, as I have ocean front property in Oklahoma for sale, as well as bridges all across the country.

Simple logic should indicate to all that it’s not possible to borrow their way out of debt, and chances are their line of credit will be a higher interest rate than their home loan. HMMM.

I’ve always found things with lengthy sales pitches prior to giving simple details just don’t work. There’s reasons for those sales pitches, and it has to do with convincing people to override common sense and logic.

An easy way of paying off a 30 year loan in 15 is to make the regular payment each month, along with an extra amount equal to the principle due for that month, which won’t be much in the beginning. As the principle payment goes up so will inflation, so as to offset the feel of the increased payment.

Is there any thing i can do to help????

Dan’s remark does prompt the question, “what would it take to shut this scam down?” (if anything). I’d imagine an individual would have to have cause and claim of damages. Would the person (from a Jubilee example) who sent all their savings to the mortgage then have cause if their HELOC were shut down and they lost their home? After all, most MMA sites suggest their is *no* risk to using the HELOC shuffle.
What are the criteria for the attorneys general to get interested in this type of issue?
Joe

Hello, Tracy! Is that Anagram finacial, the same sorta thing??? i am thinking more than likely. Do they need the warning??? Tracy is a good source she knows her %$#@. And to Joe Tax payer, you are funny, are you sure you aint really, Craig? And to Jeff Keller, sounds like you are duped!! your stuff sounds like poloticians, you aare more than likely a pure liberal>

Some interesting points and counter points about the MMA program are here:

***Oops… no advertising or affiliate links allowed here! ***

I am curious to read the opinions of anyone astute and honest enough to pour through this material and report back here.

Marcy – it’s pretty easy to prove that with no discretionary funds available MMA simply can’t work. Your aunt is on her way to ruin, she will not have the funds available to pay the cards in full as they come due and with any balance after the payment is made, the 18% or higher rate will apply to her average balance. To be blunt, she will lose whatever pennies MMA claimed the float would gain her. If she is under 59-1/2 she pays ordinary income tax and 10% penalty on that $5000 withdrawn, and the ‘tax accountant’ should certainly know this.
If you drop me a note (thru my name linked above), I will forward you a spreadsheet that shows mortgage amortization. I have nothing to sell, my web site is a hobby, more or less.
Joe

I remeber Pre Paid Legal, Tracy! are you aware of the one called Anagam Finacial???

I wanted to give a heart felt thanks to all of the information on this website. I have just been able to take time to read additional blogs and articles on this and other sites (joetaxpayer) I’ve found myself cutting and pasting so many blog sites, highlighting text..emailing my mother. She is still unwilling to concede the success of the program or work to get a refund. I have also spent a lot time exploring the MMA. As a mortgage underwriter, not a mathematician, CPA, or any of the other highly sophisticated credentials that have provided such detailed and keen insight, I can tell you that this software has numerous failings. Recognizing what is happening in the real estate industry, and the numerous HELOCs that have been frozen (mine included) this software can in no way accomodate the change in interest free periods, the limits placed by the banking industry due to change in LTV’s, and it will never be able to efficiently navigate the pitfalls of our struggling economy. It only uses one time period… the term of the loan. It is not complex enough to recognize interest free periods, which in AK’s situation are essential to recognize. The software is forcing the payment of debts in an interest free period. This is most likely due to entry errors, but as the agents do not understand the basics of interest calculations, they have advised her against what I would consider to be common sense. It is also requesting to pay the entire reserve amount in the savings account to pay down debt. So it will leave AK, without the best safety net of all CASH.

Likewise, it is not going to recognize when the interest free period on the CC ends until the statement arrives and the data entry occurs. So the MMA suddenly has an interest rate that exceeds the first mortgage by a minimum of 3%…how is this an effective debt repayment system? Nothing like digging a hole to fill the first hole.

In regards to the behavior management aspects of the sales pitch, and having dealt recently with sleepless nights over seeing the financial woes of a loved one…Buying a gym membership as part of New Years resolution to lose weight, does not help you lose weight. You have to go be an active participant. Many people are dealing with financial ruin because of their lack of attention to their spending habits. I highly doubt that showing a habitual spender the impact of buying a new TV on their debt repayment plan will be a preventative measure or a successful behavior management technique. Most likely it will be just as effective as leaving doughtnuts unattended in the breakroom on February 1 right next to a treadmill. Once the romance is over, and the hard work sets in, self discipline is required. Software can not teach self discipline. And from what I hear, the assistance with the software and their 24/7 helpline is not all it is cracked up to be…It’s actually more like 9-5 Utah time, and sketchy assistance at best.

Hello Roger, or should I say UFirst Agent No. 864081? How is your upline Ira doing?

You may want to re-think the whole “non-existent research capabilities” part. The analysis of MMA vs a very easy DIY approach to mortgage acceleration has been done to death here and on numerous 3rd party websites. The MMA is simply inefficient and dangerous in comparison. Many UFirst agents have agreed with this assessment.

Also, UFirst didn’t “give you a chance” to sell the MMA – you paid $175 for the privilege. You earned $450 for your first two sales (some exceptions possible) and your uplines (like Ira, Louise, Kenna, etc.) shared in the balance of the $2500 commission. When you’re as useless as the MMA is, you need to have a big commission to pay all the levels of the pyramid. After all, 60,000 agents is a lot of mouths to feed with only 120,000 or so sales.

Roger,
I love that you are painting the UFF group as self sacrificing and self effacing…Do you really think they didn’t sell the idea to the banking industry because it would hide the truth. Have the really adopted that line as part of the sales script? Have you taken any time to research the program outside of the sales pitch? Do you know what an amoritization schedule is? Do you understand it? Do you have any certifications that assist you in selling a product to finanically advise the purchaser? Have you read any of the posts even on this one blog? What actually goes through your brain when you see the proof that you can pay down you mortgage equally as fast by adding a few bucks to your mortgage payment? How do you justify a $3500 expense for people who are struggling financially? I could go on and on and on. Your leaders at UFF are laughing at you now. They know that they have taken advantage of you and all of your “clients.” They are laughing all the way to the bank. That’s why they didn’t sell their “idea” (which existed in Australia and UK first) to the banking industry. They knew that with the right package they could get enough Epsilon’s to fight for their place in line for the soma, prior to being either shut down or proven ineffective. (Or would that be Gamma’s weren’t Epsilon’s for menial labor?)

Tracy,

It is my opinion that you don’t know much of the MMA. If you did any investigation, you would know that the MMA is not a debt roll-down plan, or a Bi-weekly plan, nor a debt reduction plan. It’s not even a program where you send in a few hundred bucks extra to your servicing bank plan. Yes, homeowners will save interest by using these plans but the MMA is much more than that.

Also, my focus is not primarily to get others involved as agents. I see an incredible opportunity for people looking to get out of debt without changing their lifestyles or refinancing their existing mortgages. If you’re a numbers guru, you’ll know that large amounts of interest is packed into the beginning few years of all these loans.

I will admit that a HELOC may not be the way to go when setting up the MMA program because banks can shut down those accounts if home values in the area are deflating. A personal line of credit will have the same effect and would be preferable in most situations. I disagree, the software is not “cumbersome”. I believe the MMA software will be as popular as Quicken and is much easier to use.

Roger- Can you explain to me what product would be better for the MMA, than a HELOC? How does the software react when the draw period ends on your MMA? If you use a credit card, what does the software do when the interest free period ends? Is there a place in the software to plan for this change in account?

Marcy – I’m more a numbers guy. Offering to discuss actual numbers and writing to show that the math easily proves it doesn’t.
I have a link on my site to
http://www.theage.com.au/news/property/smoke-and-mirrors/2004/09/28/1096137225560.html
which is an article from 2004 in an Australian newspaper discussing what appears to be a variant of this product.
MMA appears to have taking a basic concept and wrapped so many false claims around it that it’s reached scam level. Until reading Tracy’s site, the MLM aspect didn’t really come to my attention, as I was focussed on the math itself and dealing with the agents’ individual claims. Of course, the agents don’t like to discuss the MLM aspect, but given that all their individual sites have a ‘become an agent’ link, it should have been obvious to me. The Australian plans don’t have that aspect, that I can find. From what I’ve read, the banks offer these mortgages directly. Of course, that changes the numbers quite a bit.
Joe

“3. you are willing and able to account for every penny at all times”

Well, Roger, even ignoring the interest cost, the MMA program costs $30 per month. Thats quite a few pennies, now, isn’t it? Have you really drunk enough Kool Aid to believe that one must pay that close attention “every penny at all times”? Seems If I leave $1000 just sitting in checking I might lose $60/yr in potential savings, and avoid paying attention every night to some piece of software that costs 6X that. In the MMA deprograming center, they force you to repeat “MMA is a cost, not an investment”.
With all due respect to Tracy, the paper and pencil isn’t even needed. Just sending the extra money each month is all that’s needed. No math required.
Joe

Roger,
I’m confused…First you say that the HELOC may not be the best, and now you say that the HELOC is the best. Also, you don’t have any experience on working with the CC option, and yet, that is the option that most of your agents are pushing on their unsuspecting victims. (I know that sounds harsh or aggressive, and I’m really no usually that kind of person, but I have two family members that have been duped into using this program, and they are not getting the results you keep talking about) I have seen the software, oops I mean web interface, since there is not an actual software to purchase, just the “service” (which by the way the individuals that purchased it were told that UFF kept no record of their personal information…that the information to develop their “analysis” would be destroyed. A concept that I find mildly amusing, but more importantly highly deceptive as all of their data lives on a UFF server! OH, and what an interesting concept that their original analysis gets destroyed! So there is no evidence of the deceit used to corner someone into the purchase) What is the format that is used to do an analysis…is there anything even as organized as an URLA? (Uniform Residential Loan Application) If they are using this type of format, it leaves a huge hole in the analysis, doesn’t it. If this software is supposed to track you money to the penny shouldnt’ there be a more comprehensive format that would track everything from how much one spends at the grocery store to their oil bill, in other words PERSONAL EXPENSES? Of the two reports I’ve seen, personal expenses were calculated at about a third of what it actually takes to live, therefore skewing the analysis results. On one, the personal expenses were so low that the MMA said debt could be paid off in 10 years, and yet this individual is actually charging living expenses every month. What do you suggest in this circumstance? Would you advise that this person purchased the software needless, even against the UFF guidelines…Wouldn’t you expedite a request for reimbursement? How often have you seen someone get their money back?

I’m sure the rest of this group is tired of my arguments, bt

Enjoy. I had my face-to-face with a UFirst agent last spring. He was actually quite agreeable in person, and agreed that the MMA was inefficient compared to simple prepayments. It was only after he invited me to direct questions he couldn’t answer to his upline, that he got upset. His upline used phrases like “no change in lifestyle” and “no increase in payments”. I called “bullshit”, and my agent contact took offense to me calling out his upline. After all, his upline is a MIT grad and worked for NASA (!)

I can only hope your experience is half as interesting as mine was.

Craig

You really get the impression the UFirst marketing strategy can be summed up as, “AVOID NUMBERS AT ALL COSTS”.

Just In Time inventory systems?!? Really? What’s next, a comparison to Canada Geese? You know, they instinctively fly south for the winter, so they have a kind of natural intuition. You could say the MMA has a sort of intuition as well. Of course, Canada Geese have a notoriously inefficient digestive system and crap all over the place, so that part of the analogy fits with the MMA as well.

Gee Roger, I thought MMA software was only for the financially undisciplined, mathematically illiterate, and intellectually lazy. You claim that you can only do it yourself if you can do the following?

1. Have the financial discipline and mathematical skill
You definitely need financial discipline to use MMA. Who wants to have to type in all those transactions each month? If you can add and subtract, you can do it yourself.
2. Have the right kind of ALOC
Absolutely. The kind that lets you make interest-only payments and hasn’t been frozen by your bank. You’re going to need that ALOC if you aren’t saving any money.
3. Are willing and able to account for every penny at all times
No more than all those transaction you have to type into MMA each month.
4. Can tally all the variables and refigure your financial position each and every day.
GEE, my online checking does this for me automatically. But, who cares? You can only apply an extra principal payment to your mortgage once a month so checking it every day is worthless. And you don’t need a financial calculator tell you that every $5 spent on a latte will slow down your mortgage payback.
5. Can do this day in and day out for 5 to 10 years
SEE NO. 4
6. Can do this without personal support if something goes wrong or you get confused.
Why should I?? I have Calvin, and Joe, and others for support.
7. Willing to forfeit tens of thousands of dollars in monetary gains–in addition to doing all the work–all by yourself.
WRONG!! MMA costs you tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your mortgage by making you pay extra interest and charging you $3500 for that privilege

Well, Excuse me! I am sorry but I just ran across your blog, but you won’t be hearing from me again after today. I just wanted to post my opinion, but as I have read in previous postings, you don’t want to hear anything that is not in compliance with your views.

