We've used Countrywide Mortgage for the last 4 years, and have never had anything but good things to say about them. I guess that's because we've never been late on a single payment, and never needed customer support.
All that changed this week as we were approaching the closing date to sell the house we had mortgaged with Countrywide. When we bought the house in Florida in we took out a main mortgage, as well as a smaller mortgage until our proceeds from the sale of the previous home came in. The second mortgage was actually a HELOC, and we paid it down to a $0 balance within two months. However, Countrywide continued to carry a lien against our home because of the HELOC, and we didn't find this out until three days before the scheduled closing.
I contacted Countrywide immediately and asked them to please release the lien on the property. They refused to do so unless I paid them a $350 prepayment penalty. I told them we were taking a HUGE financial hit on the house, since we are being forced to move at a terrible time by the military, and we had no choice but to sell the house more than $100k below the list price. I asked them if they would be willing to waive the prepayment penalty.By the way, the Prepayment Penalty was for the first five years of the loan, and we're currently at 4 years and 7 months.
The first person I spoke to was just rude and said, "no, we never waive the prepayment penalty (PP) for anyone. You're just going to have to pay it." I told her that the loan has been paid off for over four years and I just need a letter saying that it's been paid off. She refused to provide it.
The next person I talked to was very nice and helpful, and told me to fax her a copy of my military orders and she would get a waiver of the PP. She gave me her name and her phone extension (which can't be reached from an outside phone), but when I asked for her e-mail address, she said she's not allowed to give it out. The next morning, I tried to reach her, but it was impossible.
Long story short, every time I called Countrywide, I had to go through a very long and painful automated voice menu, and I wasted at least a half hour every time I called. I could never get the same person twice, so I had to provide ALL of my information over and over every time I called.
When I could never reach the original person, I was forced to speak with a man who had very poor English (Orobosa), who said my request had been received, and said he thought they would waive the PP. He put me on hold and when he came back, he asked me how long I had been serving in the military. I told him 18 years. He said that they would not waive it because of my longevity of service, but that they would've waived it if I had been new to the military. Huh??? That's the first time the length of my service to this country has been held against me.
Anyway, I finally got him to agree to waive half of the fee and paid $175.00 to get the lien released. I had no choice. We MUST get to closing.
To get to the bottom of this, three days after I paid my fee, and after NUMEROUS phone calls to Countrywide, we were at closing and they stil hadn't provided the pay-off letter, even though I had paid them $175 to do so. Therefore, the closing had to be cancelled, and we're sitting here paying interest on the first mortgage because they won't do their job and satisfy the lien. (The house is empty, as we were forced to move, so this closing was vitally important to us, as I explained to them over and over.)
Through this 3-day process, I wound up talking to at least a dozen people at Countrywide because they make it impossible for you to reach the same person twice. Every time, I had to start from scratch. I talked to Dan Ho, Orobosa, Christina, Robbie, Millory, Angie, Scott, etc., etc., etc. I'm quite sure that I wasted at least 6 hours of government time (your taxpayer dollars) trying to get them to do their job, and they STILL haven't!!! We're sitting here paying interest on an empty house while they pick their nose, or whatever they're doing.
In my opinion, they should've waived the entire prepayment penalty since we were transferred on military orders (against our will), and they should do their job so that we can close out this transaction and STOP paying daily interest on the mortgage for that empty house.
The frustration and hassle that Countrywide has caused me over the last three days was more than enough to completely obliterate the four good years I had with Countrywide. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone right now, if that's the way they provide customer service for existing loans.
In fact, prior to this, we were talking to Countrywide about maybe financing our new home in Virginia, but quite frankly, I wouldn't dream of it now...
Disappointed veteran
Alexandria, Virginia
U.S.A.
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