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United First Financial Money Merge Accounts: Scam or Legit?
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A reader recently sent an email asking about a program United First Financial runs called a Money Merge Account and whether it was legitimate. United First Financial promises that the program, which costs $3500, would have you pay off the mortgage in one-third to one-half the time it normally would take. Knowing nothing about money merge accounts and knowing a little bit more about simple math, I smelled a fat $3500 scam brewing. The only scenario in which I could see $3500 cutting your mortgage in half is if you had a $7000 mortgage. But, setting my mental scam alerts aside, I did some more research about the plan.
Apparently it’s a fancy name for an accelerated mortgage repayment scheme. The first step in the money merge account is to take out a second mortgage on your home, a home equity line of credit. Then, what you do pay your entire paycheck towards the first mortgage and withdraw money from the HELOC to cover your expenses. You save a little money because the interest on a HELOC is calculated based on average daily balance rather than the final monthly balance. This lets you pay off more of the mortgage at the beginning of the month and then be charged less interest on the HELOC. (this assumes the same interest rate, which is a big flaw)
However, the plan also has a lot of other assumptions and flaws.
- It assumes that your HELOC interest rate will be the same as your first mortgage interest rate – very unlikely. The bigger the HELOC rate, the less you save on that difference.
- It assumes a single monthly paycheck so it’s a plan that loses some of its power if you are paid irregularly or every two weeks.
- One big flaw is that there is never discussion of HELOC fees. I’ve never opened a HELOC but I imagine it’s not free.
- This plan requires that you don’t save at all for anything else. Since your entire paycheck goes towards the mortgage and you withdraw expenses, it penalizes you drawing on the HELOC for non-essentials. Why pay $100 towards a 6-7% mortgage and then borrow $100 from a 10% HELOC?
- Finally, as if all those weren’t enough, you have to pay $3,500 for a program to help you do this!?
In researching this article I researched a lot of sites and they were nearly unanimous in their opinion that these types of programs are not worth the money (not surprisingly). They’re not scams in the sense that you pay your $3500 and they disappear into the night but it’s something you can do yourself.
This begs the question, should you use it to force discipline? I could justify paying $100 to enforce discipline because it can save you quite a bit in the long run, if you can overcome the failings, but $3500 is ridiculous. If you have $3500 and you want to pay off your mortgage sooner, send a $3500 check to your mortgage company. (if you want a legitimate and easy way to pay off a mortgage faster, consider making mortgage payments every two weeks)
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Forgive me for not wanting to read the over 800+ posts but was there ever a definite/proven conclusion to this debate?
In a word, no. The proof that I offer to show the program is a scam is usually rejected by any agent. When I show that MMA itself does not provide any numerical advantage, they go off on what I consider a tangent, avoiding any discussion of numbers and sticking with motivation.
The last agent insisted that the ‘extra money’ one has from the 26 checks most of us get per year is money that MMA uses to drive its success, but that I am not allowed to plug those funds into a spreadsheet, even every six months as it occurs. “Because no one takes that check and sends it to their mortgage.” If anyone wants to deal with people whose goal is to obfuscate otherwise simple matters, it’s a free country.
When I see a teen texting and walking into traffic, I grab their arm to keep them from an accident. I have no such power when it comes to protecting people from this scam. People are so desperate for a ’system’ they will believe anything. Does that answer your question?
Yes. So then what would you consider to be the best way to pay down your mortgage?
Each month, along with your regular payment, add additional funds designated for principal.
Of course, you should first have no other higher interest debt. Silly to pay the mortgage down while owing money at 18%.
This is what MMA does, it uses your money to pay your mortgage. It just makes outrageous claims as well. To be fair, it will tell you that 18% is a number higher than 6%. This fact is beyond many people, and all MMA users.
I don’t know who you are talking to, but the United First Financial MMA program is no scam. The principle idea it is based on has been in existence for decades in Great Britain and Australia( to name two examples). Your explanation or claim offers no proof. You refute the arguement of it’s actual positive and honest way the MMA program helps one pay off a mortgage(and any other possible debt), by making claims of what I would call “snippets of a possible conversation” you MIGHT of had with a UFF agent. I AM AN AGENT. I will not try to write a “novel” of reasons, possible explanations, or stating my “case”. Anyone reading this should do their research from credible sources. Online blog websites are not always realiable… I CAN EXPLAIN THE PROCESSS AND SATISFY ANYONE’S CURIOSITY. Contact me with questions, I would be happy to explain in more detail.
What I cannot do is change your mind when you have no intention of entertaining the concept or having an open mind. You may email me your response. Thank
John, JoeTaxpayer above knows the MMA better than any agent out there. He, and I, have used the MMA. It is inefficient, and the way it is marketed makes it a scam. Backup for those claims has been provided all over these 877+ comments, and on Joe’s blog, where he did ~30 entries in his series on the MMA.
Also, you offered to answer emails, but you provided no address to send those emails to.
I was just doing a google to seek if this scam shack was still in biz. I signed up to be an agent about 2 years. ago. After running my own analysis and computing it…it was clearly evident the whole thing is a scam. I’ve argued with Branch Managers for hours on end. They are blinded by their greed and they have been brainwashed to believe it actually works.
- the whole heloc thing is a joke.
- as 800 others have stated here…it’s simply taking your discretionary income and paying it toward your payment. I kept printouts of my proof when I did the analyses.
SCAM!!!!
Former Agent
One other thing…the whole bi-weekly thing, etc, that’s a joke as well. Run your own analysis!
Basically, here is what it comes down to. If you pay down your loan of 5% interest with extra money…you earning a little over 5% return on investment on your extra money. If you can earn over 5% on your money (I as an investor do that all day long). If you can’t…then pay your mortgage off early.
In light of the 800+ posts and remembering that ANYONE can say ANYTHING on this blog or forum, by the very definition, the MMA is NOT a scam.
I’ve been over this several times here and there are certain individuals who are intent on saving ALL of America from this “scam”.
By their definition, if I take my car to the Jiffy Lube and “pay” them to change my oil when I could have changed it myself, Jiffy Lube is a scam.
The DIY from JoeT and others here is THEORY! In theory it is a good system, in REALITY it certainly isn’t better than the Money Merge Account or any other “technology” that will continually keep you on track.
We all have our “opinions” and JoeT’s is that you can Do It Yourself, and he even provides a spreadsheet to assist you. He doesn’t coach you, he has no customer support, and he doesn’t have 80,000 clients on HIS system.
If you are paying an “extra” $100 per month toward your mortgage principle, and you get a 3% raise next month, will you now increase that extra amount to $103?, probably not.
As pointed out, the MMA uses ALL of your income and it WILL use that extra paycheck when you are on a bi-weekly income. I’ve been surveying people, and NO ONE takes that extra paycheck and puts it ALL towards their principle, again, that’s just THEORY.
Chris, do yourself a favor, and get on the Money Merge Account, if you save $50,000 and and you pay for a system to do that, you win and its certainly NOT a scam. Just because a few guys think you SHOULD be able to do this yourself, most simply don’t and that makes you, in their opinion an idiot.
I’m the “last agent” JoeT refers to, and in their DIY scenario, the MMA would beat their $50/month discretionary DIY scenario by $63,000 and yes the “technology” of the MMA found the extra paychecks. That doesn’t make the MMA a scam, it simply “proves” that the MMA is a great system and will BETTER utilize all of your income and expenses than ANY DIY system.
Everyone I help get on the Money Merge Account is very appreciative that I introduced them to such a terrific technology, the ONLY negative that I’ve heard is that they wish they’d known about it earlier or that they wish they hadn’t delayed getting on it.
JoeT – if its truly a scam, call the AG and the US DOJ and have them shut down.
Chris – If you want to spend $3500 to have software tell you to “put all your extra funds toward your mortgage” be my guest.
You’ll notice part of any fraud is the obfuscation, the distraction, like at a carnival. No agent can engage in a discussion without the strange analogies. I go to Jiffy Lube because the oil+time/labor they charge is less than my DIY.
DIY cost for MMA is ‘zero’, but the software from UFirst is $3500 + God knows how much time to enter all your data every day ten times per day. My sheet takes one entry per month.
Take all the time it will save you and go enjoy a good book, War and Peace for all the time you’d gain every month.
If you truly believe that MMA taking your own money (the so-called extra check from the 13 you get every 6 months) and sending that money to the bank is really a “technology” and that MMA is responsible for the savings from that money (which is large, it’s nearly equal to a bi-weekly mortgage) then you should go for it.
I can’t stop you. remember, Madoff lasted how many years before he was exposed. Even when there were people trying very hard.
Chris, when I see you on your smart phone typing in your latest purchase to see how many minutes or hours that money just extended your mortgage, and you are walking into traffic, I promise to still grab your arm and pull you back. Ok?
Nick – You are dishonest to keep telling me I can use $50/mo, but not the extra $1800 that appears twice per year. I offered to enter it exactly that way, twice per year on the sheet. There’s the $63,000 difference. Easy to find, easy to expose. Apples to apples.
I am one of many who know this is a scam. I don’t ‘think’ it, I know it to be true.
Survey? You can say anything. Meaningless. The numbers don’t lie, and I’ve shown numbers.
I now understand a lot better how your mind works with the Jiffy Lube illustration. You simply aren’t very good at math.
I can get 5 quarts of oil for less than $10 and if I go to Jiffy Lube I never get out of there for less than $20, so by your equation $20 is less than $10.
Using that logic, no wonder you think the DIY numbers beat the MMA.
As for being dishonest, feel free to use the extra paychecks in your THEORY. I’ve never said you COULDN’T use the extra paycheck.
If you want apples to apples, the ONLY way to really settle this is to find to families that make exactly the same amount, have the same bills, with the same number of children, getting the same raises and have the same expenses, have one DIY and the other MMA and see what the results will be.
So until you can arrange that side by side apples to apples scenario, its just speculative.
As for the time to run the MMA program per month, its typically in the range of 5 – 10 minutes per week and you don’t enter in every purchase, that’s not what the program does.
To correct your statement above, you are one of many who “would like it to be” a scam. If people spend the money on the program and it saves them far more than the cost of the program, its hardly a scam, by ANYONE’s definition except yours.
Like I’ve said before, the REFINANCE costs are ripping people off far more than the MMA ever could be twisted into losing people money. Maybe you should shift horses (that’s where the real burr should be) and start educating people with all your numbers and save them THOUSANDS by NOT refinancing.
Call the AG and the US DOJ and get uFirst shut down, have you made that call yet?
Nick,
Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on the guy who’s hawking the $3,500 software (and receives a commission on the sale) rather than on the guy who’s saying you could do as well for free (no commission)?
Have you tried JoeTax’s spreadsheet or one of the few on vertex42 dotcom and input the identical numbers? Seems to me this would be an opportunity for you to prove that MMA blows away DIY and to shut up all the electrical engineers, mathematicians and comp-sci guys who dealt me a smackdown about six months ago. My guess, as a former UFF agent who never fully drank the Kool-Aid, is that you’ll be surprised that DIY does almost as well (and in many cases, better) than MMA.
I do agree with you on America’s overuse of refis (since most extend the mortgage again and lower payments so the customer can buy more junk they don’t need on credit) but I don’t think JT is a mortgage broker. As you know, the principals of UFF – basking in the no-more refi “salvation” of MMA?! – are/were.
My time to buy oil + my labor to change oil is greater in value than the $20. ‘Nuff said about oil.
What you said was MMA was still $63,000 ahead of DIY. Only after you sent me your PDF and I pointed out that you told me $50 extra per month, but were using $300 or so did you then claim that the extra money was found by MMA and that I couldn’t use it in my sheet. The sheet tells me that the entire $63,000 is accountable by looking at those two extra checks.
Why would one need to find real families for a discussion based on math? You offer an analysis, which hides the true facts, I offer a spreadsheet which is open to scrutiny.
