Parade Magazine inserts into nearly every newspaper in the United States including Whittier Daily News and the Los Angeles Times.

Their recent article “Beware of Reverse Mortgages” was not even about reverse mortgages, but scams related to fraudulent reverse mortgage practitioners.

My appropriately sarcastic comments are currently on the first page just below the article. Look for the one called “That’s Not The Worst Part!!!”

See it for yourself at this link.

It’s worth a read if either: 1. You’re my wife and into me; 2. You want to know something about how to avoid getting scammed yourself.

Parade’s main demographic is 55 years and older. Shame they don’t think more highly of their readers well-being.

Did you read it? What do you think?

For review, the results of a recent Adweek poll on the topic of the believability of spokespersons among various age groups. The results paint an interesting picture.

Not terribly surprising is the fact that 18-34 year-olds disbelieve everyone pretty much equally.

In the “eligible for a reverse mortgage” crowd, business leaders hold more sway than celebrities. This is interesting because traditionally, reverse mortgage lenders have relied heavily on actors (James Garner, Robert Wagner and most recently Peter Graves*) and former political figures (Jack Kemp) as spokesmen.

It has always been my opinion that this kind of endorsement was cheap and one of the dumbest ways to market the reverse mortgage product. The fact is, if you need a reverse mortgage, it sells itself. And no celebrity, musician, senator or anybody else in the world is going to sell a reverse mortgage to someone who doesn’t need one… or who is too afraid to get one.

And that’s the real issue: educating those who need them, but who are too afraid to get them. The problem with most marketers today is their refusal to walk in someone else’s shoes for a little while.

Need a reverse mortgage education? Click here to send an email and I’ll reply with the best stuff there is to get you up to speed on the HECM Reverse Mortgage, no charge and no obligation, of course.

*I guess that was as close as they could get to a “Larry Grimm” or a “Ronald Reaper”.