Do not trust Citizens Bank on Rt. 101 in Amherst, NH! Very Unethical! Their branch managers are aweful.
I used to love this place because the tellers are all so nice, but everyone in the back office are clueless crooks with no heart. Everytime I'm in there it seems someone is working out a complaint with them.
Where do I begin...
After being baited in with a preapproved very attractive rate on a Home Equity Line of Credit I decided to give it a shot. Well that nice rate quickly became very high, but that's the least of my worry. I still decided to move forward.
At the time we were also in the process of Refinancing with cash out with another lender for a low rate of 2.75%, so the HELOC at Citizens was going to be for a back up loan if needed on a home remodel.
Problem 1:
I told them I wanted to use their appraisal for the Refinance, since it was a little higher. They said I could do this but would need to pay for it, $320, which is the standard rate for a full appraisal. So I did it and after waiting at least 2 weeks for the actual appraisal, it was only a photocopy and wasn't even a real full appraisal, so could not be accepted by the mortgage company. It was filled out on the Exterior only form instead of the standard Full Appraisal form, even though it was a full. The appraiser said we would have to order a new appraisal and it will be much more expensive to do the full, even though that is what every other appraiser charges for a full. The mortgage company was shocked they would do that knowing what I wanted it for.
Problem 2:
I asked several times and several people along the application process if this was in any way going to impact our Refinance that was in progress, and if it was I don't want to move forward. They all said without thinking much that it wouldn't be an issue.in fact most of the time they just seem to answer with whatever sounds good, instead of the facts. You have to be clear with them and make them think.
Well sure enough as the Refinance was getting ready to close this HELOC popped up in the reports and created a major issue.
The HELOC would have to be Subordinated, which is a standard thing. It's a $200 fee to do so. That would have been enough for me to say forget it, I don't want to do it.
Then, add to that the appraisal from the Refi was a little less than citizens and that would create an issue with the HELOC amount & rate, so there's another major issue.
The Refi with cash out amount was higher than the original mortgage, which caused all sorts of issues with citizens. This is all information they knew when I asked.
We were stuck with the only option available in order to get our Refinance to move forward, was paying $424 penalty to close the HELOC that had been open for about a week. Add to that the useless $320 appraisal photocopy, and about 40 hours of my time. Not to mention our Refinance is in serious jeapordy of completing because this whole process held it up for over a month and we have a gigantic hole in the side of our house and it's snowing and have no financing for the project.
I asked several times nicely for them to do the right thing and wave the fees and they just want every penny they can suck out of you without any conscious.
On another note: A while back I made a large deposit and noticed a month or two later it wasn't on the statement. Well they deposited it into someone elses account, and never realized it. They weren't going to do anything about it until I came back with the deposit slips which I luckily still had. Crazy. You'd think they would at least cover the overdraw fees that occurred because of this missing deposit. Nah.
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