I'll give credit where credit is due if I can remember where I read about this. It was an article somewhere and it made a lot of sense, with some hyperbole mixed in as editorial license, but in general I agreed with the article because it's happening to me.

Spam is killing the Internet.

Ask yourself these questions and see if you can answer "yes" to any of them.

1. Do you call someone and say, "Hey, did you get my email?"

2. Does someone call you and say, "Hey, did you get my email?"

3. Have you ever told someone, "Hey, you never got back to me on that email!"

4. Has someone ever told you, "Hey, you never got back to me on that email!"

Ring a bell? Anyone? Anyone? How about everyone? It's happened to me and it's happened to my clients. In fact, just this week I sent an email to a client who is buying a house here in Austin and after a day went by I called him and said, "Hey, did you get my emails?"

He said he did and that he responded to them. I checked my spam bucket; I checked my mail server but no emails. He was at his work and using his company email but for some reason his emails weren't getting to me.

I suggested he try sending his responses to my AOL account which he did to no avail. I called him back and said, "Your Company is blocking your outbound emails to me."

And it's all my fault. Or more correctly it's all the mortgage industry's fault. More specifically it's all those idiot spammers who inundate your email with advertisements about refinancing and lowering your monthly payments.

The mortgage business is a spammer. Which meant that soon anti-spam software would be installed on nearly every computer and certainly firewalls are set up at every business network looking for sneaky spam terms like "mortgage" or "free" or "Viagra" in the subject line.

When that happens, the email is sequestered, never to reach its intended recipient. At the same time companies also have outbound filters that look for words like "mortgage" and "free" and "Viagra" or whatever in the subject line or text. If they find such an email, it too gets pulled aside, never to reach its intended reader.

It used to be that you knew for a fact that an email got to someone and it was a sure-fire way to get someone's attention. It used to be that the only way someone didn't read your email was that they intentionally deleted it. Then along came spam then along came anti-spam.

But now, when I send an email or I don't hear back from someone as soon as I think I should hear back from someone I have to call them and say;

"Hey, did you get my email?"

Now, if my clients don't get my emails or their responses aren't getting through they'll need to go through a different email address such as a Yahoo! or a Hotmail account. I still keep my AOL email address in such instances.

With the word "mortgage" and "home loan" appearing in every single one of my business emails multiple times it's often that I have to call the person ahead of time letting them know an email is on the way. And I thought email was supposed to make things go smoother. It does, but it kinda defeats the purpose if you have to call someone.

If you have to call someone then why not forego the email altogether and have an old-fashioned phone conversation? I do and I also use email to hard-copy all correspondence between me and my clients.

But this spam stuff is bothering and it's the mortgage business that started it all which I most humbly apologize for. I didn't start it but I apologize for it.

It's also possible that if you're communicating with your mortgage lender and the response times are too slow (and they're normally not slackers, either) then it's likely somebody's stopping somebody else and it's probably your spam blocker that's doing it.

Sorry about that.

Published: February 2, 2007

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

, a veteran Mortgage Banker, successful Real Estate Consultant and author of Your Guide to VA Loans, Mortgages 101: Quick Answers to Over 250 Critical Questions About Your Home Loan, Who Says You Can't Buy a Home!, and Mortgage Confidential: What You Need to Know That Your Lender Won't Tell You, is a former columnist and Contributing Editor with San Diego-based Mortgage Originator Magazine. Reed is President of CD Reed Mortgage Bankers, Austin, TX and is a Past President of the Austin Mortgage Bankers Association.