We began working with Money Tree Mortgage in April to obtain mortgage financing on the purchase of our first home.
We spoke with Darren, Shalena, Trisha, Devorah, and Inna in their Olathe, KS office. According to their scheme, an initial application fee of $300 was required from us to begin the loan process, but that it would be refunded to us at closing. We did not feel comfortable doing this, explained this to Darren, he agreed, and nothing more was said on the issue. He said that we were prequalified and we would hear from their processors soon.
We then received a phone call in mid-June from a representative of Money Tree who threatened that if we did not pay for this service immediately, our credit worthiness would be damaged and we would be unable to obtain financing because they had already started the 'leg work' of our application. We were then charged an additional $10.50 on top of the $300 fee, which was due to us not agreeing to pay back in April.
We paid. Again, we were assured that this application fee would be refunded to us at closing.
Darren, Trisha, and Devorah each assured us that we had been granted an approval from their lender, and we began to receive approval letters and 'packages' stating this. However, the contracted closing date came and went without any further communication from Money Tree.
We repeatedly called their office to discover when a good closing date would be, and were forced into leaving voicemails for these individuals. It was extremely difficult and seemingly impossible to speak with anyone personally. And although we gave them permission to speak to our realtor about the closing, etc., he was hung up on anytime he called their office. This prevented him from providing us with adequate representation. We finally heard back from Inna, who stated that our file was in underwriting and that the reviewer was on vacation and nothing could be done until he returned. We asked her to take this up with the lender's account manager in order to expedite things, to no avail. No further callbacks, nothing. We began submitting emails to these individuals, and still received nothing from them.
It is now mid-March and as far as we know, our file is still in 'underwriting'.
Another problem we noticed with Money Tree lies with the Good Faith Estimate of HUD charges that was provided to us. This company attempted to charge us a mandatory 2% loan discount fee to buy down our interest rate, yet they weren't actually buying it down. When we brought this to their attention, we were told that 'the computer tells us to put those numbers in there, so we do..' Money Tree attempted to charge us padded closing costs that could not be explained.
Thankfully, we finally gave up on this company and closed on our home with another mortgage company. That process took less than 2 weeks.
Much to our amazement, we never heard anything again from Money Tree. They took our application fee and ran with it.
We brought this to the attention of the Better Business Bureau, the Office of the State Banking Commissioner in Kansas, as well as to an investigator who is working on a case against this company. We have been informed of the revocation of their license to practice mortgage brokering, and would like our money back immediately. Unfortunately, our bank will not charge back the amount because it is past a 60 day policy they have in place.
We have been told that our complaint against Money Tree mirrors that of over 180 people.
Do not work send this company any money. They should be imprisoned for fraud.
I hope there is a class action suit and penalty worthy of the crimes they have committed against many people.
Michael
San Marcos, Texas
U.S.A.
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