America is still a free country to speak what you want and to do what you want if it’s not illegal. I am sure that even if Ernst & young did not do the actual investigation and does not endorse any company or product, they would not lend thier name to anything that even hinted at being an illegal pyramid scam (as you are so fond of calling UFF). And even with all your self professed knowledge, you still cannot come up with anything that proves that United First Financial is doing anything illegal, but you still are professing that it is an illegal pyramid scam. And you stated that the gentleman who asked that you bring charges against UFF was just kidding – I don’t think he was. Why don’t you go ahead and start a class action law suit? You know why? Because there is nothing to base your allegations on.

Also, why do you let others post links regarding their negative information about UFF, but do not allow those in favor of it do the same? Are you afraid of something? From the sound of it, you think you are pretty smart, smarter that almost everyone else. You state that people who use or endorse the MMA are either stupid or dishonest. Everyone cannot be involved in this supposed conspiracy. The only conspiracy I see is what you are spouting.

This is a free country where people are free to do what they wish. Everyone operates by the same rules. If you don’t want the product, don’t buy it. It is as simple as that. If you don’t read the contract, don’t sign it. If you don’t know what you are getting into, don’t do it. However, some people do spend more than they should, sign before they know, but they do it anyway, for whatever reasons they have. Why spend $250,000 for a car when you can buy another one for $18,000? Because they want to. As I said it is a free country.

Another point I would like to make before I sign off for good: Americans in general are in the worst financial shape (individually) than in all of our history. People today do not think about what something will cost in the long run, they only think about how much they can afford monthly. They have no concept of what their spending habits really cost them. The MMA software will show them what the time value of money truly is. Maybe the software is overpriced as you say, but the attitude of the American public is costing people their homes, credit, and sometimes even their lives and marriages. I feel that anything that will help the public become aware of what is happening financially in their lives has some merit. These people who have the attitude that they buy now pay later are not even aware of what they are doing to themselves and their future. Perhaps they can do some research themselves and get themselves out of debt as you suggest, but I don’t think they even know where to begin. The MMA software shows them the way out. Yes, they could do it themselves if they chose to, but most people do not have the self discipline or know-how to do so and need something to give them a shove. Maybe the cost of the product forces them to actually use it to help themselves, whereas free products don’t seem “as good”. You know how the public thinks: if it costs more it must be better.

Anyhow, I will sign off now, never to return. I am sure that you will again sound like a broken record. Please let me know if you do decide to go the legal route. I will be very interested in the final outcome.

Patti – I’ve seen no instances where Tracy has censored anyone’s posting (aside from attempts to promote posters affiliate links). What I do see is the typical misdirected analogies (A $250K car? I doubt this is the same person whose looking to buy into MMA) along with the emotional appeal of all the ‘good’ MMA is claiming to offer. I agree that the country is in pretty bad shape economically, but somehow the sugestion that one deplete all their cash savings to reduce the term of their mortgage and make matters far worse for themselves just doesn’t sit well with me.
I also agree that people are free here. Free to be as stupid as they wish. On the other hand, I run into like minded bloggers or just people posting exposing the facts that prove MMA doesn’t break even. People who use it are worse off in both time and money than those who simply take their extra money at month’s end and send it to their mortgage. I know, this sounds very complicated, and often I need to ignore my own advanced degrees and ‘get down to the level of the reader’. So one more try;
At the end of each month, you take whatever money you haven’t spent, and isn’t needed to pay a bill due before the next paycheck comes, and send it to the bank. You martk it as ‘extra pricipal payment’. You do this each and every month. There’s actually no math involved. Nada. No pencil, no paper. The spreadsheet (which I offer, gratis, 127 served up so far) can help track the amount saved off the back end, but truth is, the bank is obligated to give you an amortization table upon request and they also are obligated to give you a year end annual statement showing your balance. This is enough to track your progress.
If one really needs to spend $3500 to get a shove, get my spreadsheet, and send the $3500 to the local shelter. If not, send the $3500 to the bank and watch your mortgage get paid ahead by 4-6 months with that one extra payment. On a final note, if people had $1000/mo extra, why are they in so much trouble financially? The initial assumption of MMA (these extra funds) is flawed. That’s how they get the wildly excellent results of a 10 yr payoff. The reality is quite different, most people living hand to mouth and that $3500 coming as a HELOC loan. If you really understood this, your tone would be quite different. My tone reflects how incredulous I am that PT Barnum was right, there’s a sucker born every minute. 500K new potential clients each year.
Joe

I see Amway is swooping in like a vulture to pick the bones of the near-dead with their ads on the Thanksgiving day NFL games. Were they promoting their products? No way.

I’m still on the fence about these MLM schemes. Do I feel sorry for the chumps or are they victims of their own greed in thinking they won’t be the low chump on the totem pole? Some of both, I guess.

How’s that? Without even looking at a calculator, I can tell you it means you are able to send more than twice the required monthly payment to the mortgage. Good for you. Really.
What it means it that you are a sucker, and while well paid to make such extra payments, likely successful in your chosen field, you are convinced that you are not really making extra payments but blindly following MMA direction, sending money from a HELOC to the mortgage (and bragging about using the ‘bank’s money) and then sending your paychecks to the HELOC, and paying $3500 to follow the HELOC shuffle you can do for free.
Your loan would be paid 3 months sooner without the software. Since you are a willing, happy, victim, you don’t feel robbed. If you understood the math, you’d feel otherwise.
Thank you for not saying “factorial math”.
Joe

Hey Before you go off trashing something you ought to know it inside aand out. The author of this blog is way off. His math isn’t even close to being right and he has no understanding of how this program really works!!! I find it real interesting how negitive people can be and not actually understand a program but want to keep others from it even though it could be a life changer. I not only am an agent with UFirst I am on the program. I got on the program and before I went out trying to sell all my friends I made ssure it works. The founders of the compnay were just given the Earnst And Young Entrepenuer of the year award for the Utah Region where the company is based. DO YOU REALLY THINK THEY WOULDN’T HAVE CHECKED OUT WHETHER OR NOT THE PROGRAM DOES WHAT THEY SAY IT DOES BEFORE GIVING SUCH AN AWARD!!! They are one of the top 5 accounting firms in the WORLD!!Whose math are you going to believe. My money is with the accounting firm and not the idot that wants to bash something he can’t comprehend!!! Want to know if its works have an agent run your numbers compare what their analysis says compared to your amortization schedule you will see that the representation of your current mortgage will match and if you follow the program you are gauranteed to pay off when it says you will in writting. The only thing you have to lose is the extra interest you are already contracted to pay to your mortgage company and any other creditors you have but you already knew that RIGHT!!!!

Re: “Hey Before you go off trashing something you ought to know it inside aand out”

Hilarious that you didn’t read enough on this site to know that the author of this blog is a she, not a he, not to mention that your Ernst & Young talking point has already been addressed and dismissed.

Given your lack of apparent research skills and reading comprehension, it doesn’t speak well of your potential ability to check the MMA’s math.

Hookem, you can email Andy Heaton at the Ernst & Young Ethics Department. He specifically wrote that E&Y only sponsor the award, and did not review the nominated individuals or their companies.

Also, the proper comparison is not between the MMA analysis and a straight amortization report. The proper comparison is against an accelerated payoff schedule that uses the same discretionary income as the MMA is given. Do that in any realistic scenario, and the MMA will lose every time.

Another person making all kinds of comments without taking the time to take the extensive training U1st will give you for free so you can make an informed decision. Just once I would like to see one of these so called experts that make their living picking other companies apart take the time to learn from the horse’s mouth not by just checking other blogs that spew the same negativity over and over.

By the way, I am a mortgage broker in 6 states, or should I say I was until the banking industry screwed up that vocation. Talk about scam’s, what do you think of the way banks take your money, but that is a subject for a different time.

I find that most these people are persons that became agents who were all excited until they realize, like any business you have to do a little work.

Why are you so down on Multi Level Marketing? I never see anyone knocking Amway and Avon just to name two. Most people don’t realize that they and many more like them are multi level marketing.

I bought the system and am overjoyed with it, to the point that I am going to become an agent. Have I been talked into a scam? I like to think I am smarter than that. After over a year using the system I cannot say anything bad about it.

You are making comments the company never makes, for one they never say this is some magical way to pay off your mortgage. They say this is just math; this is very powerful budgeting software to keep you on track with your Budget. There are bankers in this company, mortgage brokers, and insurance companies; in fact the pay system is exactly the same as any realty, or insurance office.

One more point, I heard people say you can pay your debt off yourself without help from software. Two things; yes you can so why don’t you, and you can do your own taxes too but how many of you do.

Charles, you wrote, “I bought the system and am overjoyed with it, to the point that I am going to become an agent.”

Please see Tracy’s blog entry “United First Financial broker numbers and earnings”:

http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/category/pyramid-schemes-mlm/

In that blog entry, Tracy posts the master list of UFirst agents. Not only are you already in there – you became an agent months ago. Your agent number is 869837. In fact, since you became an agent, uFirst has picked up an additional 30,684 agents.

Why must UFirst agents lie so much? Why post comments to blogs that you have just made your decision, and have decided to buy or become an agent, when the truth is you’ve been an agent for months? Is it really that much more persuasive or credible to say you are in the process of making the decision to become an agent? How credible are you now that you’ve been caught in a lie?

Note to UFirst agents: Stop Lying

Stop lying that the MMA can accelerate your mortgage “by 1/3 to 1/2 with little or no change in lifestyle”. Stop lying that the “effective interest rate” on a mortgage is 500%. And finally, stop lying about your status as an agent.

“No one ever said that MMA and its ilk doesn’t work as advertised.”

Sure I did. It’s advertised to work with no change to one’s monthly budget. That’s at best, misleading, but to be honest, it’s a lie.
Also, especially with the recent market turmoil, the claim that the use of the HELOC shuffle is “risk-free” is simply wrong.

I’m sure there are more falsehoods, which quickly blend into marketing hype type of claims, but I won’t go there right now.

Regardless of whether you print this or not, know that you are wrong on so many levels that it is frankly ludicrous. Don’t agree? Then have the guts to take on the conversation. Reply to this e-mail address and we can take it from there, but keep in mind, knowledge is power and you apparenly know nothing!

Tracy,

Please direct me to the place where I can use a DIY program to pay off a mortgage. Thanks

roger: “Please direct me to the place where I can use a DIY program to pay off a mortgage.”

Search the web for “free mortgage amortization calculator”

Take your pick.

Hi i was reading through this article and the biggest thing that hits me is that there is no business knowledge behind some of the comments that are made. For example, the idea that Multilevel Marketing and Pyramids are the same thing is in itself inherently false.
For one a Pyramid/ponzi scheme is illegal. And why is it illegal? Because there is no product/service backing up the money being made. Hence no product/service but making money yeah that would be a scheme and i would be wary of that.
Second, MLM is a business model that many companies do use as their compensation system and business structure. If you look at it on a single tier level a broker(ie real estate, financial etc) is an example. A product is sold by his agent, the agent gets a set commision and the broker above him would also see his portion as well. That is all that a MLM business model is except that it has depth. IE you see commision off of brokers and agents under you up to a certain point as they do business. Some major companies that have successfully used the business model are Avon, Amway, Mary Kay(tangible products) and Prime America, WMA(Intangible financial products). There is no scam. It is just the compensation system that is used. If you recruit someone you dont make any money unless there is actual sale of a product.

Next thing that i have seen here is that is misunderstood is the product itself. What can be a product. Most people assume it is a tangible good such as soap or a tv but that is not all that a business can provide. A business can run on many things for example I will list the basic things that a business can run on:
1. a tangible good (TV soap grocery etc)
2. a service (maid service, insurance etc)
3. storage (warehouse self storage)
4. Support (technical support , customer support etc)

Next i will apply it to the product that is being discussed here. It seems the big stick up is that the price of the product is very high. But what does the product do?

1. It provides a service ie the use of a webbased money manager
2. it provides convenience ie it is a plug and use type program
3. it provides storage since the program itself is not stored in the users computer
4. It provides technical and customer support for the length of its use which the site says is for life as well as upgrades.

The product is not selling a CD of a software which is what many of the previous posters have compared it to. It actually isnt even a CD but rather web based which means no downloading a software program and accessible where ever you have a computer and internet access.

So in conclusion I find many of the posts biased because they do not make equivalent comparisons and make false statements with the use of generalities(ie saying a mlm is a pyramid scheme) which it is not.

What I think you’re all missing, PLEASE chide me if I am missing something myself, is that WHEN we pay our mortgage, bi-monthly, early principle payments, etc.
1) it’s applied MONTHLY, not daily, we lose a ton of interest offset and
2) once we pay it, we cannot get it back
So, not only is our interest being lowered ‘daily’, monthly cost is huge compared to daily, small increments of using that money (lowering that principle), and 2, we can never get it back/use it.

