Maybe the Banks Deserve What They're Getting!

What ever happened to customer service? I thought that it was important for businesses to communicate clearly with their customers and try to satisfy them to the best of their ability. Apparently that doesn't seem to be the case when I go most places any more though. It's sad really. I have experienced that first hand lately with the bank I've been a loyal customer at for almost twenty years.

They seem to have developed an attitude that they're doing people a favor by even existing and providing us a service. Well, that's all well and good, but what ever happened to them trying to be the best in the business? What happened to wanting to keep good customers for the long term even if it might mean making a small sacrifice? What do I mean? Please let me explain.

I was told by a couple of mortgage bankers back in MN that our house would sell quickly as well as several realtors. We discussed the fact that my husband was being transferred to another state by the company he works for and we thought about many options when we bought our new home. At first we had thought about doing a bridge loan but the banker thought it would be a better idea for us to go with home equity lines of credit instead. We asked if we could just take out a loan for no down payment on our new house. She told us that we could since our credit score was 753, but she strongly reccommended that we go with her plan so we wouldn't have to pay PMI on our new loan. We finally decided that the banker knew what was best and went with her plan.

Over the last two and a half years, we have been unable to sell our home that was supposed to be so easy to sell. Before our renter moved out, we thought it would be a good idea to refinance our house we're in now, take out the extra that we owed on our HELOC so we could drop our price without having to do a short sale. That would also help to keep our payments more affordable and we would be paying down principle on all of the three loans instead of just the one. The bank told us to wait until we got our basement finished because we didn't have enough equity in our home as it was to avoid paying PMI. I said that was okay, but the banker strongly suggested that we wait to build more equity in our house. Once again, we listened.

Our renter moved out without paying several months worth of rent and we weren't able to find another renter to move in in his place even though we ran an ad for over a month in one of the local newspapers. He had trashed the place and I invested a lot of time and money into fixing the place up again as well as repairing damage done to the house by a negligent sprinkler company when they improperly installed a sprinkler system and failed to adjust the heads after the plumber kooked them up to our water.

We had a couple of offers on the house anyway, but the banks bickered over things and could not agree to a sale before the buyers walked.

I told all of this to the bank, told them our first had gone up for sheriff's sale and asked them what I could do. Several people at the bank advised me that there was nothing else I could do, just wait to be foreclosed and they'd just have to take the loss. They were really very kind and understanding sounding when I spoke to them.

I guess I'd like to know if the bank makes it a common practice for people who don't know what they're talking about to answer customer's questions. I would also like to know if they are required to take notes every time a customer contacts them. I would say I had done everything I could possibly do to solve the situation including writing letters to the bank. I informed them that I would not declare bankruptcy because I felt it was my responsibilty to pay back my debts and asked them to again consider refinancing my mortgage. I made it perfectly clear to them that I intended to pay back the loan as long as the price was something I could afford while still being able to feed my family. They refused to refinance because by this point my other house had slipped into forclosure even though I have paid all of my other bills on time.

They sounded reasonable still and I thought there was hope for resolving my situation, so I kept calling and doing my best to offer suggestions and ask for advise. This went on until the bank turned it over to a collection agency. The collection agency was not kind and called and hung up on me all the time, but still I was never informed that the bank could take every cent I had in the world all at one time if I didn't make some type of payment arrangement.

Well, the loan was officially charged off at the end of October, the first mortgage's redemption period is up on December 16. That's where my $2,000 went to, the bank just took all of my money without saying a word to me about it. To make it worse, that's completely legal for them to do. Um, I don't know about you, but that sounds awfully stupid if you ask me!

Even though they knew I had two other mortgages with them also. Even though I had written letters to them pleading to make out some kind of arrangements with me. Did they even care that taking all of that money might cause a second set of forclosure problems for them? Apparently not!

Why in the world would you choose to cause this type of chain reaction to take place instead of being reasonable and working with a customer who is trying to show every effort to pay a bill and negotiate? Had I not gone online and noticed that they had done this to me, I would have also racked up a ton of bounced check fees too. They just seem to be on the lookout for more money because of the struggling economy.

Is the economy struggling for a reason? YES! It's called greed and I can't see any end to it until everyone can sit down and compromise. So they might make a little bit less money in fees and interest charges, is it worth it to have the world's economy circling the drain so they can scrape a few extra dollars together for their investors? I think not!

I'm not asking for much really, I just want the greed and money grubbing to cease. I have no problem with people making a reasonable profit, but when they start profittering in a faltering economy someone needs to stand up and shout "STOP!" . Is that asking too much?

I took the money MIL was kind enough to loan us and opened a checking account at a new bank today. I will not be doing any business with that bank anymore. If I could take my mortgage account and HELOC account away from them I'd do that too, but unfortunately I think I will be forced to leave those in place. All of my other accounts are going elsewhere though. I don't need a back-stabbing bank who pretends to look out for my interests when all they really want to do is line their pockets with money.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy