In June we decided to purchase a home in Montgomery Alabama. We were just returning from overseas and we were settling into new jobs in Alabama. We have excellent credit and as a result we were able to 'shop' for a mortgage lender. We found Wells Fargo and though we had found a lot of good lenders we decided to go with a company whose name invoked a feeling of confidence that the choice we were making was a good one.
We understood from their agent that the company has been doing business for over 150 years. It is "one of the nation's most prominent financial institutions with a customer base of more than 23 million people". Frankly, we were impressed to hear such numbers. We felt that a company with such a strong background would not be so successful unless it took time to understanding it's clients needs and set high standards of honesty, respect, and a 'no surprises' approach. Afterall, it even got many Americans through the depression era, right?
We thought we were making the right choice by choosing them so we locked our interest rate and began the paperwork necessary to get our mortgage. But it wasn't long before information that was provided one day was changed the next... information the agent gave us was different according to his assistant... And then when the paperwork was taken over by Wells Fargo's financial office everything changed yet again... Amounts changed... Expectations changed... And whenever we would question it they all acted as if we were making up what they were telling us. It was strange at first... We spoke the same language but somehow they weren't saying what they were saying!!?? They claimed they weren't saying anything different... It was us... We were the ones who had it all wrong. Our agent would always say "Oh... Let me check on that." Then his assistant would contact us with "the answer". We'd say 'okay' and later another call would come and it would be someone else at Wells Fargo... Telling us yet again that "Oh, no... They were both wrong... The answer is actually..." And these questions and answers weren't of any REAL consequence to us. We were fine with or without the assurances... For example, they said our HOA dues would be covered in the loan as a part of our payment just like taxes and insurance were covered. We thought that was pretty unusual but figured that really was a good idea. We kept asking "Are you sure?"... And they kept saying "Oh, yes! We take care of everything!" We found out later that this is NOT something that anyone does. HOA dues are paid separate to any mortgage. Funny thing... We actually got to the point where if the agent said something to us that we 'needed' for more paperwork, we'd call the Finance Office as well as the Assistant to confirm and ended up going with the best two out of three answers. If one said "no" and there were two "yes's", we'd go with the "yes" answer. If one said "yes" and there were two "no's", we'd go with the "no" answer... Then just cross our fingers we'd get the right answers at closing, too. We got a lawyer to review all the paperwork just in case! The SNAFU's with Wells Fargo were endless. We were anticipating closure to occur two weeks after we started paperwork with Wells Fargo... They got the dates wrong and we ended up closing a week later than we were told. They told us WE got the dates wrong... We didn't argue. This wasn't a yes/no answer so by then we expected something to delay us. We were not surprised. The final SNAFU... They said our first payment would be in September... Then called us early August and asked where our payment was.
I can't tell you how happy we were to get past the first two months of homeownership with Wells Fargo and settled into our home so we didn't have to actually deal with them except to pay the mortgage out of our account automatically... It went on time and on the penny. We made sure we kept good records though.
Then last December the agent called us... He had a 'deal' for us... Refinance and turn our 80/20 into a single fixed rate loan. Sounded good to us! We didn't like that "20" side of the loan because it wasn't a fixed rate... interest rates on that part of the loan had increased significantly and we were paying double on that payment since we first got the loan in June.
Happy ending? Well... No. They put us through the same thing... information then misinformation... Lots of misinformation... And in the end it was 'our' fault.
Well this experience was such a strong reminder of the frustration we went through three years ago so guess what we did... Yeah... We went loan shopping and ended up going to our credit union. We closed on our house (same house, new loan) at 5.5% interest, 20-year loan instead of 30, no confusion, no 'he said / she said' situations... And just ONE loan, not two. The Wells Fargo agent called us and tried to talk us into staying with them. There was no way. He said "I'll beat their deal! Tell me what they are doing for you and I'll beat their deal!" We said "No... You offer what you will and we'll decide. This isn't a Tijuana shopping bazaar." He had nothing to offer. We stayed with our credit union. We picked the date to close... We picked our attorney. And the day we started our loan paperwork (13 Feb) we paid the credit union a $26 fee to close access to our checking account to Wells Fargo for any further house payments. We had a feeling that if we didn't do that they'd make an 'error' to take out the payment, then take 8 months to pay it back. We learned long ago we'd have to stay a step ahead of them if we didn't want to deal with their drama. AND, also as we had anticipated: they had problems giving our credit union the correct payoff amounts... This time we didn't have to put up with the information / misinformation games... No, this time they had to deal with our credit union. Our credit union doesn't "play". We happily closed on our new loan on 5 March. No snags... No questions... No "oops" situations. It went smoothly and we celebrated by uncorking a big bottle of champagne at closing.
BUT... Turns out Wells Fargo continues as usual. They sent us a letter dated 2 Mar stating they were putting a stop payment on a check they had sent us. We didn't call them. Didn't want to discuss it... We knew it would end up being "our fault" again. We got the "cancelled" check a week later and still didn't call them. We shredded it... There's still nothing we needed to say. The check was dated 5 Mar. (3 days after the letter.) Then last week we got another letter from them. It stated they were re-opening our account because they couldn't access our bank account for an automatic withdrawal. When does this end with Wells Fargo? We're watching to see if they mess with our credit ratings... If they do, we're going to check into litigation. These people are a real live clown show.
Our advice to anyone considering doing business with Wells Fargo: RE-consider!
Picnic_ants
montgomery, Alabama
U.S.A.
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