It’s as if our checking account is accruing an interest, at least equal to our mortgage payment, daily!, once we deposit it, it starts accruing (or in this case, offsetting, interest accrual of our mortgage). The longer we let it sit there, the less we are paying in interest. Our typical mortgages, now, just say, ‘thanks for the extra payment, we’re still accruing interest, as always… your dollars now are just worth more than us getting the dollars later, thanks to inflation!’

Does anybody see this?

Tracy,

I know you know this, but the homeowner loses out on the interest on that $3500 for the life of the mortgage, whether that $3500 was financed or not. If it was out-of-pocket, it could have been invested, or used to pay down the mortgage instead.

Tracy Coenen, Your an Idiot

Does anyone else find it odd that a company “dedicated” to paying off debt quicker, actually instructs you to take out MORE debt (HELOC) and use this additional debt for your living expenses? Kind of like using one credit card to pay off another one. Except the HELOC is secured by your home and reduces your equity by that same amount. What sense does it make to get into more debt in order to pay off debt — rob Peter to pay Paul? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to live below your means and put the positive cash flow toward paying off your mortgage faster? Unless of course, you have outstanding debt at higher interest (which most debt is higher interest than a mortgage), i.e., credit cards, retail credit accounts, bank lines of credit, etc, as most people do. Then, it would be smarter to pay down/off the highest interest debt first. If UFF really cared about people living debt-free, seems their software would handle other high interest debt in addition to mortgages. Maybe it’s only for relatively debt-free people then, who carry only a mortgage? Seems those folks would already have the discipline to pay down their mortgage early anyway? I guess I’m not taking into consideration the power of the downline income stream as a contributor to the debt reduction. But, seems there are easier ways to reduce debt than to pay to join an MLM, take out HELOC, spend your nights and weekends recruiting your downline, attending conferences, buying more training materials and audio/video programs, shifting your debt from one account to another, oh, did I mention spending your nights and weekends recruiting your downline?!?

I HAVE SPENT TIME READING ALL THE BLOGS. I WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THE NEGATIVES OF UFF’S PRODUCT. NO ONE IN THESE BLOGS HAVE MADE A COMMENT ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY IS SPENT ON CLOSING COST TO REFINANCE A HOME WHICH JUST ADDS INTEREST ON TOP OF INTEREST. MOST OF THE HOMEOWNERS TODAY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE FINANCIAL REPURCUSSIONS THAT CREATES. LET’S FACE IT, MAJORITY OF US WANTS A QUICK FIX TO EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES. FOR EXAMPLE, WHY DO WE PAY MORE MONEY FOR A GPS SYSTEM IN OUR CAR INSTEAD OF USING A COMPASS? WHAT I HAVE COMPREHENDED WITH UFF’S PRODUCT, IT IS A FINANCIAL GPS TO HELP THE AMERIAN PEOPLE THAT DO NOT HAVE TIME OR DISCIPLINED TO DO IT THEIRSELVES. SO WHAT!! IF IT COSTS $3500. THE USER WOULD BE MORE APT TO FOLLOW THE PROGRAM THEN IF THEY PAID $99 FOR IT. AM I CORRECT? THERE IS NOTHING OUT THERE THAT IS COMPLETELY FAIL SAFE. I WISH THAT YOU “TRACY” WOULD SPEND MORE ENERGY FIGHTING THE CREDIT CARD INDUSTRY THAT IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE CONSUMERS AND BANKS WITH THEIR SUB-PRIME LOANS. I FEEL THEY TEND TO BE MORE MISLEADING AND OJECTIONAL THAN UFF.

“I purchased the software and have been using it for 4 months now. I had a mortgage of $195,000 and when I started the program I had 28.5 years remaining of the 30 year note.”
Brian – If the starting balance was $195K, you’d owe about $191.3K after 18 months, and $145K after the big principal payment. A 10 year payoff from that point still requires a monthly payment higher by about $445. Wherever that $445 comes from, it’s money you need to put in. Ok, makes sense.
I suppose there’s value in the advice “did you ever think to throw all of your savings against your mortgage as a principal payment?”, but is that worth $20, let alone $3500?
$120K saved? The big check alone saved you that, if MMA prompts you to add that $445 (this may not be exact, as I don’t know your interest rate, but it’s close enough for my comment) then surely you know your total savings will be closer to $160K. Given that, how much of this do you attribute to MMA? Had you paid $3500 right to the mortgage on month 19, you’d have saved $15K right there. So, the correct answer is not (A) $120K, or (B) $160K, but (C) -$15K, MMA has you $15K worse off.
And you see, most of the savings (the $120K) came from that one check. MMA took a huge cut, $15K of the additional $40K you’ll save by making those extra payments.
(I’ll not even address Candy’s note. I always imaging those who use all caps to be people shouting, and wouldn’t read my reply anyway.)

Joe for whom 1+1 is still 2.

Wow, this is a phenomenal discussion..

Let me start by saying that just reading the posts and comments potentially saved me $3500.. As I type, I have a 3-page brochure from UFirst sitting on my desk (headed for the shredder), given me by a friend (whom I can’t believe actually suckered for this, well, actually I can) that has signed up for the program and is now “saving” money. The concept of paying down debt quicker interested me immensely but I was also curious how it was possible to do such. I stumbled across this blog after googling “united first financial”. I’d also like to give a huge Thank-You to every commenter and to Tracy, the author.

I could write a long comment but my time is too valuable to do such (sorry, I’m not trying to be arrogant or rude, just honest). The gist of this all is those of us who have the discipline, take the time and are committed- and I mean life-or-death committed- to our financial success do not need UFF’s program or software. If you don’t feel you fit this category, I still do not recommend UFF but rather start by reading a few books that have helped me along on my personal journey such as…

Rich Dad Poor Dad (and the rest of the series)

Think and Grow Rich

Creating Affluence

See You at the Top

The Millionaire Next Door

The Millionaire Mind (or something to the effect, author: T. Harv Eker)

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

How to Win Friends and Influence People

..and the list goes on and on. UFF will not change you; only you can change you. Make positive steps in the right direction today by committing your life to change and making it happen.

Best wishes and again, many thanks to each of you.

ps i’m 23 and well on my way to a bright financial outlook that began solo at age 15. no, i don’t have a PH.D. (Poppa Has Dough lol)- i just work very effectively (notice i didn’t say “work hard”) and have created a great stream of unearned income while continuing to work my way up at my regular job. I work in the trades (HVAC, blue collar) but purchased my first piece of real estate at 19. You figure out the rest; it’s not rocket science. Remember, 98% of the people operate in their ‘comfort zone’, while only 2% operate in their ‘effective zone’. Where are you?

James A., you don’t even need a spreadsheet to “replicate” the results of the MMA – you can beat the MMA with a pencil-and-paper.

End of the month, after the bills are paid, take your bank balance and subtract a contingency amount. The remainder is what you send to your debts, to the highest interest rate debts first.

That’s it.

If the MMA has your debts being paid off in 67 months, you could be on track for 66 months or fewer without the cost and inefficiencies of the MMA.

Note to UFirst agents: Come up with something new instead of another nauseating “testimonial”. Come up with the sample money movements showing how the MMA makes use of the HELOC to benefit your clients. If you can prove how these MMA-directed transfers save money over the simple DIY “debt snowball” process listed above, you will have shut up all the “naysayers”. Your colleagues have had over 2 years to try, but they have all failed. Clearly, you know better.

to blakeg

You call the person that shared UFirst with you a “friend” yet you would rather listen to someone like Tracey who you don’t even know and who has her own agenda. Did you ever think that maybe a “friend” has your best interest at heart and Tracey is out to make a name for herself?? It sound like you are reading all the right books but it’s too bad that you think you already know everything. Do yourself a favor and keep an open mind.

If you want to know about UFF, read the February 2009 issue of Success from Home Magazine available at Book-A-Million

Lisa – with all due respect, why are you even bothering to argue with Ms. Coenen. Use your time to help families get out of debt with UFirst.
Ms. Coenen has made her mind up and I hope that works for her. Dave Ramsey had a similar blog last year on his website which went on endlessly back and forth with sily tit for tat waste of time banter. Mr. Ramsey can’t endorse UFirst because it would mean his program is a lame duck in comparison. Move on Lisa. Go spread the good word about UFirst to people that need it. There will always be non-believers with blinders on to the truth. PS: my 29 yr mortgage will be paid off in 6.6 years thanks to UFirst. It’s working just great.

I am totally confused by the negative energy used in some of these email comments. For the naysayers, please provide your contact information, so that those individuals who are not able to purchase this program (which will hold their hands and guide them through to financial freedom) may contact you for that daily guidance.

I have spoken with many people who stated they could themselves perform the task without the use of the software, however they have done nothing and it has been a year since they were presented with the analysis.

I have also spoken with people who need the hand holding I spoke about and could not wait to get on the program. Some of these people are now on schedule to pay off there homes in under 7.7 years after they were 2 months into a 30yr mortgage. Infact, the software initially had them at paying off their 30 yr mortgage in 11.8yrs. In July they would have been on the program for only 1yr. I will be checking with them to see what that payoff time has lowered itself to at their anniversary date. It looks like the proof is in the math and the thousands of dollars in interest they have saved and will save as those years continue. By the way they were able to do the program without the use of a HELOC.

Deborah – the misinformation is with the way that MMA is marketed. It starts with “no change to your budget” and ends with “factorial math.” Why not look at http://tinyurl.com/mmascam and you tell me how a mortgage broker can be so ignorant as to confuse HELOC interest with principal, or interest saved. And a well known agent then claims this as proof of a working system?
I’m the first to admit that higher math is beyond most people, but the power behind MMA is not a sophisticated algorithm, but simple arithmetic. You take your own money and send it to the bank as a principal payment. Not complicated and not a secret worth $3500.

Something people should also be aware of is whether or not their mortgage contract has a prepayment penalty which means they usually charge you a percentage of your outstanding balance. Not everyone has one, bit it could really hurt you if you pay off your loan early.

That’s his point – that Jubilee has no clue what they are talking about.

The final comment on this is that Jaime Buckley and his “Jubilee Project” have left UFirst, and signed up with Sydney Financial and their “WeXL” offering.

Yes, the guy who argued with many of us and was the inspiration for my guest blog here (link below), has dumped the company with the amazing “factorial math” that he defended so passionately.

http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/2008/08/30/united-first-financials-new-math/

“We should require a class like that in order to graduate now…have it cover interest and loans, etc…Basic LIFE math. It would prevent so many of these mlm’s from taking hold!”

I couldn’t agree with you more.

Greg – mind a few questions?
What do you mean by ‘Software Guy’? (My undergrad is BSEE, i.e. bachelor of science, electrical engineering.) Is software you field, or do you have a love of software to help you in your daily life?

You mention that it works, hands down. Aside from directing you to put your paycheck into your HELOC, and then use the HELOC to pay all bills, what do you feel it offers you and the missus?

Do you realize that prepaying one’s mortgage (thereby earning the mortgage rate on the money they throw in) is not everyone’s priority? At 46, I am happy to have 10 years left on my mortgage which was refinanced many times (no cost, no closing fees) down to 5.24%. I pay a lot of attention to the rest of my finances, the 401(k), IRAs, College account for the kid, etc. Do these facts suggest to you that I remove myself from this dialog? Of course I like to be right, I’d think most people would. But, I’m certainly not ‘not doing anything’, I’m just not doing this particular thing.

You realize the $3500 you spent would have cut an additional $6600 or so off the back of your mortgage, just by sending it to principal? Assuming you meant 11 yrs total, not 11 years from now.

So I did my research on these accelerated mortgage payment soft wares.

-There are about 5 of them including, United First Financial (UFF). UFF is the most expensive at a whopping $3500. The cheapest is $995. This means a majority must go to commissions paid on tier level output.
-your monthly net income must exceed your total monthly debts in order for it to work.
-Need a HELOC or line a credit with a low interest rate. If you use a HELOC, there may be tax advantages.
-Paying off 10-15 years faster is obtainable if your mortgage is around $200-300K and you pay an extra $400 a month. If you have a larger mortgage and pay less to principal, paying off WILL take longer.
-if you suck at paying your bills on time, have multiple credit card balances at high interest rates, or too lazy to research how to help yourself then a software prgram is for you.

To me, paying down your 1st Mortgage quicker does not need an software. The ONLY good advantage with the software is seeing exactly how much years you cut off by paying more principal at a monthly basis. I’m sure someone good with excel can create a formula for this (or use this website link http://www.americanfinancing.net/calculators/what-if-i-pay-more-calculator.php )

Simple rules to follow:
-Consolidate all credit card debt into one low interest rate line (personal or HELOC). Credit cards can have 20% interest rate. If you have a line at 5-6%, you are saving a lot
– Make a list of items you spend and from there, budget yourself. Example…eat more at home and bring home lunch, shop around for lower insurance premiums, rent movies instead of going to theater, use food coupons
-keep credit card balances to a minimum or pay it all off at the end of the month
-with the money extra saved from budgeting and consolidating debt, pay directly to principal on 1st mortgage. The more you pay to principal, the faster you pay off mortgage.

