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Madrate.com out of business?

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rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 8:08p
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The www.madrate.com site is apparently down, and now gives this message:

Madison First Financial, Inc. is no longer leasing this domain page and or website This Domain/Website is Property of Great White Marketing, Inc. If you are interested in leasing or purchasing this domain please contact Admin@greatwhitemarketing.com.


Have they gone out of business? The rest of the site is there if you type a link directly, including rates as of today (4/30/08):
https://www.madrate.com/preQualify.jsp

I was looking to get pre-qualified and they have the best 30 year fixed rates. Anybody have other info about whether they are out of business or if this s a hack of some sort? Any other suggestions for low-rate but reliable mortgage lenders?

   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 8:08p

Quick Summary is created and edited by users like you... Add FAQ's, Links and other Relevant Information by clicking the edit button in the lower right hand corner of this message.


rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 8:18p
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Wow. Site was up this morning when I checked their rates. Maybe hackers?

Edit: This page still comes up. http://www.madrate.com/testimonials.jsp

Message edited by: revheck on 2008-04-30 20:23:59 CDT
rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 8:21p
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Yow, glad my loan closed 2 months ago, I'd be freaking out! Maybe they forgot to pay their bill.

rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 8:37p
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They may have forgot to renew and someone snagged it up right away.

rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 9:27p
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PorStaker said:They may have forgot to renew and someone snagged it up right away.

No, the interior pages wouldn't be accessible. The domain was renewed last May and is valid until 2011. BTW - http://madrate.us/ has the same message.

It may be just what the message says -- Madison First was leasing the domain name and the owners have revoked their rights... one would assume some sort of payment dispute.

rated:
   posted: Apr. 30, 2008 @ 10:24p
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did you try calling them? or did you think that would ruin the deal?

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 7:58a
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Too bad, I financed through them last August and was very happy with the transaction. But there have been a couple of fishy things since then. I contacted them about refinancing earlier this year, they said they no longer do business in my state. I understand the state recently enacted some regulation/licensing for mortgage brokers - so possibly just not worth their trouble. But their site continued to list my state as one where they were "licensed". Someone else here posted the same thing about a different state.

Ceasing operations in a state or two does not seem to be cause for alarm with mortgage brokers - many of the small ones only operate in a subset of states. But it seemed unreasonably sneaky or lazy for them to have continued claiming operations in those states long after they'd told others that was no longer the case.

It's entirely possible this is a minor billing problem with their site host, but tighter qualifications and dropping values have got to have hurt small brokers with a big drop in business. Rates are good, but not that much better than they've generally been over the last 10 years.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 8:28a
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I called their toll-free number and get a dialup beeping noise?!

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 8:38a
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I just tried calling, too:

"We're sorry, you have reached a number that is disconnected or no longer in service."

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 8:55a
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Now it says this:

"Madison First Financial, Inc. is no longer leasing this domain page and or website This Domain/Website is Property of Great White Marketing, Inc. If you are interested in leasing or purchasing this domain please contact Admin@greatwhitemarketing.com."

with a nice shark image.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 9:00a
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AboveBeyond said:I called their toll-free number and get a dialup beeping noise?!
I get more of a mid-range tone, followed by slight pause, then another tone.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 9:02a
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woah.. scary. I closed with them two months ago, and had the mortgage serviced by gmac in the end. I'm glad this didn't happen in the middle of that.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 10:53a
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This page works


http://www.madrate.com/disclaimer.jsp

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 10:59a
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Sackajacka said:It may be just what the message says -- Madison First was leasing the domain name and the owners have revoked their rights... one would assume some sort of payment dispute.Web hosting is dirt cheap, if they can't afford to pay that bill they must really be in trouble.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 11:20a
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captainwho said:AboveBeyond said:I called their toll-free number and get a dialup beeping noise?!
I get more of a mid-range tone, followed by slight pause, then another tone.You better whistle your way to your next mortgage, Captain Crunch!

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 11:34a
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jayK said:Sackajacka said:It may be just what the message says -- Madison First was leasing the domain name and the owners have revoked their rights... one would assume some sort of payment dispute.Web hosting is dirt cheap, if they can't afford to pay that bill they must really be in trouble.

You are correct, although if "Great White Marketing" were the site development company they could have other bills in arrears.

I don't think that is the case, though. If you look at any of the pages that are still up Example the footer says (C) 2007 Great White Marketing. This site indicates that the companies (Madrate and GWM) are one in the same. Note that this page is a wiki and editable by anyone, so it could be incorrect.

My assumption is that Madrate a/k/a GWM a/k/a Madison First Financial is closing the doors and they are trying to sell the domain name. The text on the home page is just a bit of spin if they are in fact one in the same.

Just my wild ass guess

Edit:

Interesting to note that the domain record for greatwhitemarketing.com was only created in Dec 2007.

Domain Name: GREATWHITEMARKETING.COM
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, INC.
Whois Server: whois.GoDaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.GoDaddy.com
Name Server: NS19.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS20.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 29-dec-2007
Creation Date: 29-dec-2007
Expiration Date: 29-dec-2008

Message edited by: Sackajacka on 2008-05-01 11:36:33 CDT
rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 1:27p
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I signed up for madrate a couple weeks ago, and never got a phone call.

They did, however, sell the crap out of my information and I'm now being blasted with all sorts of re-fi spam in my postal mail box, so... that's pretty cool of them... I guess.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 1:35p
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Now that you mention that, I too have started getting a TON of spam, postal and Email. I do unique Email addresses with everyone though so it's easy to track, and easy to block once I'm done with that service so I stopped the Emails but postal mail is still coming in under their solitications.

rated:
   posted: May. 1, 2008 @ 2:11p
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GREATWHITEMARKETING? Didn't they do concerts? I heard they were hot.

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