Complaint Review: Optimum First Inc. - Huntington Beach California

Optimum First is a company that has dealt with us dishonestly throughout a mortgage application process.  They have been unable to establish the loan documents despite the fact that, when we first applied, we were told that the entire process would sail right through as our file was clean and very credit-worthy.  (IT IS!)

The mortgage broker who dealt with us turned out to be as incompetent as any one person could possibly be.  He gave us a set of terms and the bank sent the declarations.  A week later, the bank sent a second set of different declarations.  When asked about it, he couldn't tell us why and said he didn't even know about it.  He was constanty whining about how he couldn't get in touch with the underwriters.  The won't return his phone calls; they don't return his e-mails; they/he can't explain things correctly by e-mail.  Excuses.  Excuses.  Excuses.  And all the while we're turning in the wind.

When it came to explaining items to him in answer to the bank's questions, he couldn't grasp the situation or the answer, and was a major problem in dealing with the underwriters. 

Nor could these supposedly "professional" mortgage brokers anticipate anything.  It was always one thing after another after another; now the bank wants this and we're done --- now the bank wants that and we're done --- now the bank wants another thing and we're really done --- now the bank wants, wants, wants . . .  It's one thing after another.  And Optimum First can't deal with it.

It's like scenes from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" --- only NOT funny.

Do these people at Optimum First help?  NO!  They go ahead and muddy the waters even further.  A mortgage that should have been approved and signed in 2-3 weeks has taken more than five and it's not done yet.  If it ever will be!

The Optimum First people have misrepresented themselves and everything else throughout the entire process --- from the first "This will be easy for us to do," to every "We're taking care of it."

Nothing in the entire process should have been this difficult --- especially with such a clean record.  No communications with the bank should have been as complicated and, frankly, perverse as they have been.  They like to throw responsibility on the bank, but it is clear that Optimum First lets things hang and then when pushed doesn't know how deal with them.

Optimum First has caused us a great deal of time and money and aggravation and put us in a difficult position otherwise because they couldn't (wouldn't) produce on their fraudulent and misleading representations from the very beginning.

We still haven't gotten the mortgage finished and they are still spinning their wheels with one thing or another --- and we're the one's on the short end of the stick.  Do you think they care?  They jump only when you yell and scream at them.  After that, it slips through Optimum First's employee's memories like motor oil on Teflon.

My wife and I are so disgusted we are filing complaints with the California Attorney General's OFiice, the Department of Corporations, the Department of Real Estate, and a stack of other agencies.  And all of our complaints will read "misrepresentation and fraud."

Our advice --- keep far away from Optimum First and tell your friends and relatives to do likewise, or suffer the gruesome consequences.