Research this week from price comparison site GoCompare highlighted how effective taking a complaint to social media can be, with total discounts and free gifts worth more than £65m handed out as a result.
But brokers are divided on whether social media can prove similarly effective when having issues with a mortgage lender.
Stuart Gregory, managing director of Lentune Mortgage Consultancy, said that social media can be of great use to brokers when ‘standard’ routes of communication have been exhausted. He explained: “I have in the past utilised Twitter in this way on a particular problematic mortgage case – as a result of a tweet, I gained contact with a higher department who assisted me with ironing out some case issues.”
He added: “Lenders and insurance providers are utilising social media in a positive way, and this type of engagement is very useful.”
Daniel Bailey, principal of Middleton Finance, said that he instead chose to go straight to the lender’s BDM if a case ran into problems, though emphasised Twitter still offered a useful way of communicating with lenders online.
He said: “Most lenders and especially the good BDMs are on social media and I find their content on social media very useful. I have messaged BDMs directly on Twitter asking them about certain products or criteria and find I get a quick response.”
However, Rachel Lummis, mortgage adviser at xpressmortgages, said that she would never dream of using social media to explore issues with a lender.
She explained: “Ranting on social media and more specifically about an individual case issues is surely a no go and not something the lender or your compliance officer will appreciate. An issue with a case can lead to a complaint; it’s a very serious matter and should be treated cautiously and professionally. There is no room on social media for this area of the mortgage process.”