You don’t enter every purchase? Well, Jennifer Hartman, respected agent extraordinaire touts the email/smart phone feature which enables you to use MMA to help you decide whether it’s the best time of the month to buy that steak on sale. I trust steak is sub-$10/lb by you, and no more than 2 lbs to feed 4, so she encourages users to query MMA for $20 purchases. Sounds to me like her victims are using it every day, or more frequently.
I concede that refis are probably costing people. I concede that people who refinance may not really understand their time to break even and recoup those costs in their saving due to a lower rate. But, just like motor oil, it has nothing to do with MMA. I’ve offered to donate money to the favorite charities of agents who could get through a few posts with no analogies, no similes, and no metaphors. No one accepted and I’ve withdrawn the offer.
MMA is like so many things, I can’t begin to list them. If it worked, and if it were free, it would be a lot like my spreadsheet.
I would like to take this moment to say farewell to JamesOatesIII whose MMA site is now down. Another agent is gone. We’ll miss you, James.
MMA sounds way to complicating in an already hectic world. I understand how every purchase consumes the very funds that we all need to grow and work for us, but really…checking your software before buying groceries.
I’ll be keeping my $3500 and paying down early on my own. Thanks.
So now we have a guy who will now test the DIY THEORY.
Good luck with the REALITY of life.
Here’s the challenge, post here what the MMA says you would have paid in additional principle at the end of year number 1 and in 1 year let’s see what you ACTUALLY paid down.
If DIY doesn’t beat the MMA estimate, let’s revisit using the MMA.
And JoeT, math is truly just math, but you are missing the point about REALITY. Math can never figure into REALITY and although DIY THEORTICALLY can match the MMA’s analysis (which probably uses the same math), we know statistically that 80% of the people on the program are 15%-25% ahead of the estimate, so what does that say about just looking at math?
Chris, talk with several people ON the program about how “complicated” it is to use before making a decision. Its not that hard, these guys trying to save you $3,500 by making it sound complicated could wind up costing you $10,000 or more over the life of your loan.
You can even google me (stnick007) I’m easy to find and talk to.
Nic, you’ve got another guy here who tested the “DIY theory” – me. I paid off my house by amortizing over 20 years, and setting up automatic double payments with my bank, and sending what extra we could, when we could. If my wife or I had lost our jobs, we could have reverted to the original payment.
We paid it off in a lot less than 20 years.
That plan not only beat the MMA by months, it saved $3500, plus interest, plus the inefficiencies of the MMA. Plus, it saved us time logging into the MMA, entering our updated balances, and making the recommended transfers between accounts.
And the thing is, if you have the self-discipline to log into the MMA every month and do the manual data entry, you have the self-discipline to take your bank balance, subtract a contingency, and send the remainder to your highest rate debt every month. By doing that, you’ll beat (not just match) the MMA. Every time.
That’s reality.
The Reality seems to be that you charge people $3500 to complicate things that might be otherwise able to do on their own.
Nick,
Can you please provide a synopsis of all your statistics? I just can’t keep up. 80% are “15%-25%” ahead? Amazing. Since at the original analysis, one reports ‘all’ income, how exactly do you account for such a large discrepancy? MMA is only a few years old, and raises have been slow and small these past years.
My own data shows that 100% of users have been robbed of $3500 and they are a small subset of people who are innumerate and financially illiterate. Since you say “math can never figure into reality”, I wonder how you explain the success you attribute to MMA. Does it not use math?
Speaking of stats. How do you explain the fact that agents are leaving en masse? Falling down like dominoes. What are your plans for the next MLM you plan to sell? There are many out there, I don’t follow any others, though.
The Reality is that you won’t do it as well on your own as you would with the program because people don’t use all 4 strategies that the program uses and they always hold something back that the program and these strategies would have used more efficiently.
As far as agents leaving United First Financial, I don’t know and could really care less. Everyone knows that in ANY organization only about 10%-20% of the people do the vast majority of the business. So if they are just playing around with an opportunity that could earn them well in excess of $250,000 per year, let them move on and NOT do something somewhere else.
I have no other plans. My plan is to help tens of thousands of Americans pay off their mortgage using the Money Merge Account, teaching them to build wealth and net worth, and building an army of talented and hard working agents that no amount of calling the Money Merge Account a scam will even be a blip on the radar.
Jaime Buckley wasn’t playing around. He lives in Utah and was so close to the UFirst head office, he created and ran the “Official Ufirst Forums”, sanctioned by head office. He founded “The Jubilee Project”, and made the MMA its centerpiece.
Jaime Buckley lost his house last year.
StNick, pray tell, what are these 4 strategies that MMA excels at?
http://activerain.com/blogsview/48018/Money-Merge-Accounts-Are
Check out this example. Since I’m good about CC debt and saving money, I’ll just stick to the DIY method…
I have just downloaded the spreadsheet that Joe T talked about at vertex42 dot com. What a great tool. Thank you so much.. You just saved me $3,500. This sheet does everything and showed me how to be debt free in 8 years. If I use the $3,500 I would have spent on the other program I will be out of debt in 6 years 5 months. Reading the post above and trying the FREE program I just saved 1 1/2 years of payments and interest.
Do yourself a favor and try the program before you waste your money and put it in someone eles pocket.
Thank You.
What was the actual name of the spreadsheet at Vortex42 or does someone have a link?
I think it is debt reduction calculator
I’m curious. If someone comes to your door, offers you a program that cost $3500. and tells you that you need this program, you tell them you can do it yourself and they tell you that you will not have the discipline to do it yourself, is that not an insult? I was insulted when they said that to me!
Mary – there are actually things I can’t do myself, whether due to lack of knowledge, strength, or interest.
The insult comes from the fact that they are saying you can’t determine which debt to pay first, a 24% credit card or a 4% student loan. The fact that they create confusion about the very process of interest and time value of money is insulting. They prey on people’s ignorance, by definition, one who falls for this scam is innumerate.
Elsewhere, I asked an agent what she’d choose, a deposit to a 100% matched 401(k) or to pay off her 5% mortgage. No surprise, here was her response:
“I would really hesitate to put my money into something that has lost an average of 30% recently. Most of the people that had a 401(k) don’t now, whether their employer matched their contribution or not.”
The typical agent is so financially unaware, that following their advice, which UFirst says they should not be giving, would cost you dearly. This agent was unaware that 401(k) does not mean 100% stocks. For the conservative investor, there are fixed rate or short term bond funds. This is beyond ignorant, it’s criminal.
JoeT,
Have you seen the Hall of Fame PPT yet? If not and if you still have my gmail address, shoot me yours and I’ll forward it. I think you’ll enjoy crunching numbers about successful agents.
NJB82
It is more than what to pay first, it is when to pay for maximum benefit. No matter the subject there are always people who will dis what others are doing that competes for their business.
“When to pay” is simple – when your regular payment is due. You can only apply extra funds to the principal of your mortgage when the regular payment is due. No other timing will reduce your principal and reduce your interest amount from your payments.
This is simple, simple stuff. If you don’t know this, you shouldn’t be commenting on debt acceleration. On the flip side, it makes you qualified to sell the Money Merge Account. Then again, being able to breathe qualifies you to sell the MMA, because it is impossible to fail the MMA agent test – you can re-take the questions you got wrong until you pass.
Also, I am not in any financial field. I do not compete with UFirst at all. I am simply morally outraged that such a scummy company exists.
Do you know how much this “maximum benefit” is? It’s been proven that “interest cancellation” that MMA uses in its “complex mathematical algorithms” can’t make up for the $3500 and subsequent increased interest cost of the software.
I keep reading these posts by people who apparently have an axe to grind. That’s fine, it’s America and free speech is still mostly intact.
But I still object to the use of the word SCAM.
If I meet someone who is doing NOTHING, I teach them our four strategies and they take me up on the offer to utilize our technology which will STILL do Better than a DIY just from shear systemization, the Money Merge Account will beat the DIY in “reality” not theory by BETTER utilizing a person’s income.
I KNOW the “theory” is to take all of the so called discretionary income and use it, but in “reality” people do NOT use ALL of it as no one feels comfortable sending it ALL to their mortgage.
So I’d like to hear any of you naysayers say that when I help someone who was doing nothing to get on a program to help them pay their home off in 5, 6, or 7 years how that the Money Merge Account really isn’t a SCAM!
While its true that DIY will help them pay it off faster than doing NOTHING, that in and of itself does not make the Money Merge Account a SCAM.
I had a potential client who was doing nothing to accelerate paying off their home, our analysis showed they would save $940,000 in interest and they were talked out of using the program. They are still doing NOTHING to pay off their home other than the 30 year plan.
So what did your meddling cost this family???
$940,000 essentially, that looks like something I’d put on my resume’, I saved a guy $3,500 but it cost him $940,000, I’m so proud of myself.
By all definitions of the word, this product is a scam.
In just the example where you told me to run numbers with $50/mo extra, you conveniently failed to disclose the full extra month’s pay that comes from bi-weekly paychecks. When I point that out, you go in a circle.
In theory you claim the savings of $940,000. In reality you ignore the time value of money.
In my last post I quote an agent who states her own facts, that most people who had a 401(k) no longer do. Really? Even those who sold at the recent bottom didn’t lose it all. But she is unaware of any real numbers, so she makes them up. Her data manages to justify ignoring a dollar for dollar match in a 401(k) in favor of paying off a 6% mortgage. Of course it does, anything to get that commission.
You know this blog pings us when anyone posts. The more you write the more you show how MMA = #fail. By fail, I mean scam. Happy New Year, Nick.
I think that family was very lucky! I wished I hadn’t spent my money on the program and had simply walked away from this whole mess. I get mad every time I think about how much money I lost, for a login to a spreadsheet that doesn’t do anything. Now that family doesn’t have to go through what I did. They made a very smart decision.
How did you lose money? Just use the software you paid for and you will save a bundle.
The MMA client loses $3500 at the start, and that cost is compounded over the life of the mortgage because the MMA can not overcome the interest on that $3500 every month, even if it were as efficient as possible. As has been shown, the MMA isn’t even good at what it claims to do.
All I can say is my $200,000 mortgage will be paid off in 5 years. I could not have done it without the mma.
Nick,
Every comparison of the MMA to simple prepayments puts the MMA behind by $3500, plus interest, plus MMA inefficiencies, over the life of the mortgage. Over 5 years, the MMA is costing you approximately $100 per month, and more time spent every month.
In other words, you could pay off your mortgage 1 or 2 months faster without the MMA, and spend less time each month doing so.
All you need to do is take your bank balance after all bills are paid, subtract a contingency amount, and send the remainder to your mortgage. That’s it. That simple instruction will beat the MMA to mortgage freedom, every time.
As always, you should confirm with a financial professional that accelerating your mortgage is in your best interests. UFirst agents do not have to be financial professionals, and UFirst is very explicit that they do not provide financial or mortgage advice. Agents only have to pay $175 to UFirst, and pass an online multiple choice quiz that they can retake as many times as needed to pass.
Comforting, isn’t it?
If you are financing your MMA, look into ways of stopping those payments and getting out of your deal. If you paid up front, you will not get a refund after 3 days have elapsed since you signed the deal.
Let me put this all in perspective for all of you. Everyone calling the mma system a scam, is basing it on the 3500$ fee. If it were not for the fee, those people would have no scam. If it were cheaper, than maybe that would be justification enough for it not to be a scam? Stop putting this garbage into peoples heads. The math is the math, whether its from the DIY method, or MMA method. Both work, there is no argument to that. The extra details in the MMA system are what help people, and hurt people. Its as thorough as it gets, so it is going to require more. If you dont want to get maximum benefit, than dont do maximum, and just do the DIY. The fact is, Doing the most will get you the most, and obviously will require the most. There is simply more technology to squeeze everything out of your situation in the MMA system. IF you want to follow the rules, than you can benefit to your will. It also lets you customize any odds and ends that come along, so if you are not a complete fool, you will understand that the math will change. All the system does, is mathematically take everything possible into account. The people who use it are the difference. Its up to you! If you want to get the most, than use the MMA to its full potential. IF you are LAZY, than save less money and use the DIY method. ITs not that the DIY method Has worse math, Its just a fact that it doesnt account for as much as the mma does, and thus you cant squeeze as much out of your finances. SO, Just because there is a larger fee involved, doesnt mean crap. If you use it responsibly, you make that difference up all over the DIY method. Which is a good method, but in reality, is not as comprehensive as the MMA method. Really simple stuff here folks. I Have done both, and i have used the MMA to its fullest, and I have let it drag me around by being lazy. So, i can go back to the DIY method, and make things a tiny little microscopic bit easier, and make out less good, But Im not. I am someone who understand that my actions are what provide my results, and I want the best results I can get. So Here it is, I have been sticking with the MMA, and sticking to my plan, and will beat the bananas out of the DIY method, because I choose to be accountable. PERIOD!