With a little research, you can put the $3500 software fee directly to the principal and you are on your way to paying off your 1st mortgage quicker.

Or we could not worry about saving any money or paying off our homes and hope for change and get our homes paid off by the Obama administration.

Ignorance isn’t always bliss…you say that UFF Agents don’t know anything about money, and that may be true; but that doesn’t mean UFF doesn’t understand money. The results don’t lie, people are paying off their debt faster than they ever would have on their own saving them thousands in interest and payments. You can believe what you like and speak from a place of ignorance, while those who bought into the “lie” will be debt free while you’re still swimming in your debt…..

Wow, what an articulate bunch you are. Tracy, it’s obvious that you thrive on the attention that you are getting on this website. On that note, I doubt that this post will even be published.

It’s simple as I see it, and you can make it as confusing as you want, but it remains as simple as this:

1-Ufirst is an MLM company, they don’t hide that, and there is no shame in being an MLM company.

2-The MMA costs $3500, so what? Would it be more reasonable to you if they charged $50 per month? If so, a person who used the program for 10 years would have paid $6,000. Does $50 per month make it easier for you to swallow? You seem to be stuck on $3500 being such a “rip off”. Worth it? The worth of a product is only determined by the consumer of the product. I once ate a steak at Morton’s in Chicago and it cost me $57. Was it worth it? I could have bought the same cut of meat and cooked it myself and it would have been a better bargain, but worth it? No, the steak was great, and I thought it was worth it.

3-Can you do this by yourself? Yes, of course, if you had Excel super-powers, you could. Does that make Quickbooks a scam? I paid a heck of a lot for my Quikbooks Pro to run my business and I most certainly could do what it does with a calculator and a typewriter, so is it worth the $$$? I think so. If you are an Accountant, is it worth it to you? Could you do the same thing on your own?

Here is the problem as I see it. You are all just like politicians who are arguing your case based on picking a side. Some are for, some against. What wasted time. If your site is intended to help people, I suppose it has helped (a) you, because your ego is now a bit more inflated and (b)it helped us all waste a little time reading posts that in the end, don’t matter much.

The MMA offers an organized and structured program that does several things that have automatic value no matter who you are or what your circumstances:
1-it gets you organized and forces you to look at your entire debt problem
2-it helps you to understand the effect of interest on your life by showing you exactly how much you owe, amortized out completely and it forces you to face the reality of your debt problems
3-it offers a person a great place, and a great way to manage expenses, pay bills, and understand how increased expenses can effect your lifelong effort to pay off your debt.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to spur anybody to have to respond to each bullet point, that would be exhausting. Bottom line, it offers more advantages than most would give it credit for. And yes, I know we could all create a spreadsheet, I get it. Geez, are all of you selling Microsoft products or what?

So, Tracy, I have a couple of questions for you, they are simple YES or NO questions and I don’t wish to see you type out “but…..”afterwards. So, if you have good sense, just answer these:

1-Does the MMA program ofered by UFirst Financial work to help a person reduce the amount of interest they pay on their debts overall? YES OR NO

2-Do you think that if you lined up 100 regular people at the mall or in the supermarket that more than 5 of them would know how to do this on their own, without the aid of a software program? YES OR NO

3-Do you think that it’s possible that the MMA program can help people get out of debt faster than they normally would otherwise? YES OR NO

You see, it’s not up to you to determine what is and is not “worth it” for another. I live in Idaho Falls where a 4,000 square foot home cost me $300,000 but there is no beach nearby and it gets cold in December, is it worth it? Or, is it better to live in a 900 sq. foot apartment in Los Angeles so that you can catch a Dodger game and go surfing and drive in rush hour traffic? Is that worth it?

For the record, I am an Internet Consultant and I work with a lot of websites and software. I can tell you that the actual program, the software, the website, is TOP-NOTCH. Very well designed, very intuitive, and very nice. And, as I was being sold on the program, they kept bragging about customer service and how good they were at customer service. I was very skeptical until I actually bought the program and started using it. I had a question about how to enter one of my loans and I clicked on the CHAT button on the MMA page and within just a couple of minutes, my problem was resolved. They did an EXCELLENT job. So far, so good.

I don’t know if their projection of getting me out of debt in 10.7 years instead of 22.4 years is going to come true. Probably not, because sure as heck, I’m going to borrow some money along the line for something and it will change the numbers and change the program. But you know what? If I can save a few years and if I can save $5,000, $10,000, or even $50,000 in interest, it will all be “worth it” to me. You know why? Because before this came along, I was like 95% of Americans, just making minimum payments, trying to stay afloat, and not really paying much attention to how the interest was hurting me. Now I am paying attention, and that in and of itself is probably “worth it”.

Please answer my three questions, YES OR NO.

Thanks.

I disagree with Tracy on the value of the MMA. I worked out a sample situation with a UFirst agent, and the results were that UFirst should refund the entire purchase price and compensate their clients about $2000 for every MMA “sold”. That is, I think the MMA is worth about -$2000, and I can back that up with math.

Now Mitch, to answer your 3 questions myself:

1. No, not compared to what they can do more easily, themselves, for free. The MMA is only faster than the “do nothing” approach of paying only the minimum payments. Once the homeowner decides they want to pay off the mortgage faster (not a given, even if they can afford to), just about any other approach, from Quicken/MS Money to pencil-and-paper is a better solution.

2. 100 people in a supermarket? At least 90 will immediately know to send more money to their debts to accelerate them. They rest just need to be told that, and a simple demonstration wouldn’t hurt.

3. The MMA definitely slows potential debt repayment. Could it be faster? For that, you would need to find someone who doesn’t know anything about debt, then teach them only about the MMA and avoid discussing how interest is calculated. In other words, you need to find the perfect UFirst agent.

As for your “top notch” comment about UFirst, were you around for the debacle of the version 4.0 rollout? Have you done the math to find out how inefficient the use of the HELOC/credit card/savings account in conjunction with the MMA really is? Are you aware that if you create an MMA analysis right now for a 30 year mortgage with no discretionary income, the payoff will be longer than 30 years? Far from “top notch”, UFirst is downright incompetent.

Where I do agree with you, Mitch, is that if you completely ignore your finances, you will not be in good shape. I take offense that you seem to think that giving someone $3500 in exchange for some broken software will make people pay attention. As Tracy said, you are still doing all the work with the MMA – more work, in fact, than simply prepaying the mortgage without the MMA. All that work and money, just to trail simple prepayments in efficiency.

UFirst doesn’t have clients – they have victims.

Mitch – Craig and Tracy gave you pretty complete replies. I’ll be brief.

You refer to “excel super powers”, cute, I guess. MMA does nothing except cost you, as Craig said, more than just the $3500. Depending on whether you front load or back end the expense, it’s as high as $20000, true cost.
If one follows the rule:
1) Make all minimum payments, then at month end send all extra money to highest interest debt.
They will achieve superior results.

At the same time I hate bad analogies, I also dream up my own. My daughter was born 5 weeks early, and I was paranoid that she’d be the smallest in her class at school. So I measured her with a magic tape measure that I was told would help her growth, every night before she went to sleep. She is now the tallest in her class, and I sell these to parent of preemies for $5K, worth every penny to them.

The above is a joke, of course, just like MMA is a joke. The rule above will have better results than MMA, and a free spreadsheet will let one track their progress. Is obsessive tracking worth even $50? Probably not.

By the way, Morton’s never said “You can’t do this on your own”.

Joe

Anyone can reduce their interest on their primary mortgage by paying extra money to their principal. For example if you pay an extra $5000 to your principal of the mortgage, that is $5000 less that interest will be charged on for the rest of your loan term. If you have a financial calculator you can figure it out for yourselves. This program does work and if you don’t have anything better to do than to write bad things about companies, then to bad for you. We will all be debt free and you will still owe on your home and other debts.

My original loan balance: $183,575.65
Interest Rate: 6.25%
Payment $1131.38 (no escrow)
Original term: 359 months(already pd one payment before starting MMA
Total Interest: $222,590.15
Total of all payments: $406,165.

With MMA up to 4-1-09
Balance Now: $176,433.60
Interest Rate: 6.25%
Payment: $1131.38
Remaining Term: 322 months (use financial calculator to find this)
Total Interest: $187,812.59
Total of all payments: $364,304

Summary
Interest before $222,590
Interest w/MMA -$187,813
Saved $34,377
Cost of program $3500
$34,377/$3500=9.936 times
So if Ii quit using the program, I still have saved $34,377 in future interst on my mortgage. But I am not going to quit. I will be debt free in 5 years. Can you say the same thing?
This is not including the car loan already pd not transfered to somewhere else and credit card debt not transfered somewhere else.

You can now run this program just with checking and savings, no need for the line of credit now or a credit card, but it does work better if you have them.

This is my last post. So if you still do not believe in it, good for you. If you have changed your mind, find an agent and get an analysis. P.S. I was a lender and this does work.

IIWFM,

No, those are just before and after summaries, and as Tracy notes, do not include your HELOC or other account used in conjunction with the MMA.

Do you really think we’re that gullible?

Scan and post your bank, HELOC and CC statements. Block out any personal info. If you can post electronic versions, even better. Let’s see what caused you to be $34,777 ahead after 12 months.

Also, what kind of car was it?

Like Tracy I’m a CFE and a CPA and I’m also an agent for UFF just to get that out in the open. I too looked long and hard at the product to help myself get out of debt and after vetting it and trying to do it myself with a spreadsheet I found that the MMA did it in seconds and why do I want to spend my “non work time” to do something when I could buy something else that does it so easily. I saw where someone called it a scam because people don’t have knowledge about mortgages. I’m not a mortgage professional either. Is a person going to be a spreadsheet and math wiz that can figure it all out too? Lastly, all of everyone who has posted here all I have to say is I have a plan now, where I didn’t before, and I’m sticking with it. How is your plan working out for you? Are you still on track to pay off your 20 year’s worth of debt in less than 5 like I am? Well, I watch mine go down with every payment the program tells me to make. One other thing, I buy an accountant’s version of Quickbooks for @ $400 and microsoft costs quite a bit too and the yearly updates also costs you. UFF doesn’t charge you for the updates even if you end up using the program for 10 to 12 or 20 years and if you do switch properties it only costs you $120 to switch them. Now, is that too much to pay? Tracy, you say it’s easy to use a spreadsheet to do this for yourself. All I can say is please “bring your ‘A’ game and show me since I’m originally from Missouri the “show-me” state. I’ll buy your method and make you rich if you’ll show me how to do it as quickly and effeciently as UFF. I actually believe you may be showing yourself somewhat of a “fraud” by your statements unless you can back them up. So, what are you waiting for. Here’s my email address for all to see: xxxxx I’ll be awaiting your reponse and if you can show me I’ll eat crow right here but I need you to show me a “better” or at least as good of a way to get the results and I want to be able to do it in less than 15 minutes a day and know exactly how much time I have left, how much interest I am saving and if anything changes I want to see those results as well. I’m guessing you haven’t really used the program or even attended any seminar on it and had your concerns addressed. If that is the case, in political terms you would be called a “hack”, if not then I, along with others of the 60,000 who use the program want to see your program you can do so easily.

Okay, here comes the name calling but …. where is your “A” game Tracy? C’mon, save me some money and …. the link you use doesn’t work.

You’re losing your “cool!”

Yeah, being a moron, I didn’t know that paying off highest interest loans first is the way to go. I guess once the country get’s several trillion in debt it will be “too big to fail” too and we can all breath easier. I mean, being a moron and all I need to believe what the President and his administration is telling us right?

I’m going to start using that “moron” tag in my practice since you like using it in your “professional” practice. I really thought we could discuss this like adults but I can see by the earlier posts that this blog really offers nothing but theory and I suppose a spreadsheet. Hey, but it’s “free!” and all morons and non-morons and use it with ease!!

I’m willing to bet that all the listings from your “moron” one and later won’t show. Glad I’m copying them now!!

Okay, I can see you won’t bring your “A” game. You lost me on the refrigerator argument. So, people don’t really “need” to hire a CFE out there since they can do their own investigations and file their own lawsuits and collect evidence. That’s just some silly “expensive” stuff CFE’s do.

You were the one that keeps belittling others in your blog and calling them morons, saying their assertions are “a lie” but you don’t have the guts to go head to head with someone from UFF at a live meeting and show how you can do it more efficiently. I don’t have time, nor do I want to re-invent the wheel that the MMA is. Therefore I say it’s a bargain. I put in all my bills and they are tracked until they are paid and all my discretionary income is accumulated while it suggests how to use it best according to their program. It also shows me “true cost” should I want to see how a purchase will affect me in my unique situation based on MY income and MY expenses.

