Want to close your LendingTree account? Sorry, no can do

that's a great response.

I worked for AEGIS LENDING AS A MORTGAGE REP AND LENDING TREE WOULD foward "hot" LIVE calls from potential borrowers. A majority of these callers were prompted to call because of the ads lending tree flooded the media with. However, sinnce Aegis was a subprime lender, my job was to (****) you good with a loan package. If your credit score was 750 and we said we could lend you the money at 12% and you signed on, we all cheered because we socked it to ya good! We live in a great country because if you are stupid enough to let someone take advantage of you like that, then you deserve what you get! Hooray for me, boohoo for you! Ask Bernie Madoff about the billions he sent to Israel and offshore..., that money is somewhere.

As far as not being able to close the account, if they're not lying about falling under federal and/or state data retention regulations as a financial institution, it may very well be illegal for them to delete the information. That conversation should have continued with asking how long they're legally required to maintain the information and how long they ACTUALLY keep the information, the second of which at least should be outlined somewhere in their security policy.

That said, their system probably wasn't designed to be able to "close" (deny access to) an account without deleting everything in it, which seems more like an oversight in the design of their system then anything else.

Good for people to know this before considering lending tree, but it doesn't seem intentionally underhanded. Just that there was a reasonable request that the programmers and/or managers etc. never anticipated.

1. I doubt you were talking to a programmer. You were talking to a customer service grunt.
2. Lending tree is an online system. One of the problems we try to avoid in online systems is people messing with your database. Deleting all the information in you database would be one of those acts.
3. To prevent this, programmers have put into effect non-deleting delete methods.
4. Everyone accesses the data online, so no one has the ability to delete.

I don't know if this is the real situation with lending tree, but I know that it is a discussion I have had with multiple clients and worrying about closing out an account is at the bottom of the list. Having the ability to delete is just scary.

I have recently purchased a home through lending tree. I had great service via my rep. They also explained that they are required to keep all information on file (then stated the law) because of auditing reasons. This isn't the auditing of me, however them. They are required by law to lend to ALL areas. This is a discrimination law, if they are caught not lending to specific areas they are in big trouble. So they have to keep ALL information on hand at all times in order to comply with this law. So I believe LendingTree in that they cannot legally remove your information from their servers. However, they should be able to disable your account from being accessed and hide your information from all other parties.

On a side note, I run a Forum where people must give up some private information for the safety of other members. I do not delete accounts either. I specifically state this before sign up in the rules for the forum. I have had 4-5 people ask for their information to be removed in a few years and haven't removed any of them and asked that they read the rules they agreed to before signing up. If they don't want their information in my hands forever, they shouldn't sign up for my site. The problem is that people don't read what they agree to and then bitch and whine about it when they find out it doesn't go their way. Tell your friend to read what he agrees to before going to sites. Because it is only his fault.

as a database programmer, I would always have the ability to disable an account without completely deleting it.

This is usually very simple. Login to your account. Every single piece of data you see, change it. Change your name to Bozo the Clown, change your address to 123 Clown St. You might have to put in a random real address but if you want pick Lending Tree's own address or maybe one of their Exec's address. Change your ssn to something else. Then finally SAVE. I haven't tried this at Lending Tree but I have tried it at many places with success.

Joe: "The problem is that people don't read"

They sure don't, Joe, especially you. McNamera's main complaint is about the inability to close access to his account, not about the Lending Tree's data retention.

To state the problem even more simply: Lending Tree has no way to disable a user's login. That is a bad thing because it means that someone who acquires his password at any time in the future can steal his information.

You say that you run a forum? You may not delete accounts, but you certainly have the means to prevent them from participating (ban them). What McNamera wants is for Lending Tree to ban him.