My family just had the worst possible mortgage experience that someone could have and we have Quicken Loans to thank for the experience.
We began shopping for home loans before we went shopping for a home. We found Quicken's site and decided to see what they could offer us. We only put my husband's info in initially since I earn no income as a homemaker and we were simply shopping for rates. Joe Fugedi was our mortgage banker within Quicken Loans. He contacted us and gave us an idea of what rates were currently but said we couldn't lock anything in until we were to find a home. He did say that for a $500 deposit that would be applied at the closing of our loan or refunded at the end of
our loan we would have a fully underwritten loan that would hold more bargaining power when we found a home to make an offer on. At the time this sounded like a fantastic idea since the market is so competitive here in California. However, later we found that this was no more true than any other pre-approval we would have had from any other lender and was just a scam to make us feel more beholden to remain with Quicken.
We gave our good faith deposit and when we received the first set of loan docs from Quicken, we reminded Joe that we wanted to make sure that I was also on the loan. That we were noticing that only my husband's info was on these docs. He assured us multiple times throughout the process that it was no problem that they would just add me on at the end. That seemed strange to both my husband and I, but we aren't in the lending business so we were accepting Joe as our expert. Apparently that was our first mistake.
When we found our home we decided to check the rates offered by another local lender, knowing that we would have to forfeit the $500 deposit if we "broke up" with Quicken. We got what appeared to be a great rate and
then attempted to get Joe to nail down a rate for us so that we could compare. He got irate and berated my husband and completely talked down to him for his audacity to rate shop. It was an embarrassing exchange. During this time he kept telling my husband that the amortization schedule we had received from our other lender was impossible. That the numbers just didn't add up. Meanwhile he's telling us for the same program with Quicken it was going to cost us about $500 dollars more a month. We politely declined and said we'll be staying with this other lender. Joe then realized that it was actually a computer glitch that was not calculating his numbers properly. He called back the following morning and apologized for how rude he'd been the previous evening. At this point he was able to get us into a better program than our other lender so we decided to go with Quicken. On an aside our other lender called back the following day and was able to meet Quicken's program and I am kicking myself for not going with them, but we mistakenly believed that since we were underway with Quicken that it would be quicker and easier to stay with Quicken. That was certainly the worst mistake we'd ever made in our home buying process!
Demetrus Spokes who was to be our ever-fallible loan processor next contacted us. We had to supply him the same information sometimes two and three times in order for it finally be "received". He also seemed to have the same problem obtaining (or retaining?) information from our insurance company, Title Company, and realtor's office. Then Demetrus went on vacation and someone named Michelle took over. Michelle refused to work with our title company and still seemed inept at receiving documents that Quicken had received from our representatives and us multiple times. During these times I would contact Joe for assistance and he seemed so capable and willing to help, all the while assuring us
each time we asked that my name would indeed be on the loan at the end of all of this.
When we were about 1 1/2 weeks out from our scheduled close both our realtor's office and title company contacted Quicken to have the loan docs sent to them for signing. Not for funding. Not for recording. Simply to review and sign loan documents. Each time Demetrus, Michelle, or Joe was contacted by us our representatives they sounded shocked that we would want the docs ahead of time (standard practice in California) and then complained about something else they needed from us that we'd given them previously. Finally four days before our scheduled close we were notified that they had indeed finally received all the requested documents. We then requested that they send all documents to the title company.
The next day the documents still had not been received. I called to check the status and was promised that they were going out THAT day. Standard practice is then to email the docs to title. Apparently they felt the need to delay us further and instead sent them UPS. They arrived at title about an hour before our scheduled signing (1 day before scheduled funding and recording).
We arrived, began signing documents and then realized that the loan paperwork only had my husband's name on them. A quick call to Quicken informed us that my name was on the title and I should be satisfied withthat.
When I explained that I was not satisfied with that and had repeatedly asked to be on the loan I was told by a not so even-tempered Joe Fugedi that he had never run my credit, so why would I be on the loan? I explained that I had no way of knowing their practices since it is not my industry but that I had made it clear repeatedly that I was to be on the loan. Apparently he misunderstood and thought that my being on the title was all I wanted. I am not sure how this miscommunication happened since every time we received documents from Quicken we brought
up that it was important that I was on the loan. Joe then so kindly snapped at me that it's possible that we wouldn't even qualify for the program that Quicken had offered if my credit was less than stellar. His suggestion was that we sign the documents as is and go about our lives.
This was not acceptable to me. He then brought Jennifer Cicotte into the mix. She explained to me that I still had an interest in the property by being on the title that I just wasn't on the loan. I explained to her that I understood this nuance and that my interest in the property was not my concern. My concern was that I wanted the positive reports on my credit from the mortgage. I then explained that if we'd received all the documents when we'd begun asking for them several days previously we could have remedied the problem then. Or if my name had been put on the loan docs from the beginning as both my husband and I had requested several times over the past month and a half. She immediately sympathized with us and was the first (and only) genuinely sorry person that I spoke to.
She said that our options were to close late but get me on the loan now (something I didn't want to have to do since our sellers were counting on closing on time) or make payments for three months and then essentially refinance with my name. The problem with that scenario was that they would then want us to cover the $700 in title fees for a mistake they had made and we weren't going to be guaranteed our rate.
We decided to see what kind of magic the lender we talked to previously could pull for us. He guaranteed a 48hour closing since he already had all of our docs and the house appraisal. I spoke to Jennifer and explained to her that we'd be switching lenders. She begged me to give them another chance and that they'd be able to close us in 48 hours too. She asked for my SS# and DOB. I gave them to her reluctantly and then the next call from Quicken was from Bob Gunberg another Sales Director.
Bob was much less accommodating and continually addressed me with frustration. I explained to him that I knew my credit was not stellar since I'd had a rather misguided youth but that for the past 8 years I'd been on the straight and narrow. He assured me that as long as my credit score was in the high 600's (it is) that we'd still qualify for this program. I told him that I still thought we'd go ahead and terminate our relationship with Quicken. His response was what if we offered you a $2000 credit at the close of escrow? We decided to go ahead and stay with Quicken since we couldn't very well turn away that kind of money. That would have been our next mistake.
Bob called me the following morning and told me that Quicken would be unable to qualify us for the particular program that we had (can anyone here say bait and switch) since I had some derogatory reports on my credit from 6 years ago. It didn't matter to him that they were erroneous or that my credit score was high 600's low 700's. I told him that we would then go with our alternate lender. When I asked him to refund our $500 deposit he told me he would have to check with the other
sales director about that. It certainly seems more than obvious to me that they should have offered the refund without my requesting since the fault of all of this lies within Quicken and not upon my family.
I found the CMOs email by googling like a madwoman and have started corresponding with him about this matter. I have tempered hope that he will find a suitable resolution, but if not, I'll be sure to report that.
In the meantime our alternate lender got us closed within 24 hours. Only delaying our close by one day.
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