Call me names or whatever. I’m going to go out and buy a Cadillac today too even though I can probably get by with a 1985 Ford F150 that I saw that wasn’t too pretty but I like the reliability and comfort of the new Cadillac. (just kidding, I’m too busy getting out of debt!)

@KW: “I don’t have time, nor do I want to re-invent the wheel that the MMA is”

Clearly you have nothing but time. If you had a business to run you wouldn’t be writting reams and reams of incoherent verbiage on the Internet.

Also,

For the record, if the goal is to pay down all debt the fastest and paying the least interest, no one is suggesting that you must have a spreadsheet to do this.

I think user “ellory” said it well in this thread (as have many others elsewhere):

>>What to payoff first? The one with the highest effective interest rate. Any other strategy will cause you to pay extra interest

>>When to make a payment? If the payment is applied based on due date, then right before the due date, as much as you can. Any other strategy either gives float to the lender or causes a late payment penalty.

>>How much to pay? As much as you possible can on the bill with the highest interest rate, and then meet the monthly payments on the others

>>No math required to implement. No time required to figure it out. This is always true

>>Congratulations on your great savings

For those that like to track their financial picture, including debt, there are many options.

Some are comfortable with Excel, OpenOffice.org, GoogleDocs, etc and that is fine. There are free debt paydown templates available on the web.

Some like to have the “dashboard” feel of their current and projected finances so they purchase Quicken, MSMoney, or other off the shelf software. Either way, all these offerings are fractions less expensive than MMA (even free in some cases).

But if you like slick interface of the MMA, the off-site “secure” storage, etc., that’s fine with me.

KW – my ongoing debunking just published post #32, and I’ve addressed all the issues you and other agents continue to go in circles about.
Enter any extra sum into my sheet and you immediately see the remaining time on your mortgage drop and the interest saved. No, I didn’t bother going on to include credit cards, one should pay any card they carry a balance on month to month in full before they start to hack at their mortgage.
In a post a couple months back I state that no one needs MMA or even my sheet, neither adds value. “Each month, pay all minimum required payments, and any extra funds you have to your highest rate account.” That’s the only rule one needs. Now, if you wish to obsessively visit your MMA or my sheet every night to see how many days you knocked off your mortgage, all the more power to you. One agent stated that the new software would let you text MMA from your cell so it can advise you whether it’s a good time to buy steak on sale. I can’t make this cr*p up. That’s a feature? Nowhere does the software ask if your 401(k) is matched or by how much.
I find this so amusing. Even taking screenshots of the MMA demo video and demo software in action, I’m told that I don’t get it. Do you understand that when I say I know this material inside out that I’m not bragging? The arithmetic required is not beyond a fourth grader. There’s no factorials (or as some agents call it “fractional math”), no calculus, just your four basic functions.
Let me offer you this – I received an ‘analysis’ from one of my blog readers. The guy had just over a hundred dollars per month extra after bills. The software said MMA would save him nearly 18 years. Took me 9 seconds to see that the agent entered his income as bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly magically creating a raise of 8% or so. The guy that wrote to me asked how I caught that so quickly. I asked back how could the agent miss it? Let me stop right there. Most agents have such little understanding of simple math that they can’t catch an (honest) entry error that created a difference of well more than 10 years payoff.

One agent I wrote to told me that MMA didn’t need any extra money, that with “zero” extra funds, the mortgage would get paid off in under 20 years from 30. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how mortgages are calculated. Interesting how UFirst hides behind a disclaimer that say they don’t offer mortgage advice or financial advice, they just sell software. Yes, I posted about that, too.
A compilation of my postings is available in one tedious document at http://www.joetaxpayer.com/MMACompR32.pdf
It also contains my first ever guest post from this site, and Craig’s now famous Factorial Math post, also from here.

You need to check your definition, sweetie. Frontloaded means that if I pay $1000 a month to my lender, and at the beginning of the term, most of the payment goes to interest, it is frontloaded. ALL mortgages do this. The only way it would not be frontloaded is if EQUAL parts (thats $500 to principle at least, and $500 to interest or less) of the payment for the entire term of the loan.

All mortgages pay off interest first. That is Frontloading by definition. You are wrong, wrong, wrong.

I observed something recently that I thought was interesting. My business requires me to regularly attend consumer shows like home and reno expos. This past year I’ve seen more and more booths from MLM businesses: a real gamut from mortgage & financial ones to ones that plug juices and herbs.

Having a successful show booth requires that you staff it with happy, outgoing go-getters. That’s Sales 101, but even real businesses like landscapers or stone and tile merchants sometimes forget that. Regardless, easily 90% or more of the people I see staffing MLM booths aren’t happy, smiley, confident salespeope. Instead I see mousey, hunted, vaguely guilty expressions, like they really don’t want to be there. Which is odd, since I expect they paid the fees for the booth out of their own pockets.

My guess is that they look scared because they’re on the brink of financial ruin, but who knows?

Reverse psychology, Tracy? Must be. 🙂

I honestly don’t care what happens to them, I don’t represent them in any way. They were just a way to get me through school and a means to an end. I was just stating a fact, something that alot of people on here seem to miss. That’s great you can name drop and that you know who works there, good for you for keeping informed on a company you aren’t even affilated with. I’m guessing both of you have friends that have an MMA so in time you will see if they can still use their software or not, good luck with that.

It’s interesting how everyone thinks they can do it yet no one actually is. Any one can do biweekly payments yet the vast majority of people dont. I am looking to find AN ACTUAL CLIENT that is currently using the system complain about its results. Let me tell you what it has done for me: I had 29 years left on my mortgage, The analysis told me I would be done in 6.75 years and save over 93,000 dollars. That was two years ago. I AM AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, I only have two and a half years to go, and i dindn’t have to put extra money out of my pocket into my mortgage. I have kids and can’t afford to do that. I also paid off 4 credit cards in the process.

If your thrown off about the mlm thing do what i do, buy the system and dont get involved with the company in any other way.

Oh yea. Within your research did you find the clip of Earnsy and young giving them an award based on there program. Or did you do what i did and actually call the magazines to verify what you were told. They all were skepticle just like I was but its winning awards for something. my accountant/financial planner friend turned me on to this for a reason. It works.
And my words count more than anyone who just “did some quick research”. You should be careful. You would have turned me away and I wouldnt have tried this amazing system. My daughter is 7 yrs. old. When its time for her to go to college I will have been able to save the money she needs because i won’t have a mortgage to pay for about 8 years before she enters.

I have one question for Ms. Coenen and I would like a thoroughly researched answer from you. I am a financial adviser that sees this company as an excellent tool for many of my clients.

‘How did United First Financial get the Entrepreneur of the Year award for Utah’ in July of 2008 from Ernest and Young if the company is a hoax?

From what I can see this is a very solid company that I would like to help my clients with. I know Ernest and Young does not give this award out flipently. We are talking about one of the finest accounting firms in the country giving an award to a company that claims to have excellent accounting software. They do not reward scams.

Please don’t throw me some off the cuff answer. I as well as the readers on this blog need to know that you have thoroughly researched this company. From what I can see this company is poised to be one of the largest financial institutions in the country.

Thank You
Kent

Tracy’s is a forensic account. When I hear the word forensic I picture a trained investigator using scientific menthods to determine what happened in a crime scene or in a the budget or accounts. That means gathering evidence and doing a thorough scientific analysis which may also include a review of relevant literature and publishing the statistics and equations. On several occasions when bloggers claimed success with MMA you have denied their claim stating the they could have done better on their own. Yet so far a scrutinity of the evidence and rejection or acceptance of the underlying claims has not occured. Here is an example
It is working for me!! Says:
18 Apr 09 at 4:30 pm
I have been on the MMA for 11 months and have already saved $35,000 in future interest on my mortgage, paid off my $14,000 car loan and $4,000 in credit card debt. I have recouped my initial cost by 10 times. And yes I am also an agent. I can tell you all this is not a scam, it works. So do not knock it if you haven’t tried it. At least have a local agent run your numbers. You will be amazed.

Tracy Coenen Says:
18 Apr 09 at 6:27 pm
Everything you’ve just written “It’s working for me” is a lie.

You haven’t “saved” $35k in future interest. You’ve possibly saved a small figure, but the “future” interest you think you’re saving is not yet saved and is not thanks to MMA.

You haven’t paid off your car loan and your credit card. You’ve replaced that debt with other debt, on the advice of your MMA software.

You haven’t recouped your initial cost. You’re further in the hole than when you started.

Thanks for playing.

WHAT FORENSIC ANALYSIS WAS DONE WITH THIS PERSONS DATA TO DETERMINE THE VERY SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT THAT “Everything you’ve just written “It’s working for me” is a lie.”

Thomas Chaffin, UFirst agent #849723:

Many of us have reviewed the MMA. We’ve seen the presentations. Some of us have even used a demo of the MMA. If you can do an ounce of math, it becomes clear that the only thing the MMA does is send more money to your mortgage, and in most cases, borrowed money. The interest saved each month at the mortgage is more than offset by the interest accrued by the new debt, plus the $3500 cost. If you finance the MMA, UFirst charges 18% interest. So much for “interest cancellation”.

So when people pop us and yell, “It’s working for me!”, then sure, maybe they’re using it to accelerate their debt retirement. What they should know, and what Tracy is telling them, is that they could have been *at least* $3500, plus interest, ahead of where they are now, with less work. It might take them a trip to their bank to work out an accelerated payment schedule, but that’s it.

Simple, efficient, and free. You sell complicated, inefficient, and expensive. Good luck with that.

Tom H.,

It is sad to hear that UFirst will not refund you. I don’t have any personal experience but I do know that some clients have gotten refunds. Many of those were during the upgrade to version 4.0 that was very buggy. (The software was reporting dates like “Jan 1, 1900” and other blatant programming errors.) But HELOC freezings/closings have in and of themselves not been reason enough to fulfill their “Limited” guarantee. And other posters to Tracy’s site have had similar cases to yours and not gotten refunds.

From what I gather, it seems like they are pushing back against refund requests. They only give refunds within 3 business days of your initial purchace (7-10 days in other states) should you change you mind (right of recission).

You could contact Carol Eaquinto, with UFF’s Client Special Services:

ceaquinto AT unitedfirstfinancial DOT com

but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Be vocal on any other forums or websites that you can Google about Ufirst, and good luck.

Late2Game- I called Carol Eaquinto and spoke to her at length but I may as well have been talking to the wall in my office. She would not budge in their position that even though I was lied to by the agent who sold me the program and the program was totally usless to me because of the economic circumstances of the time (HELOC frozen and business shut down), UFF did nothing wrong and I was not going to get my money back. I don’t blame the company for the economic downturn, but the “guaranteed savings” as stated in their contract never materialized for us and it soon became evident that we were out $3500 that we needed for survival. UFF’s “limited guarantee” all but precludes you from any hope of a refund. They have neatly covered their asses for being liable for anything. Being told that if the program did not work for us or we were not happy with it we could get a refund by this UFF agent meant nothing to Carol or anyone else. I will definitely write to the FTC and I continue talking to the Utah BBB who will do a binding arbitration for us and UFF for a fee of $75.00. I will let you know how it all ends.

I am a 25-year veteran of financial planning and I use the MMA with my clients on a limited basis. I do not recruit agents actively and I don’t care that the sales structure is MLM (or insurance agency if you prefer). Surely, there are crooks marketing MMA just like there are crooks marketing investments, cars and dishwashers. United First’s structure and some of its agents are fair game for inspection but the MMA system strikes me as without parallel.

Evidently however, my experience fails me and I am too stupid to see the light. So, I am asking for help. I just need someone to show me – and financially guarantee the outcome – how to pay off a $200k, 5% mortgage in 13.2 years and at an interest savings of $113k (as I just calculated for JoeTaxpayer on bargaineering blog; see Trackback). I assumed a 5% HELOC and that the client only has $200 in discretionary income per month.

So, perhaps I’m mistaken on this and a better financial professional will correct me but just using a simple Excel ROI calculator I find that spending (investing) $3,500 to save (return) $113,000 over a 13.2 year time horizon equates to a 30.11% ROI.

If a reply could avoid ranting about the MLM and how ever paying anyone $3,500 is a mistake (both of which just waste readers’ time) and simply tell me how to pay off this $200k mortgage faster – and on exactly what date it will be paid off and for how exactly much in interest, I’d greatly appreciate it. Oh and if the reply poster has a better “system” that’s cheaper than MMA, please also tell me how your system tells me exactly how much of a check to write from the HELOC to the mortgage. This will probably be very easy for you naysayers to do so thanks much in advance!

I just sent the MMA analysis output to your Sequence address. Look forward to the results of your review…

You obviously know “NOtHING” aobut United First Financial. I wonder how much the Baning and Mortgage industry pays you to try to keep homeowners from paying off their mortgages early. MMA works! You are just too stupie to understand the process. I suppose you’re also discounting Ernst & Young as being too stupid to recognize UFF is a scam?
If you’re going to cut down something, DO ADEQUATE RESEARCH, WITHOUT A BIASED OPINION FIRST, SO YOU CAN BE COMPLETELY FAIR WITH YOUR READERS!