No Jason. If the system were free it would lag DIY. Because the underlying math is faulty, and I’ve proven that by looking at agents’ own numbers.
What makes it a scam is the method used to sell it, agents who have no concept of math or finance saying whatever they wish to push this product. See my comment from 1/27 above.
Funny how UFirst disclaims that they are selling any mortgage or financial advice, yet are essentially selling just that.
The good news is that sales are dropping every month, agents are leaving, and soon the company will be gone. And I’ll say good riddance.
You say borrowing $100 at 10% to pay off 5% loans of $100 may not sound good, but your 5% loan for 30 years has a lot more interest than that 10% loan. So I see how it works. Thanks for mentioning they want you to dump your whole paychek in. I was wondering what they were holding back until you pay.
Rob –
More interest? You are comparing two different times. It doesn’t work that way.
If I offer you two investments (of $1000 cost), one 10% CD for 1 yr, or a 5% CD for 3 years, the 10% returns $1100, but the 5% CD, $1150. Do you choose the 5% one? You see this is nonsense.
When I asked an agent if she suggested I get my dollar for dollar match on my 401(k) deposit or use MMA to pay my mortgage, she said, “Joe, 6% times 30 years is 575% compounded over that time, your dollar for dollar match is only 100%.” If you do not see the absurdity of this agent’s remark, you are a good candidate to get scammed.
All you morons choosing to bash United First Financial and their award winning MMA, I shouldn’t dignify this bathroom wall trash site with a comment or 2 but let me just say that number 1, you cannot do what the MMA can do yourself because it’s based on complex mathematical algorithms and factoral math that is incapable of making a mistake and has no emotion in the decision process. It works just like a Financial GPS System to safely navigate a clients financial landscape always recalculating because life happens and there will always be variables. Number 2 is that United First Financial’s client base, has access to a live lifetime coaching staff that begins Monday through Friday 8AM -12 MIDNIGHT!
@Mr.Roberts:
Unfortunately, you are blindly mouthing words.
What complex mathematical algorithms are involved? What is this factorial math you talk about? Incapable of making a mistake? Search the Internet about the medical radiation machines that have killed people because the complex mathematical algorithms were incapable of recognizing that it was putting out enough radiation to fry people.
It has been proven over and over that paying off the highest-interest debt is the fastest and cheapest way to save money. You don’t need factorial math to tell this to you.
If you are financially illiterate, mathematically ignorant, or intellectually lazy, then MMA is for you.
Bob – UFirst offers neither mortgage nor financial advice, and even if their minimum wage ’staff’ were available 24/7, they have no qualifications other than to help one navigate a cumbersome, broken piece of software. I personally have written dozens of articles picking apart the flaws of MMA one by one, and have proven that not only ‘can’ it make a mistake, but it does so routinely. One of my award winning articles cites how when ‘life happens’ one must pray to their deity that their HELOC hadn’t been frozen, lest that new furnace go on their 20% credit card.
Do you even know what ‘factorial’ means? If one has enough debt on so many credit cards, they likely don’t have the extra $1000/mo the MMA examples use.
Your comment is full of analogies, hyperbole, and nonsense. How many years did it take for Bernie Madoff to get taken down? Read “No one would listen” by Harry Markopolos. I and my fellow morons will have the last laugh. But the truth is out there, and the emails I routinely get from people thanking me for saving them the $3500 and their time is enough to keep me going. I wish you well in whatever your next endeavor will be.
What a lot of people in these discussions fail to mention is the interest rate on the HELOC and the fees they pay to get the HELOC – it’s not free. Take that into consideration as well. Also, like JoeT says, what happens to this process when your HELOC gets frozen? What happens when you have large emergency expenses? What happens if you don’t have strict discipline? This only works if you let a piece of software dictate your life. If you choose to “check in” with the program before you buy groceries, than fine. Personaly, I think it’s ridiculous to let a computer run my life, and I choose to exchange that feeling of freedom for the extra money I pay on my mortgage.
I actualy had a meeting with a UFirst rep, and they said they couldn’t guarantee I would save a lot of money on the interest on my mortgage – because I was already halfway into a 15-year with abotu $80K to go. I had always been sceptical about how a $3,500 piece of software could make me pay less in interest on my mortgage, but I can see that some people need a tool to help them visualize that making extra payments, or changing the timing of payments will help them pay off a mortgage more quickly and consequently save interest. what I didn;t get is why I had to take out what amounts to another mortgage to pay off a mortgage.
Laura – congratulations for getting away from that UFirst Rep. They can’t guarantee anything, really. Even when they enter data incorrectly, the client signs the sheet saying it’s correct. So if you make $60K/yr, but the agent enters it as $2500 bi-weekly, you magically have $5000 extra over 12 months and the program output looks great.
For everything else, they have scripts offering ways to doubletalk their way out of any logical discussion. When I try (and it doesn’t take much googling to see how Jimmy, Chris, and others have tried as well) to talk numbers, agents go into hyperbole mode. As you’ve seen “Mr Roberts” in action, agents don’t want to talk about the numbers, how the HELOC shuffle is in fact a dangerous game for most, and saves very little on a good day. They quickly resort to name calling because that’s the refuge of the week. The irony I continue to point out is that mortgages use math no more complex than multiplication. Oh, sure, you can 1.06^30 but this is multiplying 30 times over. So for me, the fact that I aced the math SATs, and my undergrad is a degree in electrical engineering is moot. It’s the fact that I passed 4th grade math that gives me the credentials I need to explain away this scam. Algebra I not required.
Do you know how much time agents waste explaining how “Factorial Math” is involved in MMA? If you have 10 debts, there are 3.6 million ways to line them up. Yet, when I first heard that, I asked my 3rd grader to order 10 debts by interest rate, took her all of 4 seconds. Agents make the simple seem incredible, as if you need to constantly consider all 3.6 million combinations every day. I’d like to meet the marketing guy who dreamed that up. How else could they take the simplest fact “pay highest rate debt first” and turn it into the impossible task, “oh, my, 3 million decisions”?
When you make a 7 ingredient (inc toppings) sandwich, do you really ponder every possible way to sequence them? I doubt it. You’d not make it out of the house much if this is how you handle such routine decisions.
We all have poked holes in every aspect of this scam, but it’s like the game whack-a-mole, the scam stays alive and the agent pop up to spew their lies.
(Above – I meant “Craig” not “Chris” sorry
This is the last word on this subject.
Last word!
I drank their kool-aid for 2 years and sold money merge accounts. To this date, I don’t think I know of one person actually still using it.
I know realize that the MMA is a joke and United First should be audited by the banking industry and shut down but with the thousands of desperate people still thinking that they can make millions in mlm, I’m afraid that they will continue to rip people off.
When I finally realized that this was smoke and mirrors, they terminated me AND kept more than $2,000 of commissions owed to me. What a company!!!
WOW SUCH A FIGHT OVER $3,500.00
Engineers that say “don’t buy” never have used it!
People that bought MMA and use it, swear by it!
I guess it is a case of someone trying to pee up a wall the highest!
Is this true?
Actually, we know that many people who have bought the MMA, don’t use it, even according to ex-agents. We know many have attempted refunds, but UFirst will not refund an unsatisfied customer after 3 days have passed since the purchase.
Further, many of us who have spoken out against the MMA, have used the demo program, and found it to be a very clunky web app that, for example, doesn’t even have a print function. Which is a tad scary when you think about it – you can’t print a record of what the MMA is directing you to do.
Also, we know the MMA is an inefficient piece of software – it is easier to prepay your mortgage yourself, and “cancel more interest” in the process.
All that agents have to fall back on, is the behavior argument. Our point is that paying $3500 and delaying the mortgage by months as a consequence, to buy a flawed software solution that provides a plan that is easily beaten by pencil-and-paper or a <$100 copy of Quicken, is not a good decision.
I bought it and I sure don’t swear by it! I feel like it was a total ripoff, and of course I was not refunded anything. I don’t recommend it to anyone. Anyone know how the company is doing these days?
I recently spoke with a MMA agent. I gave him the information needed and he emailed me a file showing me I could pay all of my debt in 6.5 years as opposed to 29.5 years of doing nothing. I have read all posts on this conversation. I have seen many posts stating that DIY is easy. I have tried to find the vortex 42 but was unsuccessful. How does a person who does not know how…know how?
Jon,
If you’ve read the posts and if your MMA salesperson properly explained the software, you realize that everything hinges on having the HELOC for emergencies. The software will assume it can use up your savings and excess pay to pay down the mortgage.
Many salespeople enter your paycheck as biweekly instead of semimonthly. The software assumes that people with biweekly (or weekly) pay get 2 (or 4) extra paychecks a year that will be used to pay down the mortgage, and not expenses.
Also, if you have outstanding loans and credit card balances, the software will have you pay those off with a HELOC, and then use your monthly payments to pay off the HELOC. Once the HELOC is paid off, those monthly payments go towards paying off your mortgage and not get put into savings.
I am strongly thinking about getting started in this MMA, but was told all I need is a savings and checking account no HELOC. So does that mean I’m in better shape to go on this plan since I’m not paying down the HELOC? It seems good to me but paying the 3,500 is a kick in the shorts. Where can I get more info.?
I strongly recommend you don’t get started with the MMA. take what you don’t spend each month and send it to your mortgage. there, you just outperformed the MMA, cause that’s all it does. Any pennies here and there ist can save are dwarfed by the extra $3500. heck, they are dwarfed by the interest alone on the additional $3500 debt. (even if you pay cash upfront for the software, that’s $3500 you could have used to pay down your debt…thus, $3500 more debt either way).
Calvin
Roger,
Whether or not you use a HELOC in conjunction with the MMA does not make it any better or worse. The MMA is inefficient no matter what intermediate account you use.
There are plenty of resources to turn to for debt reduction strategies. I tend to lean toward the people who tell you the unpopular directions of making a budget, spending less, and saving more. Crazy, I know. United First Financial is marketing a “magic pill” solution, but it will not get you out of debt faster, and it may actually result in you taking on more debt, but on the bright side, your agent will get a sale, even though his uplines will take most of that commission from him.
You could listen to syndicated radio hosts like Clark Howard or Dave Ramsey, or read a couple books on the subject, but most important, keep it simple. The MMA is not simple – it purposefully complicates matters to make it appear to be doing something magical. It’s not.
If you think you would benefit from a software solution, Quicken runs circles around the MMA, will help you with a budget, has a debt-reduction component, and is less than $100.
Roger,
I am using just a ckecking and savings account and it is working. I agree that $3500.00 is a kick in the pants…but i am saving over 14 years of mortgage payments. $1800 x 168 payments =$302,400…so i rather pay 3500 once than 86 times….been on the program for 4 1/2 years…..
kevino
Kevino, the MMA isn’t saving you money – your extra money is saving you money. And you gave $3500 of that money to UFirst, which only slows your ability to repay your mortgage.
I used weekly payments and payed off my mortgage 6 years early. Easy way to do it. However, not many have the discipline to do it. I looked online at my friends records at the Registry of Deeds and all of them, and I mean every one, had recent loans for amounts close to the amount of their original mortgage. This is after 15-20 years of making payments. They refinanced, took out home equity loans, second mortgages, you name it. Bottom line is most people do not have the fiscal discipline to pay off their mortgages at all, much less early. Mathmatically it may make no sense, but if the MMAs help them do it, it is probably worth the $3,500.
