This company sent out a mailer that advertised lowered interest rates for refinancing a home through a private broker via Citi Mortgage. After speaking with Dominic Nolan at the company, I felt comfortable enough to send them some requested financial documents with blacked out confidential information. They seemed professional and friendly, and explained things in decent detail, although I do not have and background in refinancing. The company had a legitimate, professional website and their telephone number on the website matched the mailer.
I was notified within a few days that my loan was approved but that they wanted $3700 to be deposited into a Bank of America account that Citi Mortgage could draw upon to cover the associated expenses. They emailed me a 5 page acceptance letter with the Citi Mortgage logo signed by a Cindy Woodlock, supposedly the Director of Finance. When I called back to ask Mr Nolan about a reference number to verify this loan request with Citi Mortgage (as this was not included in my letter), he came up with an excuse as to why he could not give me one. He seemed to hide behind the fact that this was not a traditional refinance because it was done through a private broker, which made it "non-traditional". So I asked for the name of this private broker and all he could give me was the first name "Jaden". He said he would have to speak with his supervisor to ask about the man's last name and try to get him in contact with me and would call me back.
All of this seemed rather shady so I did some further investigation. After calling Citi Mortgage, they had no Cindy Woodlock in their employee database. The Better Business Bureau has no record of this company, nor does Consumer Access or the California Department of Consumer Affairs. Apparently it is also illegal to ask for money up front (before services are rendered) in the state of California. Their mailing address corresponds to a mailbox rental service in Newport Beach. There are also a couple of other scam reports posted recently regarding Dominic Nolan and another man named Jaden that I was able to track down but whom were associated with other business names. The CA Deptartment of Consumer Affairs recommended that I get the business license number and the broker's full name and license number so they could do a better search (if Mr Nolan ever calls me back, that is).
Although I did not lose any money to these people, I came very close. I cannot 100% verify that this is a scam, but it sure seems suspicious enough to me. Hopefully this will prevent people from making a similar mistake and provide some tips on how to verify that companies are legit.
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