“You are just too stupie to understand the process.”
– Frank

If only I was in the Baning industry, maybe I would understand it.

I’ve got a question: do all pro-MMA commentators think that delcarates like “You’re a moron. I’m right, you’re wrong. The MMA works, don’t cloud the issue with facts!” qualifies as effective salesmanship?

Hey why don’t all of you united first financial brain-washed simple minded people check out NAA they are a mortgage insurance outfit. They run meetings every week reqruit house wives whom never sold a thing in their lives, and micro manage you to death. For people whom need to feel part of something and like to believe everything they hear. Check out NAA you can cross-sell them this big waste of time system and put them in even further debt. Another CULT-LIKE experience wake up people and become leaders not followers!!!!!!!

I cannot believe the idiots that have written on this site. The MMA is a fantastic program that is in it’s 4th generation, with later versions in the works. All of you MORONS are stuck on the damn $3500! How much did you spend on your last car? How long did that it you? How much did it cost you? What about the big picture here? Would you drive your car without being able to see the gauges on the dashboard? Then why do you endorse people in this country making their financial decisions this way? Blindly, with no idea as to how the choices they make will impact their overall financial horizon. This is what has gotten people in so much trouble. And this is one of the main things this program provides – direction. Not only from where you are now, but all along the way. With this program you never have to make an uneducated financial decision again in your life! EVER! So, I guess that’s not a good thing? Apparently, Tracy, it isn’t to you. And your comments on here prove that anyone with half a brain – which is way more credit than you, my dear, based on what you have written about this product,are due – can post any lies they want on the internet. I wonder who’s paying you to bash this product? This program, in the past 2 1/2 years, has helped people pay off $355,000,000 in principal. Gee, I guess that’s a bad thing too? Poor people, spending $3500 when they could just do that themselves. Riiiiiight. How was that working for them? Which brings up another great feature – you don’t have to be a math wiz to use this product. Another thing: the guarantee is not “if you’re not happy with it, we’ll give you your money back”, as the gentleman above stated. The guarantee is that if you follow the prompts the software gives you and the results do not live up to the original analysis you received, THEN you are entitled to a refund. No matter if it helped save you thousands upon thousands of dollars in the meantime! Did you happen to READ what you signed??? Oh Poor, pitiful suckers, most of whom didn’t have extra money to pay down their mortgages quickly, who don’t have the time and/or knowledge to calculate the fastest way to zero (by the way, Tracy, do you?). They got suckered into spending money on a software program with absolutely amazing customer service. I was one of those people. Nothing says you can’t get a heloc unless you have the program. And you don’t need a heloc OR a credit card to run this program anymore. They are constantly adapting to the current financial landscape. And you all seem to be missing the fact that this program is usable with ALL kinds of debt, multiple mortgages, etc and that it isn’t just about paying down your mortgage faster. It’s about getting you to zero debt faster than anything else around. It’s about taking control of your financial future. It’s about having a plan and following it. It’s about NOT just paying the highest interest rate off first. Now THAT’s dumb! Tracy, I believe that’s how you said the MMA works? WRONG! If your stock broker told you he could make you $100,000 in 7 to 10 years for $3500, you’d give him the money, most likely. But there are NO guarantees there. In fact, you actually have to state that there are none! (I am a registered rep as well) But this product DOES have a guarantee and it generally does just that – or better. I use this product, I sell this product, I believe in this product. And I am, if you can’t tell, ashamed and appalled at the stupidity of the commentaries on this website. Where do you people get off acting like experts on something you know little to nothing about? Probably Rush Limbaugh fans too.

Thank you so much for this information! UFF was mentioned to me by a co-worker last week. He gave me a brief description of how it works but did not mention a fee or anything, just said to let him know if I was interested. I tend to be very cautious and it threw up red flags because:
1. The idea of a HELOC to pay bills sounded silly and
2. why would I need to contact him if I was interested.
Thank goodness I rely in the internet for information 😉 I do want to pay down my mortgage early, but I want to be smart about it and make a few extra payments a year, when I can afford it. This program just does not sit well with me. It’s like all of those “get out of debt” commercials I hear. Why on earth would I pay someone to tell me how to pay my bills if the reason I can’t pay them is I have no money? Sometimes I feel sorry for the people who fall for scams, my own grandmother has been scammed, but I figure most people have the same resources as I do to make their own informed decisions. I did not read all of the posts, but I would also like to point out that not only are amortization calculators that tell you how much time and money you save by paying extra on your mortgage all over the internet, but many large banks offer financial consulting services free to their customers and can help with these things. I have used my bank’s free services.
Great information, I will certainly visit again.

I am using the software, i have been for the last 2.5 years. I do agree with most people thinking they can do this themselves but I do not believe I can. I move money around quite a bit it seems but I have saved close to 64,000 so far on my home loan and I am on target to pay it off at least 17 years earlier than expected. I also like the personal coach feature so I can call the company up anytime and they help me out. Another thing I like is the ability to be flexible. If something comes up you simply place that change into the system and it refigures all the numbers. Imagine how long your financial advisor would do that if you need changes reguarly. Although I didnt benenfit from this feature but I have referred my brother to the program and they company now takes a payment plan for the $3,500 which they include as part of the system so he will pay roughly 3,800 for the program over two years.

I would also like to point of the fact no one complains about this system if they actually use it. Most people who have complaints on here are those who believe they have the secrets to being debt free. I would at least like to see them try the system before they say it does not work or they explain to you how easy it is to build youre own system. There is a reason people are looking into this software and it is because they either have a need for help or they know someone that does.

I dont know if this program is for everyone but it has and it is continuing to work for my family.

Corey, you’d be ahead by nearly $4000 more had you not bought the program. $64000? That came from your savings or income, but it was due to you, not MMA. No one complained about Madoff for 25 years. In fact I had to listen to someone brag about his superior returns for over a decade until the news broke. The system is broken, Corey, it will have you pull too much money out of the HELOC, and pay more interest than you should, not less.

Has anyone been able to get a refund for this program? My financial planner recommended it, so I took the bait and signed up. Now I regret it and I don’t like the program at all. I have contacted customer service to inquire about a refund, and they will call me in a couple days to “talk about it.” I know they will give me a difficult time. So I’m anxious to hear if anyone was able to get a refund, and if they did, how were they able to do it?

I no longer have that financial planner, but he has worked with the agent before. I think I was one of the agent’s first clients. Neither the financial planner or the agent used the program, which should have been a red light. I’ll definitely go the BBB route if I need to. I’ll post here and let you know what happens. I’m not looking forward to this phone call. They were a hard sell in the beginning, and I’m sure they will be even worse when it comes to keeping my money.

Okay, so the result is … they are keeping my money. They said I signed the papers, and all the details are there. I was (nicely but firmly) told that their guarantee is not a satisfaction guarantee, it’s a performance guarantee. Even though the prompts would have me overdrawing my checking account, where all my bills (including mortgage and credit card) would bounce. So … their 3-Day guarantee is all you get, but you don’t get your login until after the 3 days is over. Neither my former financial planner or the agent, who both told me this was sooo great, use the program themselves. I hope my experience will help others make the right decision. By the way, the company is rated C- by the Better Business Bureau. Wished I had known that before. Lesson learned!

Just a little history in homeownership in America, back in 1929 only 2% of homes in America had a mortgage against them. 98% of homes were mortgage free. In 1962 98% of homes had a mortgage against them and only 2% are mortgage free. This trend from 1962 has been ongoing till present day in 2009. It’s funny when people ask me if I’m a homeowner. I had to to think about that for a while. I am not a homeowner until you make your final payment to the lender, so in reality until I make 360 payments to my lender then I can finally say I am a homeowner. Some people say, Well, if you’re making mortgage payments on your home, you have “In Real Estate Terms” interest on your home. Yeah right Buddy!, I have to pay huge “INTEREST” payments to my lender.

For the people on this site who have the answers in paying their mortgage off quickly please share it with the families who are making their mortgage payments on time and please share it to the millions of families who have lost their homes due to foreclosure so these families don’t make the financial mistake in the future.

For the people who are trying to get their money back from “United First Financial” Why would you want to get your money back right away if you haven’t tried the program. The agent that sold you the program, did he or she not explain the benefits of saving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest saved on your mortgage which leads to true homeownership. If you need help with account, you need to call customer support with your problem.

With everybody saying the “Money Merge Account” program doesn’t work and it’s a scam. Well, tell that to the 60,000 plus homeowners who have paid down $355,712,634.00 additional principal debt in only the last 3 years. This statistic is as of May 31, 2009.

Bottom line, people need the “MMA” service why, because only 2% of homeowners are disciplined in adding extra money to their mortgage. The other 98% percent will take their discretionary income and spend it on other investments or on other things.

So, why not sign up for a service the will make you debt free. I signed up my parents on the program. They have invested into real estate throughout the years and now have 8 properties total. The downfall is they still have 26 years combined to pay off these 8 properties. The “Money Merge Account” program reduce their 26 years pay off down to 8.9 years, saving them over a million dollars in interest saved. Tell me where can you find a do it yourself program that can save you this much money. The best thing about this is they don’t have to change their lifstyle.

I believe that “United First Financial” are one of the few companies that are out there helping families in America and Canada become debt free. The United States of America is already in a economic crisis. “United First Financial” is helpling families become debt free, the numbers show. If you can imagine having more debt free families in the U.S.A., if we can accomplish this, then we can become a debt free nation which means prosperity for our future generation.

Ron, do you know how to divide? $355,712,634.00 divided by 60,000 (plus?) is $5928. But that’s over 3 years. It’s less than $165 per month extra principal. That extra principle, when applied from day one to the classic example mortgage, $200K 6%, would drop the payoff from 360 months to 265 or 22 years. A far cry from the 10 year payoff UFirst brags about, and not the $1000/mo extra principal UFirst felt appropriate to use in they examples.
Why not sign up for such a service? Be cause one can make extra principal payments and come out ahead. One needs no math at all to do it. None.

Ron, I’ve written many posts on UFF, and proved using their own video and web site that the math is flawed. The sales pitch isn’t just exaggerated. It’s a lie.
Those who need to get out of debt can ill afford to spend $3500 on a flawed piece of, er, software. You an agent? You seen my free spreadsheet? Beats MMA every time. Don’t confuse free will having no value. It’s worth $20,000, give or take. That’s what MMA’s “true cost” is. My $500 grill, on the other hand, is an investment, it saves me eating out, and pays for itself and them some. The scammers have it backwards.

“Those on here who work for UFF, if you think your company is honest, then help me get my refund!!”

Excellent, excellent point.

How about it, UFirst agents? Help Sandy get her money back.

If I remember correctly, they don’t take credit cards. I had to get a cashier’s check. I’m going to start with sending a letter, though I am guessing their response will be full of statistics.

I just go to the national bbb.org site, select USA, then search for Business/Charity and enter “United First”. The corporate United First Financial, LLC always comes up first for me (26 complaints in last 36 months, now). The other listings are usually just other agents.

I can’t believe any would pay $3,500 for a calculator which http://www.moneydesktop.com offers for $19 a month.

I recently submitted a resume to yahoo.com on hotjobs so that I could be contacted by employers. So far I have only really received feedback from pyramid scheme companies, or the like. So to make sure I do some research and I eventually will find something shady about them. Anyhow, this is what was recently e-mailed to me by a regional recruiter from UFF:

I have received your resume that you sent to me in response to our opening on Yahoo.com Hot Jobs and would like to talk with you regarding a position with our company. I have several full time as well as part time positions open at this time.

I am looking to bring on the smartest and most talented independent SALES AGENTS in the country that are willing to work from a home office, part time or full time marketing three cutting edge programs. The three programs will:

1) Save our customers in many cases in excess of $100,000 to $200,000 on their home mortgage without having to refinance.

2) Teach people how to save money on their taxes.

3) Develop banking strategies that will save finance charges on their vehicle purchases.

Our company is very well accepted in the marketplace, and the demand for our program is exploding with growing momentum. The company owners last year were awarded the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award by Ernst and Young in their sector of Financial Services in their area.

This is a “Commission Only” position, and the income ranges from $1000 per sale to $1500 per sale and could include residual income. With bonuses, many of our agents are earning six figure incomes within the first 24 months. Management bonuses are easily above 6 figures. Our part time sales agents are earning $2000 – $3000 part time per month.

Here is a 15 minute video that will give you more information about this position and our company – http://www.uffagentvideo.com.

Please let me know when it would be a good time to talk with you, and I will be happy to provide you with you more information regarding this. I look forward to hearing from you.

—

Paulette Gibbs
Regional Recruiter
United First Financial
(949)872-3759

At this point I think I will most likely become a rockstar instead and set aside the resume…haha

“2) Teach people how to save money on their taxes.”