Dave, congratulations on your success. I have one rhetorical question for you. How can a piece of software instill discipline to people that have none? As they see their equity rise, those same friends on whom you spy are just as likely to go to the bank and take out another loan, or easier still, tap the HELOC beyond what MMA tells them to.
Ironically, since MMA completely blurs the line between all your credit accounts and savings, it destroys the very concept of saving X% having Y% for spending, etc. Every time you go out to dinner, you tap your HELOC, every time you spend anything except pocket coins, you tap the HELOC. This is the opposite of the way to budget and instill discipline. Think about this, I’ve been writ in on MMA for years, and this insight just occurred to me.
a couple of you have suggested using Vertex42 but when I go there, I see so many things I can’t tell which tool you are suggesting. Can someone point me in the right direction.
Dave,
I am currently using the UFirst MMA program but am not an agent selling this program. I am a true believer in implimenting something prior to selling it. I want to make sure it works first.
I have read numerous blogs on this subject and see both sides of the argument for and against this program.
I feel my husband and I are excellent candidates for this program seeing as we are debt free except our mortage with a six month emergency fund established in an ING account. We are disciplined and live within our means.
We started this program in 2008 with a balance of $288,000 on our mortage. To date we have spent in interest payments on our HELOC $959.18 at a 3.99% rate while paying off $56,000 on our mortgage at 5% interest rate. At this rate we will be mortgage free in June 2014. We did not finance the $3500 but paid that in cash!
This seems to be an excelent return on our investments. What am I missing???
You miss that you could have simply prepaid your mortgage on your own. No software or math needed and no need to pay $3500 to a company that is based on fraud. You’ve drunk 1/2 cup of koolaid.
Joe,
With all due respect, how have I drunk a 1/2 cup of koolaid when I am four years away from being mortgage free?
Plus, we still contribute money from my paycheck directly to our three kid’s 529, my IRA, and my husband’s SEPT which is approximately $2500/month. I do not see how an investment of $959 over two years which has reduced my mortgage by $56,000 has been wrong or fraudulant. Unfortunately our investments have not seen this good of a return seeing as we have seen a 38% drop. Good considering we are sitting in 75% cash!
Please explain your reasoning! I am trying to understand your position.
It’s very simple, perhaps too simple. You seem to have great cash flow. You are now worse off by $3500 plus whatever return you would have gotten.
The product does nothing of value. But if I got your attention in ‘08 and explained that you could simply pay extra to principal each month on your own, I’d have been no match for the lies that agents tell. If they happened to get your analysis correct, good for you. Most can’t even enter numbers correctly. Easy to find me and my writing on the MMA fraud though some minor googling. HELOC shuffle is a good start. You understand, it’s your own money that paid the mortgage. You probably could have found a rate lower than 5% for a 5-7 year loan, with no closing. Local bank by me has 4.75% zero cost loan for 5 years.
What do you think this program did for you? It’s certainly not an investment, and the return (as if your $3500 saved you $50000) is just not right.
Joe,
I guess my point is that I am still investing as agressively as I have in the past while paying down my mortgage with no major impact on my monthly budget.
I am only doing what the bank does which is leverage the extra money sitting in my account during the month to benefit myself and not the bank. I have in fact lowered my mortgage in two years by $50,000 with only an investment of $4300 (interest paid on my HELOC and my initial investment of $3500). I would be more than willing to fax you my statements for your review. Looking at the program you recommended,Vertex42, I ran the home mortgage calculator with the same information: beginning balance with one intial investment of $4300 and it only saved me 5 years off my mortgage. I am saving 23.6 years!
As for locking into a 5-7 year loan for my mortgage, I looked into it and realized that I would have to stop my $2500/month towards investments for 5-7 years. That would defeat the power of compounding investing for my retirement.
I would never put my retirement on-hold to pay off my mortage. I would do both and this program is allowing me to do it!
Please help me inderstand your position.
“I have in fact lowered my mortgage in two years by $50,000 with only an investment of $4300 (interest paid on my HELOC and my initial investment of $3500).”
No, you actually sent $50,000 of your money to the mortgage. MMA has you funnel it though the HELOC, and then claim “no change to budget or spending.”
Where, exactly do you think that $50,000 came from? Anyone who can send an extra $2000/mo to their mortgage and not miss it is doing pretty well, I’d say.
As far as “leveraging the money”, if you’d read my “HELOC shuffle” post, you’d understand the limit to what that process can save you. $20 or so per month, not $2000.
Joe,
I guess we are blessed because every time I make a payment towards my principle balance on my mortgage we have enough money coming in to cover that transfer!
Since we started this program the most money we had against our HELOC was $12,000 (line of credit is $125,000) which then was back to around $3000 by the time the payment was due on our HELOC. Monthly we only are paying about $28.00 on the HELOC.
If you are so against this program please show me exactly where I need to go in order to follow a different approach to paying off my mortgage in four years.
Like I said earlier in my first post, I do not sell this program but have only implemented this for my family because I have seen the benefit: paying off my mortgage while continuing to invest! Maybe for me, I like the computer program to show me when to make the transfers seeing as my time is better spent running my business and making the money needed to be mortgage free in four years.
Where did you get the data to support the savings of only $20 per month? Everyone’s financial situation is different so it seems a little short sighted to be quoting the actual savings without having all my financials.
Without knowing exactly how I run my expenses through the HELOC, you would not know what my actual cost or savings would be?
I am only gathering information in hopes to determine why there is so much negative press on the MMA’s.
First, since you already purchased it, there’s little harm in continuing to use it.
Second, I strongly suggest you go back and read this comment section from the start.
Every situation is different, I agree. The number is from UFirst’s example, a $200K 6% mortgage, $5000/mo cash flow. This is all elaborated upon in my HELOC shuffle post, which is a guest post on the site of an author dealing with fraud. I was invited by her to write that post after she saw that I understood the fraud behind MMA.
Since your HELOC rate is lower than your mortgage rate, you could lower your interest costs by using the HELOC to reduce your first mortgage. Of course, you would then have to make a payment on your HELOC every month, in addition to your mortgage payment.
In other words, your optimal strategy would be to calculate how much you could afford to pay on the HELOC each month, and then prepay the
the first mortgage with funds from your HELOC.
For example, if the balance on your first mortgage is less than $125K, you could use your HELOC to retire the first mortgage. Depending on the terms of the HELOC, your payments might be higher, but your interest
costs would be lower.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of optimization strategy is not possible with UFF’s software. I would think that if they were going to have you spend time every month entering in all of your expenditures, they would let you then use the numbers to consider
alternative strategies.
@ColoradoMom
When you started your program in 2008, where you debt-free? Are you claiming that your net income has not increased and your savings has not decreased in that time either?
In other words, you claim that your standard of living has not changed. You are not missing any money and you haven’t changed your spending patterns.
JimmyDageek,
When we starting this program in 2008 we were dept-free except our mortage. Over the past two years we have continued to put money away each month ($2500) towards my kid’s 529 as well as our investments.
We have a household budget that we are able to stick to every month so prior to UFirst we would have $5000 -$7500 in excess each month in our account. This has not changed. As I mentioned earlier, at different times during the month when the software program tells us to transfer money towards our mortgage the most we have used on our HELOC was $12000. Due to the timing of this transfer when we owe interest on our HELOC that balance is typically back around $3000 so the most we have ever paid in interest was $28.00. Keep in mind our HELOC interest rate is only 3.99%.
So to ask if we have changed our spending or saving patterns the answer would be no! If anything I am saving more each month because I am so aware of our finances and think twice about every purchase.
Although there are many people who think this is a scam, I have yet to experience this. I guess the proof will be in 2014 and whether or not I am mortgage free.
Hope this answered your questions.
So now I’d respectfully ask you to google if don’t already understand the phrase Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.
I have no doubt you will be mortgage free in 2014.
hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event.
Great phrase because could I have paid off my mortgage without the UFirst software…..most likely! With the craziness of my business and three extremely active kids, I needed that crutch (UFirst) to outline when I needed to make those transfers.
I only take offense due to the “poster’s” calling individuals who have bought into the program idots. It is a personal decision and one in which I did not enter into blindly! For seven years of hand holding and the value of my time to be mortgage free, crazy as it may sound, the $3500 was well worth it.
I think for anyone we is looking into purchasing the MMA program, you need to be honest with yourself and determine if you can stick to a budget and be disciplined. I fear many see the HELOC and start spending beyond their means.
I’ll keep you posted on the 2014 goal!
So, CMoF,
Having had no debt other than the mortgage, you did not take advantage of the factorial math (or fractional math as some agents continue to call it) or the sophisticated algorithms that UF brags about.
Since you agree you could have done this on your own, despite the fact that UF claims the opposite, I am really curious to understand what value you feel it provides you. You have a remarkably good cash flow, and since I don’t think you’re an idiot, it would take too much effort to show how the limit to MMA’s return is your average daily balance times the rate on your mortgage. This is how I got that $25/mo. The classic example offers a monthly flow of $5000, and 6% mortgage. At the extreme, if that’s one’s flow, an average balance would be closer to $2500 or so, but I’ll concede the full $5000. And your checking can’t earn less than zero. So you benefit by $5000*.06=$300/yr. $25/mo is not enough to pay for MMA. quod erat demonstrandum
Joe, Ken, and Jimmy –
LEAVE HER ALONE!
Its nothing short of simply being cruel to demean and try to make someone who is already on the MMA program feel BAD about making that decision.
I know that YOU can’t understand that someone doing NOTHING and then getting on the MMA and it REALLY is working for them, that NO ONE has been SCAMMED.
Could they have done something on their own, sure, but the FACT is that they weren’t.
So the FACT that they took action and used the MMA in your minuscule minds is that they are idiots. You may put into writing that you think they aren’t, but throughout this forum you continue to berate those that have gotten on the program.
Who died and made you GOD?
The CMoF is glad to be on the program, sees the advantage of being on the program, will be mortgage free in 4 years as the company guarantees, and the MMA program is making the times and amounts of the transfers easy for her.
So…
LEAVE HER ALONE!
If I continue to see posts on here berating people for using the MMA program, it will just prove to the rest of the world that you are nothing short of being playground BULLIES,
with no compassion, but are bent on making people feel bad about a decision that not only can but IS helping thousands of people.
Nick -
CMoF came here, despite not being an agent of evil, and offered what was, in essence, a testimonial. I am civil in my dialog, the fact is she appears to have more cash flow than I do, so she and her husband are doing something right.
When someone offers a comment as she did, she welcomed discussion. So really, with all due respect, how is it your job to shut down the dialog she herself invited?
As an agent yourself, would you card to confirm that MMA cannot save her the $2000/mo she feels it did? That about $1990 came from her family earnings, their money? That would be truthful, no? To suggest otherwise is the opposite of truth, is it not?
Joe,
As I and several others have said, the MMA does not create money out of thin air to pay off the mortgage, so get off that horse, its dead.
Yes its earnings they have and as I’ve read every single entry regarding CMoF, she sees the MMA as a benefit.
That the MMA program tells her when and how much to put towards her mortgage is NOT a criminal offense as you and the DIY crew would like to make it.
Could she have taken a 5 year mortgage, yes.
Could she have allocated x number of dollars toward the mortgage from their excess, again, yes.
The DIY is STILL just a THEORY, while real people are using a REAL program in REAL time and seeing benefits from it that they previously WERE NOT realizing.
The MMA will ALWAYS better utilize their cash flow than the DIY, and the argument that you simply send into your mortgage whatever you have left over at the end of the month is simply LAME.
Did she ask for a discussion, yes.
What she didn’t ask for was to be called an idiot, lame, or stupid, which DIY’ers in this forum have a tendency to do.
I don’t know how much interest she has saved by paying down an additional $56k in principle over the past 2 years, but its bound to be substantial and she’s very pleased that her savings have been far more than the $4,300 she’s invested so far.
Like I’ve said in several previous posts, if someone invests $3,500 in the software and it saves them $50,000, it was a GREAT return on investment, regardless of what the DIY crowd would have us believe.
