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This article has been paid for by The Thrifty Scot as part of the sponsored advertising opportunities that Blown Mortgage offers to advertisers to review their Web sites and services. If you’re interested in learning about the review advertising opportunity for your business or service contact us here.
While the article is paid for this is an honest review of the service based on the personal review of the service by us.
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Today we go across the pond to England to review the Thrifty Scot which is a money comparison site for folks in England. For those of you concerned about the housing and credit crunch in England and what that means to your current financing and credit options this site is for you. With the recent Northern Rock nationalization and the tightening credit markets it’s imperative that consumers have access to unbiased information about credit, mortgages, refinances or remortgages and fixed rate mortgages. It also covers information about credit cards and car loans.
The site is packed with information about how to choose a mortgage or loan and offers advice about using a mortgage broker, what the recent credit crunch means for people in the mortgage market and tips on getting the right mortgage.
The main engine of the site is an online application form that allows users to fill out their information about the loan that they are looking to get by providing some basic information (similar to other online mortgage inquiries seen in the US) about the loan size, whether you’re looking to buy a new home or remortgage your existing loan.
The information you provide is then sent to “an expert” that can provide financing opportunities to you based on the information provided as well as a phone consultation.
In addition to their mortgage engine the site offers the following (from the site owners themselves):
The Thrifty Scot is an independent money comparison site. Not only do we ensure that our search functions scan the whole market but we also connect users to products we receive no commissions on if it suits their needs.
We have just added a complete search facility for banking products that searches over 3000 saving and current accounts and are just about to launch a new section titled ‘money tips’ allowing users to see the latest discounts, best buys and freebies on offer from a wide selection of industries which would include finance, retail and travel etc.
While the site offers a bunch of useful information and tips for money management I do have one primary concern. The site doesn’t have a live privacy policy so it’s impossible to determine what happens to the information you provide to the site. It would be great if that was clarified. Based on my experience with online information requests here in the States the experience you get goes from decent to awful depending on how your information is used and shared.
So I would strongly recommend to the Thrifty Scot that they make their privacy policy and information use extremely clear so that consumers know what is going to happen to their information once they hit submit.
They should clarify how many calls a consumer is going to get and from who, and if they are not compensated for the match of the lenders or brokers they should clearly state what the relationships they have with the lenders on their site.
So if you’re in England and looking for information on, or are in the market for, a mortgage, fixed rate mortgage or are looking to remortgage your existing property I would definitely check them out. There is lots of great information that should help you in the process. I would definitely contact the Thrifty Scot about their privacy policy and how your data will be used if you are interested in using their online application service.