The UF disclaimer specifically says they do not offer financial advice, they only sell a software product. Has their stance changed? Are they going to screw up not only one’s mortgage payoff but ‘all’ the clients’ finances?

There are two (2) ways to introduce UFF’s MMA. The right way and the wrong way.

The reason that the Network Marketing opportunity is not “up front” on their website is to sort out the “real” people from the “MLM Junkies”.

I work for a Financial Services company in Southwestern Ontario who uses this program as a second step to a completely eliminating our client’s mortgage in the time estimated by the MMA program. AND…we only let them proceed if they want to AND…only after they run it by their lawyer, which is the law in Canada on any mortgage whether it’s their first one or it’s a refinance.

The cost of the MMA becomes part of the first step in refinancing their mortgage using traditional sources….LIKE A BANK….which get’s rid of the Credit Card debt and takes advantage of the lower interest rates.

Then and only then, are they asked it they would like to proceed with the MMA.

I am guessing that most of the posts to this blog are from skeptics who have become cynical where anything to do with MLM, especially if it also involves any kind of financial product (and I agree we all must be careful where that is concerned).

Most of the complaints are coming from a lack of understanding – such as the post about having 2 loans, a mortgage and an HELOC. That is the case, BUT the algorithm that deals with paying your obligations requires that you have a cash flow that is from a JOB, or a steady flow of income from another source such as an investment that is producing an income. The KEY here is the program only works if there is a cash flow.

Do the MATH as someone said using the DEMO on the site. It requires that you put in your monthly income as part to the equation.

Do that and then post your comments again.

BTW – I have several clients using the UFF MMA and they are thrilled with how it is actually working.

ANYONE RESEARCHING THIS CAN LOOK TO EARNST AND YOUNG FOR THEIR OPINION. THIS MOST REPUTABLE AMERICAN FINANCIAL INSTITUTION THINKS VERY HIGHLY OF UNITED FIRST FINANCIAL. ALSO SEE SUCCESS FROM HOME MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2009. THERE ARE 2 REASONS FOR THE $3500. ONE, SO THEIR SALES FORCE CAN MAKE AN ABOVE AVERAGE WAGE – $2250 OF THE $3500 IS PAID IN COMMISSIONS. THE OTHER $1250 IS ADMINISTRATIVE, BUT POWERS A CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CLIENT TRAINING FORCE THAT IS AVAILABLE 14 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK.

One of the differences of the money merge account is that it is NOT a disk that you load on your computer and then good luck. The company stands very strongly behind its clients and agents.

My wife and I were well on our way to being out of debt – having only 8 years left to debt freedom, but purchased this anyway. When we started the system told us that we had 2 years left, but now after 1 month, we have just over 1 3/4 years and we will more than double our investment in the interest we save.

As far as speaking to our intelligence, you decide if this was a good investment. As I said, we were close by all standards (at age 39) to being out of debt. Now we are 3/4 of the way closer, because the things we were doing to pay down our debt were not nearly as powerful as this program! I wish someone had given this to us as a wedding present 11 years ago.

Has anyone gone through the arbitration process with UFF and the BBB? I’m wondering if it’s a fair process, or if the BBB will tend to rule in favor of the companies.

1st of all I am an agent my mother was my first client & in 6 months reduced her balance of around 247k by $4,500 period end of discussion. I HAVE SEEN HER WORK THE PROGRAM W/ MY OWN EYES. As for this article if anyone would notice the comments at the begining it is clear that by the time stamp on them the same person was making those comments. I mean come on the comments are literaly by the minute!! Always there is no way they got The Ernest & Young business of the year award plus many mortgage but are a fraud???? To the person who wrote this who the hell are you again? Oh yea YOUR math does not add up do some reseach if you have 3 credit lines (mortgage, car loan & credit card) there is over a million different calculation to pay the least amount on that debt good luck guessing which one.

Ephraim,

Tracy posted just 4 minutes after you. How do I know you’re not Tracy?

Actually, that’s easier than I first thought: Tracy can do math.

The UFirst marketing deception you’re trying to quote is “3.6 million different ways to retire 10 debts”. You’ve reduced that to 3 debts. Want to know how many ways you can order the repayment of 3 debts? 3!=3x2x1=6. Six. Six ways, not one million.

But as Tracy said, the best way is to order them from highest rate to lowest rate. Service the minimum payments on all, then send all extra income to the highest rate debt. Period.

You just cost your mother $3500 needlessly. You made $450 from the sale, which you should give her right now. You can refund her the rest of her $3050 by getting a real job that doesn’t involve scamming people.

I forgot one thing, all you fat people out there that hired a personal trainer and you lost more than 50lbs. You wasted your money, you could of saved the money and just ate less and worked out more would give you the same results. Who cares that losing 50lbs gave you an extra 10yrs to live, gave you more energy to enjoy life everyday. Gave you more confidence. You could of done it on your own. You should of saved your money.

Tracy

I know what you’re saying. People just need discipline and focus on paying off their debt. Whatever you focus on, you tend to get results from. If you focus on what you eat and exercise, you will lose weight. But, using a Heloc or line of credit to help maximize that, just gives it a little boost. And if it helps someone focus on their debt is that a bad thing?

Who cares, they’re going bankrupt anyway. Their owners are slime and their idea was good but they got too greedy. Sure it’s a great idea but $3,500 is way too much for anything. Gladly, they finally are going under because of the economy and some crappy crappy decisions made when they switched to V4 which lost many customers. But I think the main one is the money. They say you’re paying the $3,500 for customer support but when they go under, that’s not going to be there. Yeah, you will still have the software, they did at least make sure that was contracted to a third party in case they went under. So….the question now lies, if you payed 2/3 of that money for customer service…shouldn’t you get that money back since that won’t exist?

No, it’s not just on a server located somewhere, it’s contracted out to another company. So people aren’t confused, the software will still work. Whatever U1st goes out with will be the last “version” so obviously no touch ups will be made. Another issue that possibly can turn up would be bugs in the software, but I’ve heard they now have a V4.2 or something which apparently got rid of those previous bugs. Basically you will still be able to use your software but no changes can be made to it, as far as I know anyway. Just think of it as Windows Vista U1st style 😀 But it will be usable. If you do happen to be a customer, give U1st a call and ask them that concern 866-307-3201. For all i know, the third party hosting the software will be able to do some updates, but I know just as much about that fact as the people bashing United First on here.

That’s why I’m urging people who do have the software to call and ask if that is a concern for them (and hopefully it is). No one on here can say if it will work or not with sufficeint proof until it actually happens.

I realize you haven’t bought the product so you haven’t delt with some of the U1st customer service. I know quite a few of the reps that were back in the day and they did take care of customers who called in. With that in mind, you can’t say they haven’t taken care of customers, because they have. As I mentioned already, you nor I know what their plan is, as we don’t work for them so you’re assumption is just as valid as you state mine is. It is stated in one of the contracts signed by customers (I think) or in some of the paperwork shown to customers that it will stay up and running. And I’ll say it for I think the thir time, if you do doubt that statement, give them a call and ask particularly about that, because I would imagine by now they have recieved numerous calls about that particular problem. Also, please don’t bash their IT staff. Those problems had to do with owners decisions and their inability to plan, not IT. They did an excellent job mopping up after all the problems owners have caused.

If you read what I said before I wouldn’t have to repeat it. There could possibly be bugs later on, but people will still be able to manage their accounts, as they previously did before V4 came out and supposedly that has been fixed, as customers haven’t been complaining about those particular problems. Also, don’t throw percentages at me unless you know they’re correct. Those aren’t. Instead of telling customers on here that they’re stupid for purchasing the software, why don’t you try to bash a company worth bringing down such as aol?

You’re also guessing. That is the point I’m trying to make to you. You have said alot of things off of assumption on this site. Both of you aren’t directly calling people stupid but are making the notion that they are. They alerady made the choice to buy the product. Just give them a break and lay off.

curious you say that United First is going bankrupt. I have been told they practice what they preach and are totally debt free as a company. I can’t find any news about them going bankrupt or having financial difficulties. Are you speaking in the hypothetical? I have worked with a number of software companies and all of their clients would be in the same boat if any of them went bankrupt – but I have never heard of any that are debt free. Surprising that a company with the reputation of Ernst and Young would give this company an award if what they provided was suspicious. Looking forward to hearing more as I am considering their offer. I have too many years of trying to ‘do it on my own’ and finding little success. My intentions are good and I am more disciplined than most but life has a way of taking over.

Ernst and Young did not choose them for the award — they just sponsored it. But UFF will mention this award several times in their sales sessions.

If you decide to us the program, keep this in mind … (wished I had known this before wasting my money)

Anyone can be an agent. They do not have to be licensed or certified. Get an agent who actually uses the program themselves. Good luck.

Your agent and sales people do not work for UFF. They can tell you anything, and UFF will not back them up.

You are not buying software. You are buying a login to UFF’s servers. If the company does fold, then you no longer have the software. And the folks at UFF can see every move you make with the program.

Ask about the guarantee, and make sure you understand what it is. If they tell you it’s a satisfaction guarantee, don’t believe them. Call UFF directly and ask about them about the guarantee. You need to be okay with no chance of a refund after handing over your money, no matter what happens.

Document everything. Get everything in writing – every problem you have, every phone call, every question, every promise made to you. Know that UFF keeps a record of every phone call made to you, and if you don’t answer (like if you’re working or whatever) it’s noted that you were unresponsive.

Read the contract. Note that it is against your contract to save a screen shot of the program. So if you have a problem, you will have a hard time proving it. Don’t let anyone change anything on your program to fix the problem until it’s resolved and you are satisfied, or your proof is gone. Make sure UFF documents the problem in your records and get them to send you proof. They probably won’t, but you may need proof later.

UFF got down to a D- rating with the BBB in 2009. That’s another entire issue. Filing a complaint to the BBB will not get you a refund if you have issues with UFF.

You also need to be okay with your bank account getting down to zero, and living off borrowed money.

It’s not as easy as they make it out to be. Every time you spend money, pay a bill, or move money around (and you will move money around a LOT) you have to document it. You will constantly be thinking about money. Maybe that’s good for some people, but it gets old real fast. And it takes time, much more than you are told. And you’re doing this every day or every week for years.

You CAN do it yourself. Even UFF says on their QA that you can. If you take all your leftover money at the end of the month and send it to the bank, you just did it yourself. Ta-Da!

Also – I checked the Better Business Bureau in Utah about this company and they have a B+ rating and the complaints are minimal – it is important – especially in researching a company with forensic detail – to be truthful and honest. Due to the person hosting this column I would hope the information could be more factual and less emotional which is why I choose to refer to this website

I’m in Iowa. I ‘bought into’ the MMA idea in August of ’08. The ‘agent’ didn’t know how to explain the system to me (found out later she didn’t even use it herself) so she just said, “You’ll understand it once you start using it “. I’m a real estate agent, commissions only! After getting all my numbers into the program, she came over to ‘attempt’ to help me get going. Well, she did something that erased ALL the numbers!! We called the company. They re-entered numbers but they were wrong. When the light went on and I realized how the program was intended to work, I also realized that it wasn’t a program that I would be comfortable with. If I had extra to put toward my principal (which I rarely did), there was no guarantee I wouldn’t need that ‘extra’ money just to live on the next month! I tried to ‘talk’ to someone at UFF about a refund but got nowhere. I did the lengthy BBB complaint and got nothing there either. I just spoke to someone again tonight and am getting NO PLACE with them. I may have to get an attorney involved. Any suggestions?

Anyone who makes assumptions about something without first hand knowledge has about as much validity as an apple complainging about being an orenge.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, presenting yourself as an authority on the Money Merge Account and United First Financial, if you are not going to do any more due diligence than you have. I am a client and agent of the Money Merge Account and have been for 3 years. You have so misrepresented the program, the business, the company, the financial position of the company, the owners, and the endorsements. You have taken what you consider enough information to formulate your own faulty conclusions and have totally misunderstood and misrepresented the program and what it does and how it works.

What saddens me is that by being so quick to express your opinions and faulty conclusions, you may have kept people who really need and could benefit from our program from even considering it. If you’d bothered to find out what motivated the founders to produce and market this program in the first place, if you’d spent time with them and listened to their heart and allowed them to really understand how this works and why they’ve chosen the marketing program they have (which by the way is a an agency model with a few benefits that have been borrowed from MLM models and ONLY works if the produgt is sold, no matter how many agents are recruited).

I hate to even post on your site, because in doing so, I just add credibility to what you do.

