Heartland Home Finance predatory lending ripoff Aurora Colorado
In 2003 my wife and I wanted to refinance our home to obtain a lower APR and lower effective interest rate, and consolidate credit bills into the loan.
We obtained the services of Heartland Home Finance, Inc., from a web search. The agent came to our home and we talked, and completed some preliminary papers after we felt comfortable (ha ha) with him and the company he represented.
We in the course of time got all (we thought) loan papers for review, and we went over each document one by one to make sure it was what we wanted. At closing we again went over the documents one by one.
The APR was right, and we did not see any prepayment penality or any other red flag. We signed the papers. It was only after the three day waiting period that we noticed that we had signed a settlement that had a 7.98% APR, and the documents included a $5000.00 three year prepayment penalty.
We thought we were savy because we had refinanced twice before and had no problem. The loan was sold to Homeq Servicing and subsiduary of Wachovia.
I don't know how we could have prevented what had happened, we thought we were being careful, but somehow, unless both of us were blind, our signatures wound up on documents that gave us no benefit.
I have read and heard of other people who have experienced similar things from other companies, and we were just as dumb founded as they.
Bennie
Denver, Colorado
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Ed
Denver,Colorado,
U.S.A.
Apology
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, February 23, 2006
Bennie,
I sincerely apologize for this but I also have to remind you that you did in fact have that paperwork for 3 full days after the fact to review .....
I am not justifying what this loan officer (and perhaps a former employee of mine - I was the VP in Colorado in 03) but please take responsibility for your not catching this also -
As stated above, I am the former AVP of Colorado & I can state without doubt that Heartland is not a bad company but it employees bad people & has bad people in middle & upper management - The principles of the company (Don & Jay) are good men -
I am sincerely sorry about your experience, and had I known about it back then, i would have not allowed you to get screwed
Ed
Denver,Colorado,
U.S.A.
Apology
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, February 23, 2006
Bennie,
I sincerely apologize for this but I also have to remind you that you did in fact have that paperwork for 3 full days after the fact to review .....
I am not justifying what this loan officer (and perhaps a former employee of mine - I was the VP in Colorado in 03) but please take responsibility for your not catching this also -
As stated above, I am the former AVP of Colorado & I can state without doubt that Heartland is not a bad company but it employees bad people & has bad people in middle & upper management - The principles of the company (Don & Jay) are good men -
I am sincerely sorry about your experience, and had I known about it back then, i would have not allowed you to get screwed
Elizabeth
Saint Charles,Missouri,
U.S.A.
You probably DIDN'T sign it
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, January 26, 2006
Bennie,
Having been an employee of Heartland for awhile allow me to say I am sorry I was part of a company that ripped you off. I would imagine you probably DIDN'T sign the document you are talking about. I know for a fact (because I was guilty of it) that the loan officers in the office I worked would copy and paste our customers signatures onto documents they didn't sign. Hell, it was my branch manager who taught me how to do it. I must say, he was very good at what he did (fraud). Best of luck to you and I'm so sorry you were scammed.