I don't usually spend the time to write negative things about companies or their employees, but I recently had a bad experience trying to Refinance my mortgage and thought I may save other people from the frustration, money and time lost by me. I was shopping for a mortgage. I know several mortgage brokers who had given me current rate information so I had a good idea of what the rates and settlement costs were for a no points loan. I decided to call QuickenLoans after doing a google search and I knew their name from years of using their accounting software.
I started talking to a loan officer named John. I gave him all the information he requested. He came up with a rate that was about equal to what I had gotten elsewhere (5.5%), but then told me that if I had called earlier in the week he could have done the loan at 5.125% no points. Things were changing fast based on Fed action. When I realized that he wanted $750 to get things rolling I was a little skeptical. I told him that one of my big concerns was that I thought that rates may continue to fall with all the Fed was doing and I wanted to be able to lock in at the lower rate if rates continued to drop. One of the other brokers I had talked to said that he could offer me 5.5% with a float down provision that would allow me to lock in at a lower rate for a period of 30 days. The downside was that if rates went up the loan would lock in at 5.625%, thus I was risking an 1/8 of a point to do the loan. Then John offered me the QuickenLoans preferred customer certificate guarantee. John told me I would get a certificate that allowed me to refinance my loan at a lower rate anytime rates dropped a point or more at NO COST for the life of the loan.
I asked him if he could email me a copy of the certificate so I could see the terms and conditions related to exercising my option to reduce my rate. He said he really couldn't send me anything, that it was an exclusive program offered only to his best customers, but that I would get the certificate before closing. I asked him how QuickenLoans could afford to pay all the settlement fees and he started giving me some garbage about how they sell their loans on the open market and so even though they didn't make any money on the new loan they made enough to pay all the settlement costs and they only did this to retain customer loyalty and get referrals.
I'm 50 years old and have been around the block a few times and should have known that when something seems too good to be true it usually is, but John was a very convincing salesman and I went ahead and gave him my credit card number. Soon after that I got an email from John's supervisor Deon welcoming me aboard and giving me a list of things we needed to do to get things rolling. I immediately emailed Deon back asking him for more information about this Certificate I was going to get. He verified what John had told me and said I would receive it before closing. Everything was moving along. The house appraisal came in fine, but then rates started to drop. Within a 5 day period rates dropped about a point. So I sent this email to Deon and John:
Hello Deon,
Its looks like rates have already dropped 1/4 to 3/8 point. Can you give me more details on what would be required for us to use the no cost certificate of refinance? Can this be done on the current loan in process? Are there any costs at all? How do you determine what the existing 30 year rate is for our case?
Thanks
Doug
Three days went by and Deon and John did not respond to my email. So I called John and talked to him about the drop in rates and he told me that I was wrong and the rates were currently at 5.625%. I asked if that is the rate he would quote me if I were using the certificate right now and he said yes. So then I sent this email to Deon and John:
Hi Deon,
I sent John and you an email a couple days ago about the change in rates that I've noticed in the market and what options I have to lower my rate to the going rate which is now 5%. You never responded. Nor did John. It seems that there is nothing you are willing to do to help me out here. I was promised that I would receive a certificate before settlement that would let me refinance at no cost at the going rate. I don't understand why John today is telling me the going rate is 5.625% when 4 other lenders are telling me its 5.0%. Countrywide gave me a firm quote at 5% with no points and a total processing fee of $1200. I question the value of the certificate if your quoted rates differ from real market rates by. 625% of a point. Can you please respond to me and offer some solution to this issue. Also, I'm assuming that part of the $750 that was charged to my credit card went to pay for the appraisal. Please email and send me a copy of the appraisal. I would like to resolve this issue soon; as we are do to settle this week.
Thanks
Doug
5 minutes after I sent this email John calls and starts questioning the sources I'm using to get the current rates. Telling me that there is no way that the people I talked to could ever honor those rates; and then Deon breaks into the conversation and says that he's been listening and he starts to throw darts at all the sources I reference and specifically how each one of them is wrong. How bad Countrywide is; and on and on. He talked for about 25 minutes I could barely get a word in. He was rude, overbearing, and condescending, but just polite enough at times to keep me from hanging up on him. He rambled on and on; the experience with him was like buying a used car. He reinforced John's position that rates had not dropped a point and that maybe I should be getting my information from a real bank like Chase or Bank of America. He said that currently he was showing rates at 5.625% and that I was getting a really good deal at 5.5%.
So I took his words of wisdom and called a real bank. I talked to a loan officer at Chase and he offered me 4.875% with no points and a total of $945 in processing fees. I called Deon back and told him what Chase had offered and he just started rambling again. His wisdom of the mortgage industry spewing from his mouth. How I must have been talking to someone that didn't know what they were doing. At this point I was really starting to regret doing business with QuickenLoans. Then, when Deon finally realized I was going to go with the deal Chase offered he started dropping his rates. He kept talking until he was eventually at 4.99% plus 1 point. This is when I realized that all along he had the latitude to change my rate thereby honoring the terms of the elusive No Cost Certificate of Refinance and I hung up.
The next day I called in to their complaint department and relayed my experience to two people, one of which said he work in the office of the president. Neither one of them were familiar with the Certificate of no cost Refinance, although they did cover themselves by saying that sometimes the Sales Department comes up with all sorts of different kinds of programs. I asked for my refund back and they said they would look into it but I had signed the deal and they didn't issue refunds. I told them that I was promised something by John and Deon that they had no intention of honoring and wanted my money back. So far I haven't received a refund, but I will continue to pursue it.
So what I learned is:
1) assuming there is a No Cost Certificate to refinance for preferred clients, it is only good for locking you in at a rate that is a significantly higher than the going rate. Example, if rates got down to 4% QuickenLoans would gladly refinance my loan at 4.5% and sell that loan on the open market to cover the closing costs and make more money for them.
2) The individuals I dealt with used high pressure sales tactics to get my credit card number and outright lied about how and when the No Cost Certificate to refinance could be used. I was told by the person in the Office of the President that there was no way I would have been allowed to refinance my loan within 60 days after closing because of the way there loans were handled.
0 comments