Beware refinancing with [***] and Chase Bank at 127 7th Avenue

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Beware refinancing with [***] and Chase Bank at 127 7th Avenue

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Sidewalker
rookie newb
Joined: Mar '10
Posts: 22

Several months ago, we attempted to refinance our co-op through Chase Bank at 127 7th Avenue. We were assigned to work with [***]. We weren't expecting any problems since Chase held our current mortgage, our household income has increased since we took out the original mortgage, and our cash assets are greater than the amount of our mortgage.

Red flags started to go off when the process seemed to move way too slowly and every week [***] asked for a new piece of paper that she had previously "forgotten" to ask for.

After months of delays and excuses, we were finally told that we were rejected for a refinance, but Chase would offer us a lower mortgage package bundled with a home equity loan at an outrageous interest rate. It was all very shady. We declined their offer and Chase and [***] walked away with over $700 in fees.

My wife went to the bank to talk to the branch manager and asked who [***]'s supervisor was.
"[***] doesn't have a supervisor," was the response.
"That doesn't make any sense," my wife pressed.
"She doesn't have a supervisor" the manager insisted.

Any attempts to get answers through Chase corporate was met by constant stonewalling.

Our friends referred us to Universal Mortgage on 7th Avenue. We were approved for refinancing in less than 3 days.

[***] - You're either incompetent or a [removed per site rules -Mods].

Chase - You're incompetent and criminal.

# Posted 1 yr ago
ppwsu
what am I, new?
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 2

I had the same experience with Chase only through the mail, never met with anyone. They offered a refinance, they hold original mortgage, when all the paperwork was said and done, hundreds of dollars paid out. Chase rejected the application.
Will never do business with them again.

# Posted 1 yr ago
GoodProspect
getting it
Joined: Feb '09
Posts: 184

I had a similar experience on a refi last year with CitiMortgage. They held the original mortgage but SO screwed up paperwork - with the whole process painfully dragged out - that it took me countless hours and calling and complaining up the chain of command all the way to the person who handles mortgages for all of Citi nationwide to straighten out. Once I got to the top person in the company things were resolved immediately. Of course this [***] has a supervisor. If you got no satisfaction from the branch manager then doing a little research online probably would have led you to the district or regional Chase manager for mortgages....

Normal Calvo at Universal is great. I've been using him for primary residential and investment property mortgages for years (it made no sense to go to him for the refi at Citi, which the bank offered me). He's a pro.

Proud to be a naturalized citizen of the greatest city on earth.

# Posted 1 yr ago
SlopeDuder
getting it
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 160

You should submit this story to http://consumerist.com/

# Posted 1 yr ago
BKChickie
Bagel Hole Girl
Joined: Mar '08
Posts: 1,089

I can't even tell you how much CitiMortgage screwed up our paperwork, and almost derailed our closing. And this was during the boomin' years. I've heard that it's even worse now, when banks are actually looking at the paperwork.

Thankfully, the three attorneys were desperate not to reschedule, and Citi's attorney desperate not to be responsible for the billable hours wasted, so they all put their heads together and came up with a solution for the closing to happen on that day.

The attorney representing Citi admitted afterwards that the firm just started taking closings from the bank, and that they were not happy with the relationship. Ours, apparently, wasn't the only debacle.

# Posted 1 yr ago
Sidewalker
rookie newb
Joined: Mar '10
Posts: 22

bump

# Posted 1 yr ago
d_luxx
getting it
Joined: Oct '09
Posts: 220

I had the same experience with HSBC on an application for a purchase (not refi). I think it's the way it goes, unfortunately.

A friend who works in banking explained to me that the banks don't really make any / enough profit from loaning money at 4 - 5% interest, therefore they are reluctant to do it. They aren't going to come out and say that, though, so they give lame excuses instead.

# Posted 1 yr ago
WhyFi
I'm Urban - recognize!
Joined: Jul '05
Posts: 5,268

^^^ Eh? Even at a stupidly low 4%, a loan of $500,000 would result in a profit of $360k over 30 years.

My experience was that some people and some offices were just disorganized and/or lines of communication were poor. A handful of people, at a minimum, need to process the loan - any one of them not being on top of things can result in delays.

...not that there's anything wrong with that.

# Posted 1 yr ago
OpossumQueen
rocking it
Joined: Aug '07
Posts: 2,525

I think they just let anyone do this job. We worked with a real idiot at Astoria for our initial mortgage. He would actually send emails in text language (all abbreviations, no capitalization or punctuation) and demanded all kinds of paperwork that it turned out was not needed and some of it (that was not provided) was not even legal to ask for.

# Posted 1 yr ago
Drano
Meow Wars Veteran
Joined: Jan '06
Posts: 1,670

My experience with Chase was also that they are really, really slow. I had to pester them on a daily basis to keep things moving along.

# Posted 1 yr ago
petitchou
rookie newb
Joined: Oct '09
Posts: 23

I did my refi with [***] a couple of years ago and found [***] to be very pleasant and hard working. But the process did go excruciatingly slowly and I had to keep nudging. My impression was that it wasn't because of any failure on [***]'s part. Chase was to blame: the bloated institution, not the worker. Another example of the myth of the efficient private sector.

# Posted 1 yr ago
GoodNeighborPS
what am I, new?
Joined: Jan '12
Posts: 9

I worked with [***] for a mortgage recently at Wells Fargo and found her to be very competant and caring. I really shopped around and found that most loan officers could not answer my questions. She really knew her stuff and went over tons of options with me to determine what would be best for me and my family. I think that your declination must have been based on new guidelines at Chase. Rules tightened in the last few years. You cannot blame a loan officer because they are not the people who approve your loan. Underwriters approve the loan. In fact, a loan officer won't even get paid if you don't get approved, so generally they are in your corner.

I love Brooklyn!

# Posted 1 yr ago
PuckBrooklyn
Thinks all these new people are one person.
Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 159

GoodNeighborPS said:
I worked with [***] for a mortgage recently at Wells Fargo and found her to be very competant and caring. I really shopped around and found that most loan officers could not answer my questions. She really knew her stuff and went over tons of options with me to determine what would be best for me and my family. I think that your declination must have been based on new guidelines at Chase. Rules tightened in the last few years. You cannot blame a loan officer because they are not the people who approve your loan. Underwriters approve the loan. In fact, a loan officer won't even get paid if you don't get approved, so generally they are in your corner.

hmmm... I have never actually heard someone call a banker "caring". Me thinks something is fishy with this post.

Starting a list of users names who are actually the same person: west1440, DownwardPuppy, TruthandBeauty, Stretchy, RupaulRox, NarcolepticAbe, QuantumSilence, SoldierSantana, SouljaJuan, TrendPotter, THREEKxdz, HomeEida

# Posted 1 yr ago
brooklynian
senior admin
Joined: Feb '12
Posts: 242

Mod note: the Chase employee desputes the claims against them and accordingly, I've changed their name to [***].

# Posted 1 yr ago
jml
Irregular
Joined: Aug '05
Posts: 204

FYI, in Unix * is a wilcard character, which means it matches every name. IE, rm * means remove all files.

So saying *** at Chase is incompetent is saying everyone at Chase is incompetent. Actually, this is not too far from my experience.

# Posted 1 yr ago