If they could have saved $40,000 at the cost of $0 + their time, then the ROI would be substantially higher, but that does not make the $3,500 to $50,000 ROI a BAD investment!
As for “shutting” down the dialog, I was simply referencing the demeaning and berating nature of most posts here, and if that is your intention, then maybe it should be shut down.
Offering advice or educating someone in a NEUTRAL voice is fine.
At some point you just have to let it go and if someone has “drank the koolaid” and bought the MMA, is receiving benefits, and likes the program because it works and is simplifying their lives, LEAVE THEM ALONE and move on to your next Victim.
Well, Nick, I’ll just trust that you were not addressing me when you were talking about the name calling, even though you began the recent replies by naming me first.
Of course you don’t know how much interest MMA saved her. But you are happy to have her think that it was MMA that saved her the full $50K she paid down her mortgage. Even though it was $54K out of her pocket. MMA cost her $4300 so far and it will grow until the day the dollar is worthless. UF likes to forecast out, so do I. With average market returns of 10% over the very long term, that $4300 would grow to $59M (that’s million) for her yet unborn grandchild over the next hundred years. The magic of compounding and hyperbole.
My tone is neutral, leaning towards sarcastic at times. Not offensive. I once heard a guy make a sexist remark about a blonde woman who was the mom of a classmate of my daughter’s. Turns out the “blonde bimbo” had a doctorate in molecular biology. I’ve never made assumptions about people without knowing them. I stick to facts as best I can, trying to avoid the emotional rhetoric that 98% of agents deploy.
(FWIW, I agree the name calling has no place in the dialog, my fellow nay-sayers allow the facts to get lost in their discussion by doing that.)
Have been working so am now just getting an opportunity to voice in…..
This is directed towards Joe and his misconception that his tone is neutral. I would disagree. I apporached this forum in hopes that you could shed some light on the “evils” of the MMA. You continue to quote my actual costs (where you got $4300 I have yet to determine) when I have repeatly offered you my bank statements so you can see how I work this software. Plus would love to know what investment you are using to yeild a $59M return for my grandchildren with only a $4300 investment. I will send you my business rather than my advisor! Especially in light of the current financial situation.
Secondly, I requested the exact location of the mortgage program on the Vertex42 with no guidance from yourself. Does this even exist and what are the success stories of individuals using this program and succeeding in becoming mortgage free.
I guess I assumed wrong that you could shed some light on the MMA “evils”. It seems as if your arguments are all the same with little guidance on an alternative.
Regarding Nicholas St Jon thank you for your support! I am convinced that TaxpayerJoe does not completely understand this program and how it really works. I would suggest that he sits down with any banker and get a BANK 101 overview. Does he really understand the leverage of money and why there are so some many banks in business? My point, they are in business to make money!
Also, I find it exremely ironic that my finacial advisor after reviewing how I was working the system and implementing it for my family gave me his approval and personally asked about it for his own use! He got it!
Unfortunately I am not an agent so he went to someone else. I will not endorse UFirst until I am mortage free, able to put my own numbers on paper, and able to share insight with actual and correct numbers.
10% over 100 years will produce that return. In a Roth, of course.
Since I wasn’t the poster who referenced Vertex I don’t know where to direct you. I’ve referenced it for the debt snowball, but that particular spreadsheet isn’t for mortgages.
I wrote my own MMA-beating sheet, as have many others, available for the downloading. Took all of a few hours.
I understand banking leverage, and scams.
Do you understand the premise of MMA? In theory, it will offer you a return on your idle cash. That’s all it can do. You have $10K/mo coming in? MMA might save you $500/yr. Max.
Any other claims are as absurd as my $59M.
JoeTaxpayer,
If we can all get a 10% in our ROTH or SEPT we should feel fortunate. Not what is being predicted over the next five year. We work with the wirehouses daily so have a pretty good understanding on the future growth of the stock market.
I do understand the premise of the MMA and to say it offers a return on investment on the idle cash is an understatement.
We are blessed is have about $9000 a month coming in AFTER our mortgage, investments and insurance so we are very fortunate. We left Microsoft and AT&T to start our own business in 1991. The key is that we still live well below our means and have not bought into “Keep Up With The Jones’s”!
Currently we have a $243,993 mortage at 5% interest, where over the life of the loan we will pay $227,537.60 in interest being mortgage free in June, 2040! This month alone I will make ONE prepayment of $11,500 which will save me $36,003 in interest off my loan or three years in payments becoming mortgage free in June 2037. This one payment will cost me $38.00 from my HELOC assuming that I pay nothing towards this 2.99% loan. I would gladly pay $38.00 to save $36,003! Where are are coming up with the $500 year savings?
I keep extremely close records on both my mortgage loan as well as my HELOC so know that my savings are much greater than $500/year. Since starting this program I have already saved $100K in interest off my mortgage. This will be money starting in 2014 that will go directly towards my retirement vs waiting until 2040! I will have the power of compounding interest working for 26 years with monthly contributions of an additional $1600/month towards my investments. Check out Dave Ramsey’s websites and plug in these numbers to see the benefits. Explain why you feel this is a bad strategy and where you are coming up with a savings of only $500 per year and my actual cost being $4300.
I shared this blog with one of the top brokers at a wirehouse and he laughed saying that you did not understand how I was using the program. He wanted to know as well how you came up with these numbers considering you have not even seen my spreadsheets! He made the corelation of him promising X amount of return without knowing how much his clients had to invest, their risk tolerance or the uncertaintly of the market. He can promise but that does not make him right!
The 10% was sarcasm, although long term, may prove to be close. You “have a pretty good understanding on the future growth of the stock market”? I’ve never heard anyone make such a statement, and will leave that for now to stay on topic.
You will make a prepayment of $11,500 to save $36,000. That’s great, really. It was from your money. Y.o.u.r. money. How did $38 save you $36,000? If you paid out of your money, well, that’s that. If you borrowed from HELOC and paid $38, that’s ok, but you then paid $11,500 back to the HELOC.
With all due respect, you are successful and bright. 20 years running your own business. From what you said, you are classic “millionaire next door” types. Not throwing it away.
Take credit where it’s due. You earned your money and you used it to pay $11,500 early on the mortgage. On my spreadsheet, when I enter the data you offered ($250K mort 5% fixed) and then apply $11,500 as extra principal payment, I get an “interest canceled result of $36,085 and 323.5 mo remaining so 3 yrs knocked off. So I know exactly where the number came from, I can reproduce them.
But – just to be snarky, if I put $3500 as a prepayment with first payment due, I get $11739 interest saved, and 347.6 months left. This is what MMA cost you. Just under $12K and cutting a year at the outset of this process.
MMA uses a HELOC, which, in general, would run at a low balance and manage to take cash that would otherwise be earning no interest and manage to get a return equal to your mortgage rate. An honest agent would ponder this and agree. The limit to what it can provide is equal to your gross monthly cash times 5% in your case. So if your income flow is $12K/mo, the max return is $600/yr. The more realistic number would be about half that.
All other return is from the prepayments you make with your money.
The other benefit of MMA which I can’t dispute too much, is the psychological factor of not having any money. St Nick will agree that money burns holes in pockets. If I see the $800 for an iPad will cost me $2500 at the end of my mortgage, I may be less likely to make that purchase. In effect, every purchase will be pondered for its long term impact on your finances. Whether MMA helps change your spending in that regard, I can’t say. For the Dave Ramsey credit card spendthrifts, this is a positive I concede if only to show that I do understand all aspects of this program.
Your broker friend can laugh as he wishes, but given your situation, you are broker for using MMA.
Colorado Mother of 4,
Congratulations! You are digging your way out of mortgage debt, doing it well, and doing it fast. I would bet 99% of the people here would love to have your financials. $9000 in discretionary income – that is money left over after mortgage, interest, investments (your Roth, 529, etc?) – you are living well.
You, Rich Lady, should be UFF’s poster child.
You also have a super low 3.9% HELOC – where did you get that!!! I want it too! I have a $250,000 HELOC with a 6% adjustable – yikes!
But I digress. I, too, gave my $3500 to UFF, gladly, ecstatically, and couldn’t wait to get started. I was chomping at the bit! Paid on the 30th, but not able to log in until the 2nd. But I didn’t care – that 3 day period of cancellation didn’t matter to me – I was sold on a great product! I told hubby, $3500 is a small amount because it will save me over $253,000 in interest!! Joe, that is called 722% ROP (Return on Product – I made that up).
Colorado Mom, I have a feeling you were like me – giving our budget figures to friendly strangers, inputting our exact to the penny balances in checking/credit cards/HELOC accounts, talking to customer support as they had to make the magic happen when the numbers just wouldn’t line up, naming our expense folders, padding our grocery, clothing, dining out budgets so it was boldly realistic, all the while so very glad to have our Financial GPS on the road! I was a MMA wizard and constantly checking my numbers and feeling victory when I made a principal only payment on our mortgage (side note: in the process of setting up our MMA, I had to drop our 2 HELOCs, rental mortgage, rental income, and keep another account separate and out of the picture to make this system work. I ended up opening a “savings/checking” account because I was told I MUST have 2 accounts to make it work).
I know how great it felt in the beginning, but then, it started to have problems (I have been assured that it is only me having problems) and paying seasonal bills like college tuition or having a $1000 increase on a credit card would put the system into redlight oboy mode, and I would have to wait until customer support was open, they would do their magic, and life was good again.
I don’t know if you are anal like me, but I would do what they said to do – step by step, in the exact order presented in my Action Plan. Deposit paychecks, it would prompt. Okay, I go to the bank, and deposit paychecks. I execute action. Goodie! Hmmm. Suddenly, all the bills and extra mortgage principal that was on the Action Plan board would disappear. Oh, said customer support – you are supposed to pay those bills FIRST, then execute your paycheck deposits. Oh, said I, that is not right. What if I don’t deposit paychecks, write the checks, and they bounce because I got busy or forgot or misplaced the paychecks. Do them all at once, I was told.
Now remember, I am anal, and this was my $3500 Financial GPS. When it says make a right turn, I make a right turn. When it says make a right turn, then a left turn, then a right turn, I do that, in the order given. That just is how I believe a GPS has to work (anal, I know).
So, I share that character flaw with support staff. Call us, they write in the chat, so we can explain it to you. That I did, and I get told that there are some glitches in the program, and they are aware of the problems, but it will be addressed in the next version. Great! said I, when? Soon, I am assured.
Maybe it is because you are much more affluent than I am, Colorado Mom, and you haven’t run into these problems or you are a far better person than I and can roll with the punches, but after 3 months of having magic adjustments made, hours spent on my computer, being forced to execute actions out of order and contrary to good financial behavior and common sense, I got fed up. My fault, yes it is. A better person would suck it up and just plod along.
I am not a better person. I wrote a very nice request to get my money back, on a pro-rated basis of 3 months because after 3 months of trying to make this work for me, I have reached a conclusion that this is NOT for me.
Here is where the caviar hits the fan. No refund, no recourse, no you can’t reach anyone else, no glitches, no appeal, no compromise, no you can’t terminate, no projections, no transfers, no, nada, have a nice day. Three weeks of politely asking for a refund based on customer dissatisfaction, product glitches, false marketing premises, and no proof other than their dashboard that the product will perform as projected. Have a nice day.
I disagree with JoeTaxpayer that UFF is a scam. It is a highly compensated Mucho Multi Level Marketing product that promises the moon, and promises it well. They know how to market a $100 pair of shoes and sell it as a $3500 state of the art piston pumping vehicle of wonder. Joe, what is the Latin phrase for “Let the Buyer Beware”? I wouldn’t call it a scam, but I would call it a shame.
Colorado Mom, I bet you go to Neiman Marcus to shop, or if you don’t, you could afford to. You could afford Jimmy Choo shoes, Hermes scarves, Swarovski crystalware. Let’s pretend you don’t go to Neiman Marcus, and you go to Nordstrom, and you buy Rockports, Bill Blass, Donna Karan. These are all pricey items, but you know they are of good quality. You keep them in your closet, and after 4 days or even 3 months go by, you decide you don’t want them. I’d bet you get your money back. I’d bet you’d get your money back even if you wore those shoes for a while and decided they were too tight for you.
