Usacomplaints.com » Business & Finance » Complaint / Review: Fifth Third Bank - Unfairly reduced line of credit. #428104

Complaint / Review
Fifth Third Bank
Unfairly reduced line of credit

I've had a Home Equity Line of Credit with Fifth Third Bank for approximately 3 years now. I recently re-financed my main mortgage (held by BOA) for rate of 5%. (I have excellent credit). During the process i had to pay $350 to have my home appraised. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the value had increased significantly based on some improvements and the general home values in the area. Pittsburgh has not been as hard hit as other areas of the country and we've actually seen home prices actually rise by 1% in 2008. This is why i was pretty surprised to see that Fifth Third had arbitrarily revoked my line of credit. (I had approximately $17k available of a possible $48k. According to my appraisal I should actually be able to increase my Home Equity Line another $20k.)

On February 9th I received a letter from them dated January 30th that effective immediately my LOC was reduced by $17k. (again i received this letter 10 days later) I was actually pretty upset that they would lower my LOC without some kind of notice. They told me that if I had wrote checks out they would be returned. Luckily I hadn't. I contacted them and their very incompetent customer service reps told me that because the price had come down nationally that my value had been reduced as well. I explained to him that I had just had a home appraisal done because of a refinance and my value had increased and he told me that every case was different. This really set me off! I asked if each case was different then why was my house specifically targeted? He didn't know. He told me to fill out another app and include a check for $300 so that they could do another appraisal and resubmit the loan. I called back another time and basically got the same answer.

I then decided to go directly to their Wexford PA office where I spoke to an asst Loan officer named Eric. I explained to him the problem and showed him my new appraisal. He was sympathetic but didn't think there was much he could do. He said he would contact his regional supervisor and get back to me. Its been approx 2 weeks and I still haven't heard anything. I also learned from Eric that the group that did my recent appraisal was one of their approved appraisers but if I wanted to re-apply I would have to pay another $300 appraisal fee. I've applied for a Home Equity LOC with another bank but now I was notified that Fifth Third is charging me a $175 early termination fee because I did not leave the loan open long enough. If they change the terms of the loan why should I be responsible for this fee? The fee is stated in my loan terms but there is no mention of them being able to aribitrarily decrease my loan amount without an appraisal.

I strongly reccomend that noone ever do business with this bank for any reason. Hopefully the government will let them fail and not bail them out!


Offender: Fifth Third Bank

Country: USA   State: Michigan   City: Grand Rapids
Address: 1850 East Paris

Category: Business & Finance

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