FiscalGeek’s Hatred for Wells Fargo. A Love Story.

July 24, 2009

in banks that suck,guest post

This is a guest post from FiscalGeek and part of my series on Banks That Suck.
I have to state that my hatred mostly flows from my dealings with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage but that expands into their consumer banking business as a matter of course.
I have gone through one painful refinance with them 2 years ago and one current failed refi that I’m still dealing with.
Our first refinance I had the displeasure to work with a broker who couldn’t get the physical address of our home straight. She first sent preliminary documents to my wife’s place of work which happens to be a city government.  As such they open all mail and classify it appropriately, and this ended up being a big debacle as she’s not supposed to get anything of a personal nature at work.  Even better that they saw all of our financials laid out on the front page. That was remedied and when we went to sign the loan papers we had to correct each page manually because she had listed our neighbors address in the loan documents.  Classic.
Re-finance attempt 2 is still in a giant train wreck 5 months after initiating the process. To sum up a rather long and painful story we were using the Making Home Affordable Program, Wells Fargo didn’t know how to use it and strung us along for 3 months without any real information.  I was told repeatedly told that it would close the next week, yada yada and nothing.  After 3 months they stated, oh we didn’t get the rate locked in but we can go ahead and refinance with this new rate that is a full percentage point higher and you’ll need to bring $2500 to the closing of your own money.
I of course told them to pound sand.  They took an initial $500 for an appraisal they never ordered and I’m still escalating and escalating to get my money back.  I’m seconds away from calling our local news agency to highlight this story.  I’m beyond frustrated and I’m in the process of moving all of our business from Wells Fargo although I’m probably stuck with my mortgage for the time being.  You’ve been warned.
Kelly responds:
We had our home mortgage with Wells Fargo previously, and they did indeed suck. We paid for an appraisal that did happen but came in $10K lower than the bank rep suggested our house was worth. That meant the deal was off, and they couldn’t offer us a product that saved us any money. When rates dropped further (down to 5%) we opted to refinance with our local credit union, FMFCU.  There were no big hiccups, and the mortgage rep was awesome. We’re saving $300+ a month, and have better customer service. Hopefully Paul can find another option to refinance!

© 2009 – 2010, Whalen Media LLC. All rights reserved. To repost or publish, please email Kelly.

About Kelly


Kelly Whalen is the founder of The Centsible Life, a blog where motherhood and money meet. Her goal is to help readers live well on less. Kelly is a mom to 4, and loves that she can stay at home with her kids, and still pursue her passions for writing, personal finance, and social media. You can often find her on twitter and Facebook talking money and motherhood.

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Tagged as: banks that suck, guest post

  • http://www.hydroponicswholesale.com/ Hydroponics

    I had a great time reading around your posts as I read it extensively. Thanks for writing about this!

  • Pingback: The Freddie Mac Relief Refinance Mortage a Journey to Lower Payments

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  • http://greenpandatreehouse.com Laura

    Sorry to hear about your problems with Wells Fargo. I had a problem with the credit union I had my car loan with.

    To get a car loan with them, I opened a savings account, which I left alone. I notice I had a negative balance on my savings account. I called them and they said it was a mistake and they fixed the account. The CSR then let me know ‘what she’ll do for me’ which was return my money. This happened 3x over the course of the loan.

    How is that a favor to me?! I’m glad it got fixed,though, and now I’m done with my car loan.

  • http://greenpandatreehouse.com/ Laura

    Sorry to hear about your problems with Wells Fargo. I had a problem with the credit union I had my car loan with.

    To get a car loan with them, I opened a savings account, which I left alone. I notice I had a negative balance on my savings account. I called them and they said it was a mistake and they fixed the account. The CSR then let me know ‘what she’ll do for me’ which was return my money. This happened 3x over the course of the loan.

    How is that a favor to me?! I’m glad it got fixed,though, and now I’m done with my car loan.

  • http://www.DebtFreeAdventure.com Matt Jabs

    Amen!

    I too have a WF Mortgage. I tried to roll my 80/20 loan into one w/them awhile back. After about 2 hours on the phone giving all my personal info – including what kind of underwear I prefer ;-) they told me they were unable to help me because my house wasn’t worth what I owe on it.

    Thanks for that.

    I AM A MAN ON A HUGE INCREDIBLE UNSTOPPABLE MISSION TO BECOME DEBT FREE. AND YES… THAT MEANS MY MORTGAGE TOO!

  • http://www.DebtFreeAdventure.com/ Matt Jabs

    Amen!

    I too have a WF Mortgage. I tried to roll my 80/20 loan into one w/them awhile back. After about 2 hours on the phone giving all my personal info – including what kind of underwear I prefer ;-) they told me they were unable to help me because my house wasn’t worth what I owe on it.

    Thanks for that.

    I AM A MAN ON A HUGE INCREDIBLE UNSTOPPABLE MISSION TO BECOME DEBT FREE. AND YES… THAT MEANS MY MORTGAGE TOO!

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