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JPMorgan Chase Mortgage Refinancing Scam -
Short version - We've had a mortgage with Chase about 8 years - $400K house in Westmoreland w/ $50K loan balance @5.62%. No interest in refinancing. Out of the blue Chase rep calls wife's cell phone mid September. "How would you like to get a lower interest rate of 4.25 on your loan for $500?" What's in in for Chase we ask...we retain you as a client... sounded reasonable. Met the Chase caller who was the local Loan Officer September 21. We ask some very pointed questions and are asked to write them up in an e-mail which we did...no answer despite repeated requests. If he had answered we would have stopped the process right then and there. Get the official GFE in the mail Oct 21. $5K estimated closing costs on a $50K loan. What happened to the $500 cost we ask - Oh that is the non-refundable loan application fee...Which Chase will credit once the closing costs are paid. Complain - no response, escalate within Chase, no response. They don't care, they have my $500 and the sales guy will get a bonus for every customer like us.
Classic Bait and Switch.
In a Aug 25 2010 Chase press release - They hired 8, 000 new employees to handle mortgage mess. 913, 000 applications, 270, 000 approved. At $500 per application that is over $321 Million in revenue just in declined applications. Not a bad business. No wonder they posted record quarterly profits.
Do a Google search and you will find many, many similar complaints. It is legal theft.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I received a FedEx letter offering a refi with no cost, no fees to lower my interest rate from 6 to 4.5 on a $219 loan. I called the Ohio number and after speaking to the rep he sent me the forms and the GFE showed $8, 000 to close along with a higher monthly rate. They even jacked up the current mortage amount that I owed! This is a SCAM! There is no free lunch.
Don't bother calling them...
They ran away with $395.00 of ours when then choose not to complete a loan that was not due to our fault. They suggested it was the condition of the house. So handle that discrepancy we suggested and requested creating an escrow hold back account be set up so we could fix the problem after closing. We have plenty of reserves to set up the account. They told us that no lender would loan on this property. This was odd being that I've closed 5 properties in the similar condition in the past and just recently with them. I disputed it but it ultimately came down to the bank not willing to lend due to the condition of the property. We choose to contact a new lender ( Bank Of America ) and with no delays or issues they closed the loan using an escrow hold back account. So after paying the $395.00 out of pocket application fee which is an agreement to complete a service (that they did not do) they are not willing to refund it. If it would had been due to our error I could understand. However, Chase failed to complete a service they were clearly able to complete because another national lender (servicer) closed with no problems. I spoke to several reps with at my local branch one which was a the VP and Branch Manager and they all brushed me off entirely. Over a three month period (from the beginning of Oct. until late Dec. not one representative from that branch called me back. I was told numerous times they would call me right back but I guess they didn't want to settle this like a responsible business. I showed up at the branch at least 4 times over this period and I was told the same story. They would call me back with some answers. Now after three months of this I'm not concerned about the $395 as much as how many people they are doing this to? If you feel that you have been ripped off by this application fee process please email me. Is your dispute still active? If so, let’s see if we can come together and make sure this isn't happening to others. In my view this is fraud against the people and we have rights in this country that protects us against that. People just need to speak out.
We are about to lose our $395, too. Chase chose an appraisal company that was not familiar with our area of Maine (western mountains ski area, very classy) and the appraisal came in at $95, 000 less than our 2011 tax assessment. Thus, the refinancing application was denied and I am now trying to get the fee back. I won't, I know, but I'll try everything I can. What creeps!--and we still have our mortgage with them and have for seven years. And Chase was the one to solicit us to refinance in the first place. Stay away from the ###!
Just lost $395.00...thanks Chase. We have bought and sold 4 houses in the last 25 yrs and refied a few times as well. THIS WAS OUR WORST EXPERIENCE. Their rep called us wanting us to do a Harp refi loan, we are in good financial shape but could use a little extra money each month. From the get go it was bait and switch on the interest rate and they lost the paperwork we faxed in. Underwriting approved us but came back with an off the wall request that would probably be against my Husband's corporate policy for us to try to fullfill. We explained this to the Loan guy four times and we politely tried to request the application process be stopped twice. The third and hopefully final time was an ugly phone encounter after we found out they tried to do an end run past a front desk receptionist to keep the deal alive without our permission. I just felt like we were buying a used car with bad credit.
We lost $419 to Chase on their bait and switch motgage modification scheme. The loan officer told us that we would only be charged application fees if approved. He also said everything looked great under the new HARP rules and that our mortgage would be reduced from $1, 500 to $ 1, 100 a month. When we got a response from them they said that if renewed we would start with a new 30yr term (we had 23yrs left on current mortgage) with a whopping .5% decrease in interest for a savings of $25 per month. That was followed by the rejection of the modification all together. I felt like I had fallen victim to a snake peddling used care salesman.