The verbal quote from Mr. Hernberg for a mortgage seemed reasonable so we requested a written "good faith estimate". It was a time consuming and difficult job to contend with his delays and to deal with his personality. He seemed to go incommunicato until close to the settlement date. Virtually close to our closing date, his "good faith estimate" arrived to show an almost double fee from his verbal phone quote, and, on a separate page, was an over $1,900 broker fee (that he was a broker was a surprise to us). We called to question this "broker" fee, and he said not to worry, that it was not a separate fee but that it was included in that itemized "good faith fee" quote. This was a holiday yet he insisted on an immediate signing and return of the papers to assure us the quoted locked-in interest rate.
He then delayed contact with us again until the very night before settlement, but he still didn't have his exact numbers ready for us, and when we got to settlement the next day and saw the final fees, we thought there was a mistake. This "good faith estimate" was now puffed into a 200 to 300 percent markup on many items and other items of dubious titles were included. We called and asked for clarification. When he tried to explain, he switched the reasons repeatedly, did a lot of double talk, was rude, shouted at us, threatened to send us to a collection agency and in general, failed to explain the added fees - thousands of dollars beyond his good faith estimate. We refused to sign his papers.
The next day, Mr. Hernberg called wanting to offer us a wonderful $1,000 credit if we would reconsider and sign — no thanks to what seemed to us to be a con job. Beware!!! We should have checked him out on Better Business Bureau first before this agony. What we thought was rudeness, then ignorance, then incompetence, may well be deceptive practices, misdirection, intimidation, and falsehoods.
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