EDIT: Added for the benefit of google indexing

scam UFF United First Financial, Money Merge, Scam, MMA, scam, U1st, U1stnational, United First National, UFirst
The bottom line (summarized by ellory):

• If you want to get rid of your mortgage sooner, prepay it yourself
  
• If you need a budget / financial tool, use something like Quicken or MS Money for 2% of the price ($70)
  
• If you need motivation and discipline, get someone to help you with that ($3400 buys a lot of counseling)
  
• At $3500 MMA / UFF is very expensive. Its sales force is highly motivated to get you to buy an inferior product to get their $2500 commission per sale (referenced off their own MLM website). And it is expensive in three ways:
  
  
  • The initial $3500 cost
    
  • The roll over of the $3500 into your mortgage, causing you to pay interest on $3500 over the entire lifetime of your mortgage
    
  • The subpar performance you get by borrowing interest at a higher rate (HELOC) to reduce a loan at a lower rate (mortgage)
    

  
  

Kiplinger's says: "Don't Fall for UFirst"

Long awaited... and the news for U1st is not good. The news for us? Exactly the points we have made. And I'll take a Kiplinger's review, any day, over the infomercial trade mags that UFF has issue them "awards"

Don't Fall for This Mortgage Pitch
Prepay your home loan yourself and skip the $3,500 software fee.
By Pat Mertz Esswein, Associate Editor
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, May 2008

You may have received e-mails touting a system that promises to help you pay off your mortgage early. This mortgage-acceleration package -- which includes a software program -- relies heavily on the use of a home-equity line of credit. The software analyzes your financial data to reveal when and how much extra you should prepay.

The Money Merge Account system, sold by United First Financial, costs $3,500. For the price, you may also receive a recruiting pitch. United First is a multilevel marketer that encourages salespeople to bring others aboard, passing the profit up the food chain.

With or without expensive software, the fact is that the more discretionary income you can commit to prepayment, the quicker the mortgage becomes history. We suggest you keep your $3,500 and do it yourself without having to fend off a pushy salesperson.

For example, divide your monthly payment by 12 and pay that much extra each month. Doing so would allow a homeowner with a $230,000 mortgage at 6% to cut about 5.5 years off a 30-year mortgage (see our How Advantageous are Extra Payments? calculator).

Is prepaying your mortgage even a good idea? That depends on whether you have better things to do with spare cash. You could create a reserve fund so that you don't have to borrow in an emergency or stash the money in a tax-deferred college- or retirement-savings account.

Salespeople challenge whether you'll follow through on your own -- as if spending $3,500 for software will ensure that you'll use it. Tell that to couch potatoes whose high-end exercise equipment gathers dust.


See this excellent fatwallet explanation of how the scam works

See this excellent 3rd party explanation of why not to use "equity accelleration"






What UFF / MMA WON"T tell you. Get an analysis of how you can easily beat their plan - FOR FREE




Their "answer" is in their FAQ. Throw all your "idle cash" at your mortgage. i.e a prepayment. If you need the cash, borrow it back from your HELOC. No magic at all. And entirely dependent on you having cash to prepay your mortgage.

Ripped from UFF FAQs said:



How can homeowners pay their mortgage off early with little to no change in lifestyle and with out increasing minimum monthly payments?
A.

The Money Merge Account system and service is designed to work with a homeowners existing lifestyle. This system helps homeowners to reduce both the interest and time owing on their existing mortgage by repositioning their unused idle money which normally sits in their accounts and their regular monthly expense money until it is needed to pay expenses. When money is needed for expenses, it can be accessed through their Line of Credit. This system helps homeowners to strategically position their money where it provides much more financial benefit than sitting in a standard checking or savings account. Vast financial details programmed into the MMA software assist homeowners in some of the greatest time and interest savings possible.

The "vast financial details programmed into the software" equates to take all your cash and use it to prepay your mortgage principal. (Oh yeah, and pay UFF $3500 for that masterful insight)



Then for the sleight of hand, the remainder of the benefit is

2.Draw one month's mortgage payment plus "optional" free cash and send it to pay your mortgage one month early and prepay additional principle from HELOC
3. Deposit your paycheck back to the HELOC
4. Repeat monthly
5, If you have an emergency and need cash, draw down the HELOC

And the magic sophistication is a budget tool that takes your income and subtracts your expenses and tells you, how much more free cash you have to prepay principal.

