I have debated posting this because it would be lengthy, but decided to in order to help others.
My wife and I are young retirees with seasonal retiree jobs in a major vacation area. We have substantial fixed-income assets, lots of personal assets paid for, and had credit scores of 760 and 780.
Last Spring we decided to refi a lake lot we own to build a new house on, to take advantage of the lower interest rates. The loan we wanted to refi is the only loan we had on anything.
Memorial Day, 2009, I applied to Lendingtree.com and another similar on-line broker/lender referral service. Nine brokers/lenders contacted me, I compared offers, and selected a broker from our own state.
From the beginning I was assured that the refi would be a breeze, that our credit and finances were in order, and there would be no problems. However, the person making that promise suddenly disappeared, never reappeared, and as it played out another broker told me he actually worked for them, not the other broker.
Another person took over at Broker #1 and asked that I send all the same stuff over again. I did . . . altogether more than 150 pages of detailed personal financial information, tax returns, etc. Guy #2 at Broker #1 said the same thing, we would have no problem, and he sorta manufactured our income figures the way he wanted, and told us to sign off to them. I recorded my objection, and completed the financial part of our app, via email.
Caution # 1: Put everything in writing. If you discuss something by phone, send email saying something like, This is to confirm the phone conversation we just had . . .
Next, he offered several lenders' proposals and we selected one of the large national ones the got a bunch of bailout money.
Caution #2: Since we were doing a home loan, rather than refi on the lake lot, we agreed to an appraisal. We were told under the new home lending rules and regulations, the lender has to order it and the consumer has to pay for it. As we discoved later, that is not true, the consumer does not have to pay for the appraisal.
The result in a nutshell, the lender denied our application, but did not stop the appraisal, which took place later in the day our app was denied. One of their subsidiaries benefitted from the appraisal. We had to pay $370 for it, wasted 45 days, and sent 150 pages of sensitive personal information to complete strangers on the Internet.
The lender had somehow received incorrect information, but would not pursue correcting it with me, and the broker dropped all communication.
I disputed the credit card charges for the appraisal and was denied, because one of the 150 pages I was forced to submit was my authorization for it.
I filed a complaint with our State's AG and Division of Finance, that complaint being turned over to the Comptroller of the Currency. That forced a discussion between myself and the lender. That discussion was with the Office of the President of the lender. After a few back-and-forths, the last letter from the lender said the broker had decided to refund the appraisal fee.
But that is not all the story.
Caution #3: Don't be misled by the claims of Internet lenders. After being denied, I applied to redo the lot loan with our local bank. They did, it took less than 1 hour total time with them, and less than a dozen pages of info from us. The did another appraisal, which they paid for.
Caution #4: The first appraisal placed the market value of our house at $225K and the building cost at $256K, but the second appraisal had the market value at $175K and the building cost at $1867K. These were done less than 30 days apart
Caution #5: Our credit scores when the local bank pulled them had dropped from 780 to 725 and 760 to 715, both with the notation of too mention recent inquiries. My two Internet applications led to nine inquiries, so my effort to improve our finances, which I did, actually lowered our credit socres.
Caution #6: All three credit agencies were very uncooperative in providing the credit reports we are entitled to. I had to ask all of them three times, providing exactly the identification they requested time. One of them did not provide it, just replying with a form letter to each request.
Caution #7: The two reports I did get show all nine inquiries generated by our online app to the referral sites.
I did find one incorrect entry in our credit reports, a 30-day late negative comment that never happened, and our bank has since sent their credit agency a correction on that.
This started on Memorial Day this year and today it is Christmas Day. We are still awaiting the refund of the appraisal fee.
Feel free to ask questions.
Happy holidays, and caveat emptor.
My wife and I are young retirees with seasonal retiree jobs in a major vacation area. We have substantial fixed-income assets, lots of personal assets paid for, and had credit scores of 760 and 780.
Last Spring we decided to refi a lake lot we own to build a new house on, to take advantage of the lower interest rates. The loan we wanted to refi is the only loan we had on anything.
Memorial Day, 2009, I applied to Lendingtree.com and another similar on-line broker/lender referral service. Nine brokers/lenders contacted me, I compared offers, and selected a broker from our own state.
From the beginning I was assured that the refi would be a breeze, that our credit and finances were in order, and there would be no problems. However, the person making that promise suddenly disappeared, never reappeared, and as it played out another broker told me he actually worked for them, not the other broker.
Another person took over at Broker #1 and asked that I send all the same stuff over again. I did . . . altogether more than 150 pages of detailed personal financial information, tax returns, etc. Guy #2 at Broker #1 said the same thing, we would have no problem, and he sorta manufactured our income figures the way he wanted, and told us to sign off to them. I recorded my objection, and completed the financial part of our app, via email.
Caution # 1: Put everything in writing. If you discuss something by phone, send email saying something like, This is to confirm the phone conversation we just had . . .
Next, he offered several lenders' proposals and we selected one of the large national ones the got a bunch of bailout money.
Caution #2: Since we were doing a home loan, rather than refi on the lake lot, we agreed to an appraisal. We were told under the new home lending rules and regulations, the lender has to order it and the consumer has to pay for it. As we discoved later, that is not true, the consumer does not have to pay for the appraisal.
The result in a nutshell, the lender denied our application, but did not stop the appraisal, which took place later in the day our app was denied. One of their subsidiaries benefitted from the appraisal. We had to pay $370 for it, wasted 45 days, and sent 150 pages of sensitive personal information to complete strangers on the Internet.
The lender had somehow received incorrect information, but would not pursue correcting it with me, and the broker dropped all communication.
I disputed the credit card charges for the appraisal and was denied, because one of the 150 pages I was forced to submit was my authorization for it.
I filed a complaint with our State's AG and Division of Finance, that complaint being turned over to the Comptroller of the Currency. That forced a discussion between myself and the lender. That discussion was with the Office of the President of the lender. After a few back-and-forths, the last letter from the lender said the broker had decided to refund the appraisal fee.
But that is not all the story.
Caution #3: Don't be misled by the claims of Internet lenders. After being denied, I applied to redo the lot loan with our local bank. They did, it took less than 1 hour total time with them, and less than a dozen pages of info from us. The did another appraisal, which they paid for.
Caution #4: The first appraisal placed the market value of our house at $225K and the building cost at $256K, but the second appraisal had the market value at $175K and the building cost at $1867K. These were done less than 30 days apart
Caution #5: Our credit scores when the local bank pulled them had dropped from 780 to 725 and 760 to 715, both with the notation of too mention recent inquiries. My two Internet applications led to nine inquiries, so my effort to improve our finances, which I did, actually lowered our credit socres.
Caution #6: All three credit agencies were very uncooperative in providing the credit reports we are entitled to. I had to ask all of them three times, providing exactly the identification they requested time. One of them did not provide it, just replying with a form letter to each request.
Caution #7: The two reports I did get show all nine inquiries generated by our online app to the referral sites.
I did find one incorrect entry in our credit reports, a 30-day late negative comment that never happened, and our bank has since sent their credit agency a correction on that.
This started on Memorial Day this year and today it is Christmas Day. We are still awaiting the refund of the appraisal fee.
Feel free to ask questions.
Happy holidays, and caveat emptor.
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