I was contacted by Home123 through an internet ad I filled out along with 5-7 other "mortgage companies".
I talked to a nice guy who was managing the office of Ameri-something and he told me all the offices were closed the day before and he had gone to work for the company he was representing that morning. He was very nice and we had a lot in common so I decided to go with him and his company.
Several days later, I was contacted by an internal arm of Home123 wondering why we had decided not to go with them, I said I never had anything more than a phone message from them and someone else had earned my business. She then switched me over to a young man named Josh Elsea who stumbled, uh-huh, and "yeahed" through the process of getting my information. He also told me they would work with the government entities that had liens against me to get them to accept smaller amounts owed-"We do this kind of thing all the time!".
Well, I decided to check on that and the other guy said he couldn't get me that rate (7.875%) and to have them send me a truth in lending statement. I was sent a faxed page with the word "SAVINGS" at the top. It stated a monthly payment of $1272.19 for a loan of $170,000 on a home valued at $200,000. I then asked to speak to Josh's boss to get the straight and narrow on this. I was connected to another young man who stated he was the branch manager in Cincinnati and sounded to be about 5 years older than Josh named Brenden Halvorsen. I then was told they were the actual lender and he knew they could get me a better rate than the broker I was going with. No problem, we can get this done in about a week and not to worry about making my next payments on my 1st, 2nd, or truck payment (which we were going to roll into the mortgage). No talk about "Better hurry we have a deadline coming up." I went ahead and got the appraisal done on my own.
Two days later, I was warned by a realtor about bait and switch with them in a tactic they use on people who are ready to go into bankruptcy.
Well, I felt something was too good to be true and wanted to shop around a bit. I told Josh I was going to shop around to see if the stuff I was hearing was true or not. I stalled about a week and on the paperwork and then made a deal with my mortgage company to repay the amounts overdue in a 3 month deal that was owed from April, May, & June. Still no talk about "time being of the essence".
When I contacted Josh the first of June with signed forms and paperwork, I got a phone message saying he needed to talk about something that had come up, but not to worry it was just a little "thing". When I got ahold of him he said I needed to make a mortgage payment in the next 3 days of $1500 to make the rate they had quoted because if I went into a second 60 days late on my credit score, the rate couldn't be guaranteed. I told him there was no way I could do that, I later left a message to close in the next few days and not worry about the money owed. I also wanted to speak to his boss-unavailable, I left messages-none returned. I told them at that time I felt I was "bait and switched" and their whole attitude toward me changed.
At the begining of the following week he finally called me back saying they couldn't get funding on the amount of the loan I needed and they couldn't get pay-offs on the tax liens and because of who-knows what else.
At this time I was so angry because Josh was acting like a total idiot. I said I wanted to speak to his manager again, this time, his boss had grown a backbone and got on the phone telling me how I had stalled them for over a month and they were thinking I had gone with another company. Stating that it was all my fault for not making the timely payments and they couldn't help me because there was a report of a second 60 days late on my credit report. I called my son who works for a mortgage company in Columbus and he pulled my credit and there is NO report of ANY 60 days late on my mortgage.
Their Ohio information is: Mortgage Broker License #MB6134, 3351 Michelson Drive, Suite 400, Irvine, CA 92612
Jeff
Dublin, Ohio
U.S.A.