In August we received a solicitation letter from Platinum Financial Services stating they could assist us in "restructuring" our current mortgage. They stated that "the federal Government has called on lenders & banks to assist homeowners." They further stated that they could help "lower our monthly payments by lowering the interest rate and even reduce the principal balance."
This all sounded great so we called the toll free number to get more information. We spoke at length with Andrew Ernstrom. During the phone interview we provided the necessary information regarding our current mortgage and other needed financial information. At that time it was determined that we did not qualify for the federal program. We were then told that with the help of Platinum Financial Services that we could go through a private bank for a modification of our loan which could save us up to $500. A month by reducing our current interest rate.
We were also told that to fully qualify we must be delinquent on our mortgage payments. However after this whole thing unraveled we went back to find a "Loan Modification Disclosure Notice" that we signed which stated that we were not told by any employee or representative of APFS to not make payments to my lender."
At this time we also discussed the fees that they would charge for this service and options for coming up with the monies to pay these fees, one of which was to stop making mortgage payments. The Disclosure Notice also stated that we were never told by APFS to redirect our mortgage payments to a source other then our lender.
The sales pitch sounded great @ the time, so we decided to go with it. We payed $900 up front & then another $2,465 one month later. We were told that we would know within two weeks time whether or not we qualified for the re-modification and that if we did not qualify we would then receive a refund. We were told that the whole process would take 3 months to complete.
We were never able to get a clear answer from Platinum as to whether or not we qualified until things really got out of hand. Our file was passed to 2 different negotiators, Logan Riddles and Samuel Hunter with no resolution in sight.
By the time we realized that this was not a good situation, we were 2 months behind on our mortgage & had used our mortgage money to pay the fees to Platinum. This all set things in motion for our home to be placed in foreclosure.
To make a long story short, this went on for 5 months without any resolution. We were forced to hire an attorney at an additional expense in order to keep our home from being foreclosed. It was not until Platinum learned that we had hired an attorney that any resolution was even offered.
Bottom line is that we were forced to accept a rotten deal from the lender because we were not willing to play Russian Roulette with our home and were afraid of losing it to foreclosure.
The deal that we were offered did not include any reduction in the interest rate nor a reduction in the principal. The only way our monthly payment was reduced was by spreading the loan over 40 years vs the original 30 years. The amount of money saved per month is only $87 dollars. A far cry from the promised $500 that the company said they could save us.in the long run it is going to cost us big dollars in interest.
We sent a letter to Joe Comprone who is the manager of the negotiator stating that we we completely dissatisfied with their services & that we wanted a refund. He replied by stating that he felt the company had satisfied their obligation and that the negotiator must have felt it was a good deal or else he wouldn't have taken the offer. He further stated that if we were unhappy with the terms of the modification that they would go back and renegotiate.
Our trust was completely gone. It was clear that we could not allow them any more time as our home was in foreclosure which was of no consequence to them. End result is after six months of anguish we had realized a payment of only $87 less per month which cost us $3,365 dollars to Platinum and $1600 dollars to an attorney to save us from losing our home. Furthermore it is to upsetting to even think about calculate the amt of interest that we will be paying over the life of the loan.
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