How much trouble is Rocket Mortgage actually in?

That’s what reporters keep asking me. And its tough to say.

On the one hand, the company’s largest lead source (to my knowledge) was just found to be invalid.

Meaning that all of the robocalls Rocket Mortgage made in reliance on that source are potentially illegal under the TCPA. I am informed that Rocket bought millions of leads from LowerMyBills.com since 2018– and given Rocket Mortgage’s famously aggressive approach to robocalling I think we’re looking at hundreds of millions of calls at issue here.

And at $500.00 per call, well.. let’s just say Rocket’s current market cap is about $38BB and the theoretical exposure here would more than wipe that out entirely.

So, yeah. Pretty big deal.

But how much trouble is Rocket in really?

Unsurprisingly Rocket is fighting hard in the suit. It just filed an interlocutory appeal of the order denying arbitration in the case. And relying on the recent supreme court case of Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. 736 (2023) Rocket has also asked the lower court to stay proceedings pending the outcome of the appeal.

Remains to be seen if the lower court case will be stayed– seems likely–but that just sets up the ULTIMATE appeal for Rocket.

If it loses the issue at the appellate level all leads from LowerMyBills.com would become junk–as a matter of law!– which doesn’t just impact Rocket but numerous other companies that also bought leads from LMB over the years.

My goodness. This is a massive issue for the entire lead generation industry.

If only someone could have seen this coming and warned everyone.

Oh year, that’s right. We did. Years ago. At LeadsCon.

Did anyone listen?

Relatedly, I’m noticing that some of the same old lawyers– you know the ones who told you oral express written consent was a thing and that the FCC definitely wasn’t going to adopt the one-to-one rule–are still getting stage time at industry events and webinars.

Heaven help you if you’re still listening to those folks.