Neiman Marcus and Norstrom are expensive stores (in my world). United First Financial’s Money Merge Account is expensive (in my world). All three of them offer products that cost a lot regardless if they are worth the price or not.
The difference between United First and these retail stores is ethics, integrity, and a company philosophy of customer satisfaction.
United First Financial does not have customer satisfaction as a philosophy. They congratulatorily take the money and they don’t give it back unless you can prove that the product will not save you x number of dollars in interest after x number of years given the same parameters every single month.
How do you prove that?
In my case, I would have to execute every prompt without any change in charges, income or payments for the next 16 years, and if their magic savings number is not achieved, THEN and only then, can I get a refund. They will not provide a 192 monthly projection to prove the numbers on their side. You know, they probably could if they did print one out for me, but they refuse.
JoeTaxpayer, you wrote earlier, “My own data shows that 100% of users have been robbed of $3500 and they are a small subset of people who are innumerate and financially illiterate.”
You need to change that to 98%. Colorado Mom and I are neither innumerate or financially illiterate. Her 1% is smart, fortunate, optimistic and non-anal. My 1% is smart, fortunate, realistic, and like a pit bull.
I would probably like Colorado Mom more than me if I could choose. She is perfectly right that the Money Merge Account works and is a great product. I am imperfectly right that it doesn’t and it isn’t.
SallieMae,
I am so sorry to hear that UFirst would not stand behind the promise for a refund. Just looking at your financial situation prior to using the program, I would have asked a few more tough questions.
Although I am thrilled with my results, I do not feel as if I could 100% stand behind a company who would leave someone like yourself $3500 in the whole for a product you will not use. This does not line up with my belief system.
Regarding my shopping habit, you would catch me in Neiman Marcus! Maybe The Rack only if there was a HUGE sale. My husband always says he is blessed to have married someone who hates to shop! Plus regarding our income, I still run my monthly household budget off the income my husband was bringing home when I was a stay-at-home mom and we were living paycheck to paycheck ($45,000/year)! We drive a 2001 truck and a 2005 minivan that are payed off. He now runs a wonderful business and I consult! A great balance and definetly unAmerican because we refuse credit card debt and only pay cash for things we can afford.
Maybe there is a Multi-level business opportunity there;)
Off to work…..
SallieMae
If you’re as anal as you claim to be, then you should be finding the money every month to pay down your mortgage, and you don’t need an MMA.
If that is not working for you, then start small and make it automatic. Calculate what 1/12 of your original mortgage payment was. Put that into your budget to pay down your principal. Now you’ve created a DIY beweekly mortgage – and no fees! When you’ve gotten comfortable with that payment and your world hasn’t come crashing down, increase it as much as you are comfortable. If you get an unexpected expense, reduce or eliminate it for that month.
If you still want the thrill of an MMA, then borrow an amount equal to your *average* monthly income (yearly income / 12) from your HELOC and pay down your principal. Then, start depositing your income checks into the HELOC. Pay all your bills from the HELOC. If you find that you have extra money at the end of the month, send that in to pay down your mortgage.
That’s all there is to it. It’s NOT rocket science, contrary to MMA’s advertising.
Jimmy,
I knew I could pay down our mortgage by paying extra, paying more often, paying in chunks, etc. However, I would give an award to United First for the fantastic videos, testimonials, promptness of follow-up (might have something to do with the $1000 commission earned), prettiness of the website, etc.
Somewhere on another website or blog (was it on JoeTaxpayer’s?) there was a MMA agent who signed in as CashFlow Coach. He did a beautiful job of explaining the system, and how he coached each of his clients through the system to make it work for them and that they were all successfully using it. Perhaps if he was my coach, I would have been able to shrug off the little problems, but I think it doesn’t work for me is because I thought it could handle more accounts, mortgages, and types of income in an easier way. I also expected a program that could run without hitches or glitches or adjustments by a third party. I thought it could do more.
However, Cashflow Coach made some points that really hit home with me. Because I pay for it, it has value for me, and I will use it (or I am truly a fool). There is also that sense or thrill of victory in actually performing those little tasks of transferring funds and paying down principal amounts, and watching the dashboard change from 16.4 years to 16.2 years. You may laugh, but it does feel like victory.
It also does force you to look at your spending habits, and see what the consequences of staying on budget yield, and seeing the consequences of an unexpected or outside the parameter expense. It forces you to be responsible for your spending and to either stay on budget, go off of it and delay or extend payoff, or figure out how to make up the difference.
Did I say it was pretty? It really is, though a bit cumbersome at times entailing executing twice while doing single actions or new actions. There are ways around that like editing accounts from the loan/creditor tabs.
There is no way to “undo” actions, which is a pain, and you must carefully rebuild to return to the previous numbers. Pushing the back arrow will send you back to the login page (doesn’t that get irritating Colorado Mom?) and your user name is a six digit number of their assignment that you are unable to change to one that you would like, or I would have chosen SallieMae!
[As with any program though, I have learned that the user must adapt to the program, and I have gone through several business accounting programs like Quicken and Peachtree before finally settling on MYOB's Account Edge for Macs, because that is a program closest to what I need and feel comfortable using for our business (business was NOT run through MMA).]
Had I actually read the Limited Guarantee and contract and even after reading understood what it meant, I might not have given my money. I might have asked for a one month trial period though I might have then given up because there was really a LOT of information about accounts, balances, recurring expenses, transaction types, ordering of checks (which I ended up paying for but not using because of my HELOCs restrictions), etc. I have several credit cards that I use for different reasons, but only one of them can be designated for the automated part of this program – that was too limiting for me.
No, Jimmy, MMA is not rocket science, but it does have the benefit of behavioral science in a techno package.
Unfortunately for ME, it was like a pair of very pretty expensive shoes with the wrong heel, height and fit. What I did was go shopping with rose-colored glasses, listened to the hype, watched the videos, and bought without trying it on. Somehow I thought I was buying a product with guarantees of customer satisfaction, and there were none – dummy me.
Unfortunately, without ColoradoMom (or anyone else) detailing her income and outgo, it’s impossible for anyone to do a post mortem. So, we are left with CM’s testimonial and our claims of mathematical impossibility.
We know, from MMA’s own website, that every 3 months or so, a chunk of money is taken out of the HELOC to prepay the mortgage. Then, over the next 3 months, this loan is repaid from the monthly income until the balance is below a single month’s repayment. Then, another chunk is taken out and process starts all over again.
CM is fortunate in that her HELOC interest rate is below her mortgage and that her family income supports a prepayment of about 2500 per month. If CM finds comfort with her financial GPS, then she got the value she paid for. But the results did not come from any magic money.
We all suffer from cognitive dissonance in some way. We have all seen the optical illusion where a figure is cut up into so many parts and, apparently, those same parts reassembled with newly-found space. It turns out that by changing the dimensions of the parts ever so slightly, the eye assumes it is error and can’t figure out how the space was created.
Thanks for the support Colorado Mom! It really is a good product for some, but their no refund or any kind of regret regarding customer dissatisfaction upon discovery of use needs to change. Especially at $3500.
I LOVE Norstrom’s Rack (oh, can’t you hear the guys groaning!), and what I love about them the most is their customer service and they back it up over and beyond most other stores. I have had those rebate certificates expire. I once told the cashier about how I could kick myself for not using them, and she said bring them in – they honored them after the expiration! With service like that, I am a loyal and happy customer.
United First Financial really must learn a lot about good customer service. They think having good coaches and support line is enough, but it really isn’t. If they do not start changing their one-sided policies, they will lose clients. The $1000 commission for the first line of agents and then branch managers, etc. is too big of an incentive for people to sell the product and forget about the customer.
I also LOVE my credit cards. I have Hawaiian Airlines VISA cards (check out HawaiianAir.com). Non-stop flights to Hawaii (come to Hawaii everyone!) from Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, etc. with free food and mileage credits keep growing after the initial 20,000 mile boost! I use the miles to upgrade to first class when I can. I make sure I pay them off every month. That is how I use credit cards to the best advantage.
Question for you, Colorado Mom. Why aren’t you investing in real estate with your discretionary income? This was another reason why I wanted out of the MMA. It didn’t make sense to paydown our mortgage loan, at the expense of not having funds to invest. That is called lost opportunity. Write me if you want, since I don’t think the host or others on this website would want to listen to us “gab”.
This is one of my emails if you want to write to me directly: u1st@hawaii.rr.com – Isn’t that a hoot?!? I will probably keep it for just a little while longer, and then disable it. I really was so sold on the MMA, I signed up to be an agent so I could help everyone I knew to get out of debt this fantastic wonderful way. I was even going to get a website to direct people to the product, and told my up-line agent that I would rebate my $1000 to any of my friends or contacts that signed up for the program under me – now that is what you call drinking a pitcher of kool-aid!
I am glad this program has worked for you. I am sad it didn’t work for me (much of the blame is my enthusiasm), and also mad at the way they disregard and deny any resolution.
JimmyDaGeek and JoeTaxpayer, if they let me transfer the program (which I very very much doubt), I’ll let you see how it works. It is well done, but it has some flaws, and too many limitations for me. I could give them a lot of suggestions on how to improve it, but the first thing they have to do is loosen up their return/dissatisfaction policy, or they will go out of business, I think.
I did file a complaint with the Utah Better Business Bureau, and received a follow up email right away from BBB that they have sent it over to UFirst, and assigned a case number to it.
I don’t really expect that UFF will refund anything. It would probably be a nightmare because they would have to take back all those commissions from the ground agents all the way up to the corporate level. But I am giving it a shot and a shoutout.
To Sandy and those others that really wanted a refund also, write a complaint to the Utah BBB. Their website is: Utah.bbb.org I found great comfort when their slogan was front and foremost: Start with Trust.
If UFF does agree to some kind of settlement, they will probably have me sign some type of non-disclosure, so I am shouting out now about what I have done, and in the great event they do refund me and I cannot disclose how or what, I will be muzzled from letting any of you know. So, IF I get a good result, I will be sure to write on this sight: “MUZZLED!” which is good news in code.
Hopefully muzzled,
SallieMae
SallieMae,
I just found this blog and saw your message about MUZZLED! Please tell me – is this good news???? I am desperately trying to get a refund from this company!!
Bev
SallieM -
I have a wife and 11yr old daughter, I like the shoe analogy. The shoe may fit someone, right?
That’s part of the problem with MMA, the show is not fit for sale. Period.
I know my 30+ posts are tedious to sift through, even when compiled into one big PDF. In a number of them, I run the math that how that MMA is not optimized. On one agent’s site he spells out a year’s worth of sample transactions, and the client, for all of her transactions and moving money around is worse off for having used it. A “pay extra at month end” approach beat the agent’s own demo. At the end of the 12 months he ignores the HELOC balance. When I analyzed the process, it was obvious to me (and Jimmy, Craig, et al) that the HELOC draw every three months was not optimal. The one thing that MMA bragged about doing i.e. the watching every cent crap, and leveraging the bank’s money, and it got it wrong.
Every aspect of how this product is marketed points to it being a scam.
I’ve had countless dialogs with agents, offering them numbers to analyze, and getting results I know are false. When I point out the data entry error, e.g. telling them that a $48K salary does not equate to $2K bi-weekly, one particular agent saw this, and understood that most of his fellow agents were clueless.
Other friendly agents who saw my spreadsheet told me they were using it as a double-check to the MMA. If my sheet and the software were off by more than the cost of the software, years instead of months, they knew they had a typo somewhere. These were the exception.
