$4.95 POST APPROVED PP255003/06906
ISSUE 6.13 July 2009
CBA reasons The US home for rate rise loan crisis hold water explained page 22 page 24
Unfair contract terms page 18
■ 4: Count MD on Mortgage Choice ■ 10: Commissions to go? ■ 14: Stamp duty
Raymond back in favour
RAMS mascot ‘Raymond’ with Federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek
RAMS has been resurrected. The quintessential Aussie brand is back in favour with consumers and with brokers, according to Melos Sulicich, CEO of RAMS Home Loans. “The market thinks we are there, and we want to continue to be there,” Sulicich told journalists in Sydney at a media gathering. Coming 18 months after the relaunch of the business in January 2008 and following its success at the Money Magazine awards (where it won best non-bank lender) Sulicich said the brand was now back at levels last seen in August 2007. “In January 2008 we didn’t have a customer base. Just 18 months later and we have over 15,000 customers,” he said. Latest research carried out by RAMS, he said, found that nine out of ten people would now use the non-bank lender. The research also found that 80% of people do not know that RAMS is owned by Westpac.
“We are continuing to differentiate RAMS in the market place – it has its own management, marketing and offices,” Sulicich said. “We are still advertising our standard variable loan as lower than that of the major banks, plus we have good solid liquidity with Westpac behind us.” Mark Hewitt, general manager of sales and operations at AFG, said he thought most brokers have been able to see the distinction between the old RAMS (RHG) and the new RAMS. “Their major niche was always at the low-doc and high-LVR end but this has changed recently and they appear to be trying to work out where they now want to sit in the broker market. Our biggest issue is that they still make 95% LVR loans available via their franchisees after having removed them from brokers,” he said. Much of the success has been put down to the strength of the ‘quirky’ RAMS brand and its mascot, Raymond. Page 28
No tea or sympathy as Whittingham business wound up If controversial figure Mark Whittingham was hoping for sympathy and support after e-mailing clients to tell them that his Lead Search business was about to wound up – his judgement appeared completely off the mark. In a long and rambling e-mail, in which he denied he was operating a scam, Whittingham said the business would be wound up in the Supreme Court on 23 June “for unpaid advertising accounts”. “For many months now we have been trying to avoid this from occurring, however with well over 140K outstanding from past agents
in the group over the past year, the constant attacks on the business from a small number of brokers, The Australian Broker Magazine & Broker News. It’s made it impossible to trade as we did in the previous three years,” he said.
Whittingham asked recipients to e-mail the MFAA, FBAA or Brokernews if they had benefited from the leads he provided, and indeed e-mails did start pouring in – but nearly all of them had nothing good to say. Brokers claimed they had paid for leads and never received them, had been promised refunds and never received them or had been given bogus leads. Other complaints were that Whittingham did not return phone calls or e-mails or that he could not be contacted for weeks at a time.
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