Omaha mutual accused of deceptive marketing by Longbridge

The nation’s third-largest reverse mortgage lender, Longbridge Financial, is accusing market leader Mutual of Omaha Mortgage of dishonest business practices.

According to a complaint filed by Longbridge, its competitor allegedly uses a number of websites containing fake reviews to support its reverse mortgage business, which amounts to unfair business conduct.

The New Jersey-based reverse mortgage lender wants to stop Mutual’s alleged tactics, a lawsuit filed in California federal court on September 27 said.

Specifically, Longbridge claims that Mutual of Omaha uses deceptive websites – ReviewCounsel.org, AdvisoryInstitute.org, and RFSQualify.com – to manipulate senior consumers into choosing its services or retirement financing solutions.

The websites mentioned above, which present themselves as unbiased review platforms, are actually run by Mutual and “inflate Mutual’s ratings and misrepresent it and Retirement Funding Solutions (RFS) as separate entities, despite their shared ownership,” the complaint states. Longbridge points to a filing with the California Secretary of State that shows Review Counsel is owned and operated by Mutual.

Longbridge also claims that the other websites mentioned are directly or indirectly controlled by Mutual of Omaha and that the educational articles on the Review Counsel website are written by a marketing director at Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, “proving once again that Mutual pulls the strings of the Review Lawyers website.

“(Review Counsel) publishes false and misleading ‘ratings’ of reverse mortgage providers that rate Mutual of Omaha significantly higher than its competitors based on factual misrepresentations and highly biased rating criteria” , Longbridge claims in its suit. “Additionally, the Review Counsel website presents seniors with a false choice between two winning alternatives in the rankings, namely Mutual of Omaha and RFS (Retirement Funding Solutions), making these companies appear as competitors in the rankings (and on the market more). in general), as opposed to what they really are: one and the same company.

Longbridge and Mutual of Omaha declined to comment on the pending litigation Monday. According to the National Mortgage Licensing System, RFS is a trade name for Mutual of Omaha.

The filing argues that these deceptive advertising practices not only harm vulnerable seniors, but also unfairly impact competitors, such as Longbridge, that adhere to ethical advertising practices.

Mutuelle is accused of violating a number of state and federal laws, including the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Federal Trade Commission guidelines, and the Lanham Act, which prohibits the use in commerce of any “false or misleading description of fact.”

Longbridge is seeking an injunction under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) to prevent Mutual from using the deceptive websites.

Without such a motion, Mutual “will continue to target older consumers with the false, misleading and deceptive advertising contained on these websites” and will further harm Longbridge’s reputation and business, the legal filing says.

Through August of fiscal 2024, Mutual of Omaha had 4,024 home equity conversion mortgage endorsements from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, putting it ahead of Finance of America with 4,002 and Longbridge with 2,004, according to Reverse Market Insight.

Mutual of Omaha entered the reverse mortgage business with the 2018 acquisition of Synergy One Lending. In 2020, the management of Synergy One I bought the brand as well as the retail distributed production channel.

Meanwhile, Waterstone Mortgage is also asking Mutual to pay $145,000 in penalties in a trade secrets case.

Waterstone, in a motion filed Sept. 27 in a Florida federal court, claims that Mutual caused it to incur thousands in fees “by identifying 186 alleged trade secrets, then changing course and alleging entirely new trade secrets eight months ago.” after discovery is closed. “