I have to hand it to them. Very clever marketing and packaging. And just this side of legal.

Worth $3500 to say that you can save interest by taking all your cash and prepaying your mortgage? And use your HELOC for emergency. And adjust how much extra you should pay each month? Not to me



See MikeF's experience. He actually called UFF and had them create a plan for him (for free). Then compared it to what he could more easily do on his own. Doing it yourself beats UFF hands down




=================================

And, for this program that "originated in Australia" - the news is not good - it is under investigation by law enforcement and securities organizations for false, deceptive and misleading business practices

Consumer Action in Australia article on offset accounts. There are consumer complaints that are detailed in the report as well.

Oops Mortgage Accelerator under fire; Australian Securities and Investments Commission taking action against mortgage brokers.
US promoters are correct to say that this program was sold in Australia before it was “discovered” by US borrowers. However consumer organisations such as ours, and our national financial services regulator - Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) - concluded years ago that there were no savings to be made, and that promoters were engaged in unlawful conduct. Examples and charts showing massive savings have all been shown to include significant increases in payments being made to the mortgage (in addition to the funds deposited temporarily). Any savings made by depositing regular salary into the LOC amount to possibly a few hundred dollars per year, and unless the borrower has significant funds to deposit, these savings are less than the additional interest paid on the LOC - even if the LOC is quite small (say $50,000). Borrowers who pay any money for software, monitoring or other services, are often thousands of dollars worse off.

I don’t personally know anyone who has used a LOC in this way, apart from consumers who come to our agency for assistance.

Our regulator ASIC says, on its website:

“in reality there is no magic trick or secret type of loan that will let you own your home sooner. Substantial savings are only achieved by consistently making additional payments on your mortgage. You therefore need to be very careful when brokers claim that you can own your home sooner and make substantial savings by using a line of credit mortgage facility.”

ASIC has taken action against mortgage brokers promoting this type of product, as well as companies providing calculators to consumers and brokers. This action has resulted in:

* The withdrawal of a LOC Calculator that was on over 100 websites;
* Changes being made to a “Simulator” Calculator
* Court orders (by consent) against a company promoting “mortgage reduction”, including orders that the company write to past customers advising they may have a right to claim loss or damage caused by misleading and deceptive conduct.

The misleading and deceptive conduct included showing clients comparisons between loans arranged by the company and standard loans, that represented that by switching loans they would save money and pay off their home loan sooner but failed to adequately explain that to obtain this benefit clients would need to make extra repayments.

Despite the action from the regulators above, there is still some promotion of this type of scheme, but much less than in the US.


07-144 Court finds major mortgage broker’s conduct misleading and deceptive

No credit for misleading loan calculators
We acted to close down loan calculators on more than 100 websites of Australian financial institutions, including banks, credit unions, other lenders and finance brokers. The calculators suggested that using a line of credit will result in the consumer paying off their home loan more quickly.

7-95 ASIC obtains injunctions against loan calculator operator

Thursday 12 April 2007


ASIC has obtained orders in the Supreme Court of Queensland today against Gold Coast company, Etracka Pty Ltd (Etracka), following concerns over a loan calculator licensed to mortgage brokers throughout Australia.

These orders follow allegations by ASIC that the information provided by the company’s Express Simulator calculator was false, misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive.

The Express Simulator is currently accessible to members of the general public via a number of mortgage brokers' websites. It is also accessible via a website operated and controlled by Etracka located at www.etracka.com

The Court ordered that Etracka add a warning to Steps 1 and 4 of the Express Simulator, and to the Simulation Express Report which is subsequently emailed to the user of the calculator. This warning will now advise users that if they have not elected to make an additional monthly repayment into the Non-transactional Loan (which is as high as reasonably possible having regard to the user’s financial circumstances and the terms and conditions of their loan), the calculator will not provide a reliable comparison between a Non-transactional Loan and a Transactional Loan used in accordance with the eTracka Strategy.

The Court also ordered that Etracka send corrective notices to its members, clients, and licensees, and users of the Express Simulator calculator within seven days.

And there's plenty more

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Here are two youtube videos explaining how the software works and why it will undeperform simple DIY prepayments.
Video #1
Video #2

Financial guru Dave Ramsey goes head to head with a MMA representative ( 6.6 meg mp3)