Ok I know the software very well. I am 33 yrs, I bought my first house wen i was just 25. My husband and I did the math our mortgadge was $1200.00 amonth, we multipli it by 30 it came out to be$432,000.00 in 30yrs so i bought the house for 160.00 so if you come to see the bank is getting $272,000 in profit , commond sence is 160k you could pay it off in 9yrs why our we getting so ript off?
now we all know that if we send a little bite more to each payment it will be paid off faster. but we are human that some times we dont understand that. so to me UFIRST has help not only me but my friends and family is a great investment in the feuture. we need some thing or some one to remember use how ti di the things that need to be done. is note about the money that is coust to by the program is a program that will help us save money and get out of debt faste dont you think? is like we get a credit card with a limite of 500 and our monthly payment is 25.00 dollars now you are getting interest raite on the rememining of what you barow. if you use 50 dollars then pay the 50 dollars back is simple. thats why american today are full in debts and consolidating. if you look on how u save money then waist wt would you choose? spend alittle bit now or waist more on 30 yrs? and to say that is a busines aportunity yes it is. wen u start a busines you are better of starting from the bottom and knowing the busines the starting from the top and falling down. every thing in life is a pyramid you may not see it know but it is.

Praise for Shirley who does know how the MMA works. You other people have no idea!! I’ve recently helped 5 people with the MMA. One of them has 3 credit cards, one mortgage, college education debts for her kids. They are in their late 50’s and just refied to a 28 year mortgage. Their debts totalled over 600,00. They are on track to pay off all this in just 10.3 years!

With my clients I help them weekly until they get into the flow of how it works. NO more checkbooks!! There’s always customer service,also. There are terrible agents in any biz, why pick on United First Financial? If you don’t understand something how can you make these comments? Unbelievable! You know that phrase “a little information is dangerous….” So true.

Thank you Shirley for your heartfelt comments. AS you know we teach, Time value of Money, Interest Cancellation, and Strategic Payoffs. And other banking strategies not known to us regular people!!

I’ve also been a Financial Advisor for 8 years and love helping people. This product has just enhanced how much more I can help others.

Get a life!

Tracy, thanks for the breakdown. I bought into the MMA as an agent through a friend, and can attest to the low-caliber quality of the certification exam. I can’t vouch for the character of other agents as I’ve only communicated with two: My friend who got me interested in 2007, and my “Branch Manager”. My friend is a survivor who has effectively reinvented himself more than once in order to provide for his family. My “Branch Manager” was (or still is) a largely inaccessible Oz-like being with whom I managed to speak only once, and I seemed to interrupt his socializing when I did. Even as an agent, I was difficult to get the help I needed to sell the product.

But my question to you (as I’ve been completely inactive with MMAs since the first half of ’08) is: What condition is the company in now? Are they going the way of Ameriquest?

Lastly, I had always planned to get on the MMA as a client once I landed a house, myself. No more. It’s nice to know there are better, simpler ways to get the same results.

Many thanks –

-Richard

So did you make any $$$$ selling it?

Tracy (and Craig, and Joe, etc),

I know you guys have probably read 1000s of comments about this topic. I’m sure you’re sick of people jumping on and claiming that this system really does work. I am not an agent and I do not work for the company. I did buy the program about 5 years ago, but have not had any contact with the company since then. I want to discuss this issue with you, but I want to focus on the issue. Go ahead and throw personal attacks at the company, if that makes you feel better. Because I am open about this issue, I want to learn if indeed I am wrong about it all and have been mistaken the whole time. But nothing I have read from any of you thus far has made me feel that way. Please don’t just assume that I’m not smart enough to understand why it’s wrong.

At this point, the most important issue to me is what I refer to as the “principle” that the software is based on. That you take out a HELOC and that you transfer a certain amount of money from that HELOC to your 1st Mortgage. The amount you transfer is several times the amount of your discretionary income per month. Then, all of your expenses come out of that HELOC and all of your income goes into it. This only works if you make more than you spend, because that’s what helps paydown the balance on your HELOC. After you make that first transfer, you continue to make regular monthly payments to your mortgage. Nothing extra. After several months, the balance on your HELOC should have been reduced to a low amount. Then you transfer another large amount. Then you repeat this process. The benefit of this is that instead of prepaying month by month, you prepay several months at a time, then pay down that HELOC balance every month. That way, your regular monthly payments go further for you because more of it goes to principal and less to interest.

Are we all on the same page with this? From your comments, I get the idea that you think this process of transferring from the HELOC to the 1st Mortgage occurs monthly. That is not it. Joe’s post about “Money Shuffle” describes it as, “the shifting of funds from a checking account, to a HELOC, and then to a primary mortgage.” That is not it either. The HELOC serves as a checking account. Unless things have changed in the last 4 years, there is no need for a checking account.

Joe then says, “MMA software then suggests you borrow another $2500 from your HELOC, and send the entire $5,000 to your mortgage as a principal payment. At the 6% mortgage rate, the $5,000 will save you $25 per month, but even if the HELOC were also 6% (it’s usually at an even higher rate), half of that is lost, so your net gain is only $12.50 per month.”

I get a little confused by this, but if it’s saying what I think it is trying to say, then I think it is right. It’s confusing because you don’t borrow money from your HELOC, then add it to some other money, as this suggests, then send it to your mortgage as a principal payment. There are two accounts. Your HELOC (serving as Checking account) and your 1st Mortgage. If you decide to send $5,000 to your 1st Mortgage then that all comes from your HELOC and creates a balance there. Then, as Joe mentions, because you paid down your 1st Mortgage by $5,000, you save $25 in interest each month thereafter. And yes, you also pay some amount, perhaps $12.50 a month, in interest on your new HELOC balance. So as Joe says, that is a net savings of $12.50 a month. But he stops there.

If you continue the process, that HELOC balance will eventually be paid down enough that it is smart to transfer another $5,000 from the HELOC to the 1st mortgage. What happens then? You save another $25 a month in interest on your 1st mortgage, bringing that now to $50 a month in interest savings on your 1st mortgage. The once again, you minus the interest per month on the HELOC which should still be about the same, since your balance is back to where it was. $12.50 a month. Now that’s a net savings of $37.50 a month. And as you continue the process, that net savings gets bigger and bigger. Yes, it takes time.

And what’s not mentioned, and perhaps even more significant, is that you also skipped several months of payments all together. How much interest is saved by skipping all those months?

Please don’t respond with the attitude that no matter what, you’re right and I’m wrong. That won’t get us anywhere.

Tracy is right. You can write reams about this, but it all boils down to a scam. Borrowing from a HELOC in the second position will almost always result in a higher rate of interest than your primary mortgage, and borrowing at a higher rate of interest to pay a lower rate mortgage never makes sence. Mathematically, you’ll come out behind 99% of the time, and that 1% where arbitrage interest savings from a average-daily-balance HELOC outweighs the interest savings of the lower rate mortgage, amounts to a few bucks at most. Nowhere near the savings UFirst agents like to claim. Those savings were due to simple prepayment – plain and simple.

And the sales figures point to a population that has figured this out. 2009 saw monthly MMA sales drop steadily by 92% from January to December. Here in Canada, sales have been suspended in Alberta because of regulatory issues, and Alberta was about the only province in which sales were being made.

Unfortunately, you bought into a scam. Everyone else now realizes that. At some point, you’ll realize it and stop using the MMA as well. At that point, you should have some big questions for your agent.

To all of you with the negative comments about the MMA software and the HELOC, I say keep looking and do the math but you will never beat the MMA software it is amazing. Have you tried it? Did you run an analysis to see if we you could beat our numbers. By the way how many of you are paying off your mortgages in 6,8 or 10 years. If you are not, don’t talk like you know it all because you are living proofs that you cannot come close to what this program can do even for people that have just a few dollars left at the end of the month!
The company is debt free, they have been hiring more employees and support coaches every year and 80% of their clients keep their MMA program because they see their payoff date approaching before their eyes with the software. Most clients that cannot benefit from this are either unable to bring enough income home or just too lazy too to work with the program. For your info, most people on the MMA program actually do even better than their first analysis predicted. I used to think I knew all the tricks and the methods to save on interest but this is overwhelmingly so much more powerful! Tracy, obviously you have not done your homework about using an HELOC to cancel interests. This method is widely used in Australia, and in Canada Manulife Bank uses this method. When you combine interest float, interest accumulation, interest cancellation and stategic payoff like United First does: you win! Tracy, do like the other smart people in accounting, real estate, banking, and financial planning; try it and see for yourself. Then, and only then you will have a real opinion on the issue and you will save yourself a lot of money. It’s up to you! Yes United First Finacial is set up like an MLM company and the insurance business ect… so what.. They are legit and they have been praised by Ernst and Young, and recommended by Broker Banker magazine and it’s executive publisher Brian Topor as” the real deal”. 80% of their clients will tell you that their accountants, bankers, and financial planners planners are blown away by the results because like most of you out there they cannot do the math. Too bad, I wish you all could benefit from this amazing system. All the best, from an agent.

Joel is about a year late the party. Every point he brings up has already been said before by previous UFF agents, and thoroughly disabused many times over by Tracy and others.

Did you even read anything on this page, Joel?

Honolulu, thanks for sharing your story. I had major issues with the program as well, and of course was denied a refund. The only thing you can do is get your story out there so that others who are considering the program can learn what it’s really like before they buy into it. If UFF gave us a chance to try the program before we bought it, or gave a money back guarantee, they wouldn’t make any money. You’re not alone!

“I am not an agent however I got my mom into the program since I have a mortgage back round.”

Hands down, the best opening line from a UFirst shill, ever.

Tracy, how can you compete with Gabriel’s logic? He has a mortgage back round, fer cryin’ out loud. You’re only a CPA with an MBA – that’s no match for a mortgage back round.

The ending is almost as good. I haven’t heard the “attorney generals in some states use it” claim since 2008. It’s so obviously false, I don’t know where to begin.

Thanks for the laugh, Gabe.

Jose, how is she “making money off the program hand over foot by people signing up for the program” when “her own home was just foreclosed on and her credit is a train wreck”???

The answer is, she’s obviously not. The 70,000 UFirst agents are making approximately 200 sales per month now. Nobody is making good money selling the MMA any more.

It is unfortunate that you have the right to post fraud on your website for people to believe you ,tracy.

Beth, I’ve seen a lot of mind-numbing diatribes from UFirst agents, but yours probably ranks in the top 10.

The formula for paying off your mortgage faster is simply to make additional payments with every regular payment. Basically, pay as much as you can with each mortgage payment. That’s it. You typically can’t apply additional payments against your principal at any other time. If you don’t understand that, you have no business being a real estate agent, because you have no ability to understand your client’s ability to afford a home. Hell, you don’t even understand enough about mortgages to own a house yourself.

“Correction” United First Financial received the Award in2008
not in 2208 sorry for the mistake.
Thanks
Fer

My wife and I have been on the program since Feb 2010, and it does exactly what I was told it would do. For people like my wife and I it does help us stay on a budget, as hard as we tried before on our own, this is by far the best program we have been involved with and well worth the money.

I financed the MMA software and am paying a good bit monthly. I know there was a 3 day rescission period, but does anyone know a loophole to break the contract. I feel so bad for those who paid the full 3500 up front and cannot get refunds, but if there is a loophole to help people in my situation to break the contract, ( I even told my salesperson to just close my account and keep the money they have made off of me, but he would not) it would be nice to know. Thanks!

I absolutely feel for both of you as victims of this scam. Problem is, I don’t know a way out of your contract, after 3 days have elapsed.

One person wrote in here months ago, and said he was going to cancel his credit card. Until he did that, he couldn’t get any answer out of his agent, but he sure got a call back after he threatened to cancel the card. I don’t know what happened after that. I asked him to report back on what transpired, but he never came back to the site. I think it was this site, but I can’t find it now.

Your best outcome, may be to hope that UFirst folds up shop. They have been looking for a buyer, as Tracy reported a couple months ago:

http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2010/08/07/united-first-financial-is-being-shopped-to-private-equity-groups/

Without some fresh capital, this company is probably doomed. Sales are around 300 per month, down from ~3000 per month back in 2008, and 200 of those 300 are financed, like yours are. So, perhaps the “do nothing” approach is the best policy, or perhaps you could cancel and not have them come after you, if they don’t have the resources to do so. However, please consult someone knowledgeable about this sort of thing before you do anything like cancel the payment.

If you can’t keep up with the program…like, maybe you lose your job and your source of income…you are in deep do-do. Similar programs can be gotten for a lot less $$ or even free, try Dave Ramsey or Crown Financial.

You want to jab back at UFF? If you all stop paying (work together), do you think they will have the resources to pursue all of you? Do you think washenko has THAT expense budgeted in his MMA?

If paying it off were that easy for people, we wouldn’t all be in so much debt. Easier said than done, folks which I understand. I’m sure the U1st gimmick worked for some as some sort of expensive motivation (afterall, people do the same with diet gimmicks and pay money when all they are really doing is eating better and exercising while eating a placebo of some sort) but it absolutely screwed alot of people which I am sorry to hear.

I am very interested to hear if “holding out” really worked. Keep us updated, there could still be hope for those that it hurt.