One issue that I’ve yet to do a post on is the fact that MMA teaches you nothing. You (any ‘you’ reading) are welcome to dispute this thought, of course. One should have a grasp of their own spending. This can take a number of forms from what you’d call a budget to simply tracking so you know (like a big pie chart) where the money comes from and goes. MMA obfuscates this entire process. Since every dime coming in goes to pay toward the HELOC, and every expense gets paid from the HELOC, the budgeting process kind of goes away. To have a woman believe the $100 shoes (sticking with your shoe analogy here) “really cost” her $500 is non-sense. It ignores the time value of money and arbitrarily inflates the value to the to point in time where the mortgage is due to end. (6% over 30 years gets that 5X) As the mortgage gets closer to ending, your $100 shoes cost less, actually costing just that $100 the day your mortgage ends. That’s pure nonsense. Nearly as bad as my suggesting to CMoF that the $4300 is worth millions 100 years hence. What purpose can be served by having literally every purchase one makes be a purchase on credit shoving the “true cost” in your face?
What purpose can possibly be served by convincing CMoF that it’s not her own success and her own income that are paying the mortgage but the math of the software? The $11500 that saved her $36000? That’s great, if that’s what one wishes to do, but to say anything less than “I earned $11500 and I chose to pay it toward my mortgage to save $36000 in future interest” is the result of a false belief. MMA might have saved her pennies in that transaction. Pennies at best, but the $36000 were her doing. I’ll email you the spreadsheet, it’s not pretty, but it takes one visit each month, and will beat MMA, for $3500 less. I offer a “double your money back” guarantee. Why doesn’t UFirst if they are so sure of this product?
JoeTaxpayer,
I beg to differ with some of your comments. One of them was that MMA didn’t teach me anything. It did. READ THE CONTRACT and UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ! In fact, the more expensive the product, the more you should pay attention to what you are signing.
This is the first (UFirst) time I have ever encountered such a user be damned policy. Even Rich Dad has a willingness to keep customers satisfied beyond what is written in their contracts. Even those Sham-Wow, Doggie Nail Trimmers and Pro-Active pimple products give you your money back except for shipping and handling after you have used the product.
Even Attorney X gives you your money back in full after you have had time to review all the materials he sends! Somebody with the user name of “X” has more credibility in customer guarantees than some one with a name like UFirst.
Also, I beg to differ that this product does not work. Evidently, it won’t work for you and many others because you understand the math and you smell a scam. It works for Colorado Mom, and I am glad for her that it does. It is a matter of personal opinion if she is better off for having the program and using it successfully, or would have been better off if she didn’t have the program and used another theory.
It didn’t work for me, and I am ticked. Not because of all the time, effort, and expense, but because they are unethically selling something as much more than it is to the broadest base it can reach, and then once the trap is sprung, there is no recourse, refund, or even a way out.
Please check out this latest UFF advice about saving your lunch money. I just got this from United First Financial in an email since I am a UFirst Agent. If you save your money instead of eating out for lunch 5 days a week, you can instead put $2000 per year into an account that pays you 6% annually, AND after 45 years, that will have grown to $10 million dollars!!! Can someone please do the math for me because I cannot for the life of me and my dinky calculator come close to that figure.
I call bullshit. Also, I happen to like to eat lunch.
This company really needs to stop lying. It needs to grow a conscience, a heart, and give advantage instead of take advantage.
Points One through Three are well taken. One day in the future, a contract review my save you millions, and you’ll have MMA to thank. (LOL)
An agent had a year’s example on his site (one of the issues we bloggers have is that we constantly find the targets of links we post are dead ends, the other site taking down their material) and I linked to it until it went down. In that post he spelled out a year’s worth of transactions. I needed to run no math, on his own post he showed how the client owed more on the combined HELOC and mortgage than had he just made principal payments. This was his “proof” how great the system was. Perhaps after my writing him, he saw this example wasn’t the best way to promote the product. Let me be very clear – in any example where the HELOC rate is higher that the mortgage, MMA will fall short even ignoring the fee. My admitting that MMA ‘only’ saves about $25/mo at best was an analysis of the HELOC shuffle’s ability to work. It can work, just not how MMA implements it.
As far as lunch boy goes – Sallie sent me the link. UFF promotes an agent’s 1 minute video stating as she mentions above, $2K/yr, 45 years, $10M. I was in the car when I saw it, and on my fingers was able to show that the corrct answer was between $360K and $720K, not $10M. When I got back to my calculator, the actual answer was $425K. St Nick – Would someone kindly tell me how such a video got 500+ hits but not one correction? Presumably, since UFF is promoting it to their agents, the bulk of those views wee agents, no? And I imagine that one in 400 agents can detect such a gross error, no? Of course, since any aptitude for math isn’t a requirement to sell the program, I’ll just trust that what’s obvious to me (and Sallie) is beyond the ability of the agents. If I am being harsh, unfair, etc. please, Nick, set me right. You tend to maintain a level head, mostly.
On a lighter note, it would take a 16% return to yield that $10M. Quite a bit over 45 years. And I’m not quibbling about a few dollars or tenths of a percent. The guy hits the wrong keys (honest error) but cannot recognize a result off by a factor of over 20?
———-Muzzled!————–
I was just wandering if you actually purchased the program for the money merge account. It not only helps you pay off your mortgage in half the time but also tell you what bills to pay at what time and how much you save on interest. You should actually purchase the product and then see what it does.
Anonymous -
I don’t know whom you were addressing, but I’ll answer you.
I’ve written over 35 full length posts describing in great detail how and why the system is flawed, and a scam.
Throwing away $3500 wouldn’t qualify me to talk about it any better than I can now.
Do you know, there’s no better time to pay a bill than when it’s due? Pay your debt off highest rate first, and then pay off your mortgage early if you wish, that’s all.
You should see the UFirst video on YouTube, how $7/day saved on lunch is $2000/yr (not quite) and how at 6% it will grow to $10M. Uh, off by a factor of 20, not even $500K. Why would anyone at all want to spend $3500 with a company that has even one employee that couldn’t see this was a mistake? I could get the result +/- 50% on my fingers, this guy was off 2000% and no one noticed???
JoeTaxpayer,
Uhm…, before you start dogging an idea. Get your facts and math straight. Anyone reading this…, take $7, times it by 7 days of the week, then by 4 weeks in a month, then 12 months in a year… $2,352. Subtract a few days for short months, and you have well over $2,000 a year, you idiot.
The video was taken down as $2K per year at 6% yields less than $500K not $10M.
The video clearly states he’s buying lunch at work, as he starts by saying there are about 250 work days per year. I’m an idiot? I’m hurt. Ok, not really. I found that I’ve never been called an idiot by anyone I’d has any respect for. That you would resort to name calling in this situation says far more about you than it does about me.
Now, would you like to talk about the sophisticated math that grows $2K/yr to $10M?
Richard,
before you start dogging a post, i suggest you learn to read. The problem isn’t getting $2,000/yr from $7/day, it’s getting $10,000,000 from $2,000/yr at 6% interest in 45 years. At 6%, that would take 97 years, not 45 years, …..you idiot.
c+h
I do not need to be mugged to know I don’t want to be mugged. I’d rather be mugged than buy the $3500 UFF crapware, as odds are if I get mugged, I’ll lose less money.
Calvin,
Liked the “mugging” post! Clever, succinct, spot-on.
Best,
Former UFF’er NJB
The BBB process is a joke. I tried it, and all the BBB does is pass emails back and forth. After a few back and forth emails, the BBB “resolves” the case because there is no agreement.
As long as a paying member company of the BBB replies to complaints, that’s all that the BBB cares about. The reply can be “F%^k off. Sincerely, Bob’s auto shop, member BBB”, and the BBB will close the complaint with no problem.
I stumbled upon this blog and just want to mention that we have all heard of Ernst and Young, (one of the world’s largest public accounting firms)…in 2008 they selected United First Financial as one of the new business for their Entrepreneur of the Year award. E&Y is not in the habit of selecting “scams” as it is a direct reflection on their business.
They sponsored an award for entrepreneurship, nothing more. They didn’t audit the system any more than Toyota endorses the NJ Jets.
In 2009, E&Y awarded MonaVie, coincidentally, another scam. But it’s a supposed diet drink. Do you think an accounting firm is endorsing a $50/quart fruit juice?
Is this award your only claim to validation? Pretty thin evidence I’d say. How you given up on the sophisticated algorithms, the factorial math?
E&Y did not award anyone anything. They sponsored an event, but had nothing to do with the nominations, judging, etc. Call them, they’ll tell you the same things.
UFF is a scam. Plain and simple. Sorry you aren’t smart enough to follow the numbers, nor read the E&Y description of the event. Both things merely require grade school reading and math skills.
Painfully blunt as always,
C+H
Christine,
Click on my name to be taken to the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year – Utah Region web page. Note what’s under the heading “Judging process”:
“The nominees in each region are evaluated by an independent panel of judges.”
Further, we emailed E&Y back in 2008, and the response from them is below:
“You should know that Ernst & Young sponsors the Entrepreneur of the Year program but does not have any say in the selection of award recipients. The recipients are selected by an independent panel of judges. An EOY award is not an endorsement of any individual, company, product or service by Ernst & Young.
Thank you again for your report.
Andy Heaton
EY/Ethics”
And yes, the Utah judging panel has given this same award to scams in the past, including Xango fruit juice.
Wow, your research is poor. All of your assumptions were incorrect to say nothing of unfounded. No HELOC has been required for two years, nowhere does it say or suggest the HELOC rate has to be the same as the mortgage, there is no requirement that you be paid once per month, and if you are paid more frequently, all the better.. I could go on, but why bother?
Rebecca – I don’t know whom you were responding to, or which comment in particular.
I’ve never seen an agent present MMA without the HELOC, and I’m not sure where you got the “paid once per month”.
Regardless, if one simply pays what they can to their highest rate loan each month, they will beat MMA every time, plain and simple.
But agents will continue to defend this scam, I’m not quite sure why. Only the top few percent are making any money off MMA, yet the idea that one day they might has an army of ten thousand writing positive things about this scam.
We understand you can use the MMA in conjunction with a savings account or a (ugh) credit card. But typically, the best results are with a HELOC, and even the best the MMA can do is absolutely pitiful compared to a simple “pay what extra you can” strategy. That $3500, and those million dollar algorithms, fail miserably in accelerating debt repayment over what people can do on their own, more easily, for free.
Rebecca, how about you “go on” about how you outperform simple prepayments with that $3500 up front anchor, or extra monthly payment for the software?
I mean, we’ve shown the MMA software to be unoptimized and much slower, so we could go on, but why bother? Your scamming ilk have been disproved for years now.
Well, I was a sucker and bought this program and now I am trying to get my money back. So far, without success. This program did not work out for me. I found it to be extremely frustrating and time consuming. What’s more, I had/have no debt besides my mortgage and was already paying extra on it. I was convinced by the sales people that this program would help me pay it off faster. I did not find this to be true and have now actually lost ground. I am in the process of filing a small claim to get my money back. UFF has refused my respectful request, and even a letter from an attorney. If anyone out there has any suggestions I would love to hear them. I just want my money back!
Bev -I’m sorry to read this. I am one of the more prolific writers on the MMA, doing my best to get the word out.
They use high pressure sales techniques, and deceptive claims to sell their scam. Yet, they get credit for having a great legal team. Their guarantee is less than meaningless. It’s you who guarantee the analysis they do, pre-sale, is accurate, and the agent often makes a gross error in the data entry. The three day right of rescission? Useless, as clients have told me they don’t give you the sign in credential for a few days anyway. There is no guarantee regarding “user-friendliness.”
If you ever wish to write a guest post for my blog to add to my Money Merge Account series, I’m easy to find. UFirst counts people they scam, I count those I’ve stopped from wasting their money.
Unfortunately, too many people find this and other blogs AFTER they drink the koolaid that’s been pushed on them.
At best, UFF salesman are financially and/or mathematically illiterate. They are unqualified to sell this product to you because they have no idea how it works (or should work). They drank the koolaid and believe (or want to believe) wholeheartedly the lies about “using the bank’s money” and “factorial math”. They believe that shuffling the money in and out of HELOCs produces magic money that pays the mortgage off sooner than you could by paying it down yourself. They believe they are helping people when they show this program around. I was there with AMWAY, many, many years ago.
At worst, the salesman are the same lying thieves you find trying to sell you something you don’t need for an exorbitant price.
People with large cash flows have commented that this program has helped them because they could never find enough money at the end of the month to pay towards the mortgage. One person commented that as a business person, she didn’t have the time to worry about finding the money to put towards her mortgage and paying $3500 was a small price to pay for organizing her finances.
“she didn’t have the time to worry about finding the money”
And of course, logging into the MMA software is certainly easier and less time consuming than looking in your check register when you have it out anyway to write your mortgage check, anyway.
On a lighter note, Bev, you were only scammed for $3500. Madoff took people for their life savings. And just like Madoff’s scam, there are those who see how obvious this is, and those who won’t listen.
Bev, best of luck in your efforts to get your money back. Plain and simple, you were lied to when you were told the MMA was the fastest way to pay your debt down. There are plenty of examples people have posted all over the internet regarding why the MMA is slower (mainly the $3500 fee). Let us know if we can help.
c+h
Bev, you wrote “I am in the process of filing a small claim to get my money back.”
Are you filing against UFirst in Utah, or your agent? I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if you would have better luck filing against your independent agent. Either way, it may be like getting blood from a stone, as many agents are not financially sound, and neither is UFirst, after a year of declining or dead sales, and mostly financed sales at that.
As Calvin said, we wish you luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask in this or any other forum where open discussion of UFirst is allowed. And keep us updated – any success you have may help countless other victims of UFirst.
Thanks to all of you for your kind words and encouragement on this issue. Frankly, I am a bit stumped as to who to name in my claim. I paid an attorney to write a letter – which failed. So, I plan to call him and ask his advice regarding who to name. Also, the agents who sold me the pgm have moved! Ahhk! Do any of your know of anyone who has managed to get their money back? What about Muzzled??? If you read this – PLEASE HELP.
Track down the agent. Maybe call UFirst and ask for the agent’s new contact info? You certainly don’t have to tell them your plans.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but UFirst has one on staff. My impression is the agents are taking the lion’s share of the liability when it comes to promises made but not delivered by the software or the company. The agents are cheap and disposable to UFirst, and while I’m sympathetic to agents (some of them), I’m much more sympathetic to the victims like yourself.
I would track down the agent and start from there.
Craig, Calvin & Joe Taxpayer;
Well, the foul adventure continues! The agent who sold me the pgm moved (agh!)but I spoke to him on the phone and he just laid on the BS about how “The Math Works!” It seems to be his mantra. Anyway, he had me talk with a Customer Service Rep in Utah. OMG! Wow! Our conversation began calmly and rationally enough and then he pretty much started insulting, bullying, badgering and condescending me!!! I was blown away. He would talk over me and not allow me answer his questions, or my answers weren’t good enough and then he told me, “You’re just making excuses!” (About why the program didn’t work for me). I hung up on him because I didn’t want to take his insults anymore. I was completely stunned by how this man treated me. OK, so after all that, I still am not sure who to name in my claim. I don’t have an address for the agent as they are “on a two-month motorhome trip.” I plan to ask an attorney for advice about this. Also, the agent told me that if I really want to try to get a refund that he can’t help me with that!!!
MUZZLED where are you????
Any advice or encouragement you guys have is appreciated.
Bev
Good luck Bev! I really hope you get your refund. I tried and had no luck. Basically what they kept telling me was that there is no money back guarantee three days after signing the contract, period. And the BBB process is a big waste of time. If you don’t agree with UFF, the BBB will close your case and call it resolved. I’d love to hear that someone is successful in getting a refund.
My only guess is that a small claims suit with an intelligent and sympathetic judge will be your best bet. You can go after the agent, but he will likely be a no-show and collecting from out of state will be difficult. Plus you need evidence of any inaccurate claims (most will be conversational I’m guessing). I don’t see much coming from an individual suit against the UFF because their claims are “technically” true. There’s a reason they don’t do customer service via email…much greater chance of a record of any mistakes on their part.
the only real hope, IMO, is a class action suit against the UFF with a large pool of documented false claims on behalf of the agents to show a systematic problem in the agent pool. This problem absolutely exists, without a doubt. Proving that in a court is another story. Plus, the other issue is one person winning a $3500 claim will get money from the UFF. A class action suit will not because there isn’t enough cash left to pay that out (probably not enough for legal defense alone).
I wish some of the agents I sparred with a year plus back were here to eat some serious crow. But alas, the cockroaches have all scattered in the light.
Bev – I will put you in touch with Ms Muzzled if you contact me through my site, ‘about’ page. It’s moderated, a comment won’t appear.
Bev,
Contact Joe (click on his name) and he can help.
At this point, I hope you have documented your correspondence.
Take pictures of your limited “Action Plan”. On macs, hold down the shift key and #3 (or 4 to be able to select the picture area) and you get a picture of the screen. There is no other way to save it to file.
DON’T call them. Email them and save the emails. Post to other sites like RipOffReport.com, Joe’s site, google search for other sites covering this company.
Again, contact Joe. Don’t waste your money on an attorney at this time, unless it is for free. Their contract that you signed is quite specific and will hold up in court.
Good luck, don’t give up.
Muzzled,
Thank you….I’ve contacted Joe and waiting to hear back. You guys are great and I appreciate all your sympathy, advice and encouragement.
Bev
I do not have this program but have looked at it, I am sure that the same thing can be done on my own but cannot get any straight answers on how many years early I can pay it off
Assuming I pay one or two extra payments a year on a $255,000 loan with 7.25% interest how much sooner could I pay it off
Thanks so much
I do not have this program but have looked at it, I am sure that the same thing can be done on my own but cannot get any straight answers on how many years early I can pay it off
Assuming I pay one or two extra payments a year on a $255,000 loan with 7.25% interest how much sooner could I pay it off
Thanks so much
What is the amortization period? How many months (or years, months) remaining?
There are free mortgage calculators all over the web that can easily answer this question. Bankrate dot com has some popular ones, with options for prepayments like the ones you plan on making.
The short answer is yes, you can not only accelerate your mortgage as quickly on your own, but you can do better than the MMA, with less effort than the MMA requires, by yourself. Just send extra to your mortgage with your regular payment, whenever you can afford to. No need to wait until you have an extra payment saved up. Do this, and you’ll be $3500, plus interest, ahead of the MMA.
Thank you for the info. After I sent this question I did find a few calculators online, so I will be doing that and trying to get my 2 mortgages paid off
Thanks so much
Teresa – When I first started my anti-MMA analysis, I wrote a spreadsheet that duplicates all of its function, and more, actually, yet sells for $3500 less. (do the math).
It’s on the my site, the first link under “money merge links” or you can google joetaxpayer spreadsheet.
The sheet lets you make changes real time, and keep a running history of your progress. good luck.
Teresa,
Joe’s spreadsheet is golden. Thanks Joe!!
I am wondering though – why don’t you refinance your loan? 7.25% is rather high.
However, that being said, bank underwriters really have tools of torture in their belts. They need to ease up.
From Joes own site….
The following disclaimer applies:
The content of JoeTaxpayer is for general information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. JoeTaxpayer tries to provide content that is true and accurate as of the date of writing; however, we give no assurance or warranty regarding the accuracy, timeliness, or applicability of any of the contents. Visitors to JoeTaxpayer should not act upon the content or information without first seeking appropriate professional advice.
JoeTaxpayer is not intended to be a source for professional advice. Visitors to JoeTaxpayer should always seek the advice of an appropriately qualified professional. JoeTaxpayer assumes no responsibility for information contained on this web site and disclaims all liability in respect of such information. In addition, none of its content will form any part of any contract between us or constitute any type of offer by JoeTaxpayer. Specific disclaimers may apply in addition to certain content or parts of the site.
Adude – I expect a company extracting millions of dollars from its victims to stand behind its product. Not to sell a financial product and hide behind a disclaimer suggesting that it’s only software. Not when their agents are dishing out advice and clearly crossing the line.
You copy/paste my disclaimer with no comment at all, as if I am to be discredited because I wish to avoid the unlimited liability that an assumed client relationship might create. You’ve uncovered nothing. All bloggers who maintain sites such as mine will put up a disclaimer of one kind or another.
Unlike UFirst, I’m not scamming people out of millions of dollars. Unlike UFirst, I still maintain credibility. Unlike UFirst, I will still be around in years to come.
The concept of paying off a mortgage early is the one that should be put to rest. Any fixed rate mortgage taken out in recent times is essentially free money. A mortgage is the cheapest substantial money you will borrow in your life. After subtracting out the tax write-off and inflation rate, what’s left? Next to nothing. Any extra money should be saved, then invested to grow far faster than the 0-2% gain earned by giving the money to the bank. Why compromise your savings by giving the bank extra payments? If you lose your job and need the money back, you are ineligible to borrow. By making extra payments, you transfer the financial risk from the bank to yourself. Never make extra payments. Here’s an article which summarizes an article on this topic.
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/10-reasons-you-should-never-pay-off-your-mortgage.html
While I agree with you in principle, what about the fact that many investments have gone nowhere in the last 10 years or so, or worse? What about the peace of mind of knowing you have a paid-off house?
Besides, instead of investing that money, too many people used their house as a piggy bank to buy stuff they couldn’t afford.
Some economists say the reason we have an unemployment problem is that too many people are anchored by houses they can’t sell. They can’t move to where the jobs are. Or that they abandon the houses (and their mortgages) to move.
Thanks everyone for all of the informative posts. They have helped me quite a bit. So I came in contact with MMA and heard their pitch and I liked it quite a bit. I told them I would get back after I did some research which is why I am here now. Turns out I asked a bunch of questions that apparently have been issues in the past with their model. The rep told me that you did not have to use a line of credit for this program to work and after using my piddly savings account intrest rate (.4%) told me I could get rid of 600,000 in debt in a little over 14 years if I follow the model (I own two homes). They also guaranteed that if I follow the program to the letter and I am not debt free by 14 years they will return my money! They also said that if I didn’t want to pay the $3500 up front they also allow $250 down payment and then they take $95 out of your hide for 22 months. Please advise.
LB, you had better double-check and research that guarantee. It’s a very specific performance, not satisfaction, guarantee. As far as I know, if your financial circumstances change, the guarantee is worthless.
Jimmy –
Mind an addendum? “worthless to the buyer.”
In fact, the guarantee is written in a way that indemnifies UFirst from ever having to pay out a refund. The system makes no assumptions, it’s incumbent on the buyer to disclose every expense. The buyer also signs off that their income numbers are correct, and we know from history that there’s a difference from being paid twice per month vs bi-weekly or weekly. Agents routinely input this wrong, creating an 8% bump in income that the buyer doesn’t notice and the agent is shocked to find.
When reviewing the analysis agents produce, it takes me all of 12 seconds to find that kind of error.
So, yes, Jimmy, UFirst finds that guarantee “priceless”
LB,
UFirst has a great sales pitch. REALLY great. It works on 1 property at a time. To do 2 properties, you need to pay more every month for their “multiple properties option”, but that is an option that most of the agents, as well as the support staff do not fully understand.
That guarantee – “follow the program to the letter and if you are not debt free by 14 years they will return your money” – are you really willing to wait for 14 years and spend a LOT of time inputting and performing stupid (sorry) transactions from one account to another when it REALLY doesn’t make a difference but they tell you just do it because it works.
Also, does your piddly savings account allow you to write a lot of checks every month? Mine didn’t, and neither did my HELOC account, so I had to open another dumb checking account and call it a “savings” account for MMA purposes.
Be aware that they do not even allow you to terminate your own plan and if you really want to get your refund, they have the nastiest “customer service” reps refusing to let you have any kind of refund unless it is within the first 3 days of sign up. You will be told “customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) is not a valid reason for refund.
Going on the installment plan doesn’t mean you can quit when you want either. You will be legally bound to pay up with their very one sided contract. Actually I don’t think anyone reads that contract when they sign up – the hype is too good and who does read those contracts when they talk so big about their money back guarantee (after 14 years in your case)?!
I advise – don’t do it. Pay $250 to principal, then $95 more every month.