Category: Opinions

To close this chapter on my refinance saga, I ended up leaving a voicemail and a final email (last Friday)with George Connolly. I heard back from him via email on the Monday indicating that the omitted funds would be credited to my Visa card in the next few days.
I am pleased to report that the credit *did* show up in my checking account this morning.

So, in the end and with a bit of fussing, the refinance was completed with the original terms intact. No doubt the appraisal fee / application fee issue was a miscommunication. An assumption that I would be familiar with what the mortgage industry considers normal even though I may associate with this world *maybe* twice a decade.

The overpayment on my original mortgage is still sitting in escrow. An email that I sent to the SunTrust customer care center on March 7 via their “Secure Mail” system associated with their mortgage system remains unanswered so I will need to follow up via phone.

I did receive a response regarding the overpayment of my Home Equity Line of Credit. Apparently the most effective way to get the cash back is to visit a branch and write a check for the balance and deposit into my account. Not sure why this can’t be done over the phone but it’s better than NOT being able to get the money back.

I chose to document these experiences partly as a reference for myself so that I can recall and refer to what transpired and partly as a resource for others who would research this topic on the Internet in preparation for their own refinance.

Is my experience typical? Should you do business with the people I have dealt with? My one experience would need to be considered in aggregate with others before making any decisions. You may not know my biases and my whole experience may be a fluke. All I can do is add my voice to the others out there and hope that I can contribute. It seems that this is the only recourse that the average Joe really has – the ability to share his story.

Even if you end up having the exact same experience, at least you can be steeled against it so that you know that you are not the only one for whom the experience goes this way.

If you have found this information useful, please feel free to leave a comment.

It wasn’t until I was finally able to sit down with all (34) of the documents from the refinance that I noticed some anomalies.

It turns out that the $250 credit for working for my current employer that had been represented in the “Good Faith Estimate” was missing.

I’ve contacted George Connolly twice now by email. On Feb 24 I sent him:

Hi George,

In reviewing the mortgage closing fees I see that the $250 credit for working with Equifax was NOT included.

What can we do to correct this?

Marc

To which he nearly immediately responded:

I will look into it and follow up.

When I didn’t hear back, on February 28 I sent another email. I decided to be more direct this time:

Hi George,

Any news?  It looks like a simple omission. Will you be sending a check or just depositing directly into my account?

Marc

This time the answer was a little slower in coming, but I suppose it was the weekend after all:

I will check on this today and get back to you.  Thanks

 George Connolly

So am I getting the blow-off?  I’ll have to now invest some time calling and chasing him on the phone. Man, I can’t believe how little help I’m getting here.

On another note, one of the myriad documents I have shows my original mortgage payout amount. Yet my closing costs reflect an amount $156.38 greater than this. I’ve got an email in to Christine Arcand (my Mortgage Relationship Specialist) to help me track down the difference. I shot her a message on Feb 28 and have yet to hear back.

Of course this is on top of the nearly $500 that I ended up overpaying to clear my line of credit. In pre-close conversation I was told by George Connolly that they would send me a check for any overage, but since my faith in him is now somewhat shaken, I need to contact the SunTrust Access 3 Home Equity Line of Credit folks directly to see about the disposition of this money.

I suppose, given the huge amounts of money they are constantly dealing with that these seem like pretty paltry sums to the SunTrust representatives. But suppose this was a car purchase, or the purchase of a new TV set, would that make the same money somehow more valuable? The fact that the money is a relatively small percentage of the overall transaction does not diminish its absolute value to me. That’s money that I earned and I am entitled to spend in ways that *I* see fit.

Some assistance from my bank would be appreciated.

Continuing with my mortgage saga, I went in yesterday morning and *finally* got this done. There was one nasty surprise waiting for me there. ANOTHER copy of that dreaded 4506-T “Request for Transcript of Tax Return” form. As before it was completely blank. I asked the lawyer (he represents the lender, like I have a choice) if I can just remove it from the package. His response was that the package needs to be signed and initialed as-is or the mortgage can’t go through. So I said, “What if I fill in the values so this isn’t just a blank check to my entire IRS history?”. Again, he said he sympathized but no changes can be made or the mortgage has to wait.

I am Joe, ordinary citizen, and this is is typical of what we all face when borrowing from our lending institutions. For this transaction I had 34 documents on 75 pages of which all but 3 needed to be either initialed or signed.  The document letting me know that I have a right to my own lawyer was probably about number 20 in the pile…  Do the folks who legislate this crap really think it actually helps the lay person? It sure didn’t help any of the folks losing their houses to foreclosure. All I’m doing is signing away more and more rights. Even the stuff that I slowed down to read (I had to take a fair amount of the information on faith that the lawyer wasn’t trying to screw me over) was the kind of stuff that would take a good hour or so to really sink in or understand. And if I found any of it objectionable it’s not like I can NOT sign away all my rights if I want to complete the deal.

My credit rating is excellent, but that still gives me NOTHING in negotiating with these institutions. And I actually have a day job, so battling it out with them in court would be idiotically expensive and unproductive for me to say the least.

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s over. As with buying a car, you grit your teeth, hope you don’t get raped too badly and then try to recover from the disappointment, humiliation and dissatisfaction with the process and convince yourself that it wasn’t so bad so you will be able to bear it every time you make a payment without feeling you got taken to the cleaners.

I’ve never been real comfortable with “Ticketmaster”. Whenever I use the site they have service fee upon service fee heaped upon the purchase. They’re kind of like the “Bank of America” of ticket sellers.

For example, last month I purchased tickets for a local play (Footloose) for myself, Michelle and 3 friends. The original ticket price was $15. Then Ticketmaster ladles on a $4.75 “Convenience Fee” per ticket (anybody know what the heck that really means?). Then there is the “Order Processing Charge” $3.65 (seems reasonable enough) and a “Ticketfast” charge of $1.75 (cost for them to allow me to print my own tickets).
This increases the final cost of the tickets by nearly 40% of the originally stated price.

So, recognizing and finally accepting that there really is no way to pay the advertised price for Ticketmaster tickets, and that they’ve got most venues around here locked up (does anybody know how to get tickets without going through Ticketmaster? I mean besides making an extra trip down to the venue to purchase them.). I picked up tickets for a show next month that were supposed to be $39.50 each. The “Convenience Fee” for these is $6.75 per ticket. Now they have a $2.00 “Total Building Facility Charge(s)” per ticket (?). I get a break on the Order Processing Charge as it is “only” $3.60 for the order, but they easily recoup that by increasing the “Ticketfast” charge to $2.50.
So my $39.50 tickets are now $51.30 each or 30% more than the advertised price.

“Fine”, I tell myself. Michelle will really enjoy the show and I really don’t have a lot of options.

This morning I get an email from Mondial Assistance thanking me for purchasing “Event Ticket Protector Insurance”.

At first I figured this was just a scam but then I saw that they had information that only Ticketmaster could have provided (date of the show, number of tickets). Further, when I checked on Ticketmaster’s site they *do* acknowledge the insurance scheme

 but pretty much tell you that you need to deal with it on your own.

I know that I did *not* intentionally elect to take any insurance – 15% ($6 insurance vs. supposed original cost of ticket) is WAY too expensive for such protection and the risk that I’m going to miss a 2 hour performance is not really all that great (vs., say, the risk of missing a vacation package that spans a week or so).

But what is galling is the fact that I saw no mention at all of this insurance on Ticketmaster’s site when making the purchase. If there *was* it was not obvious and the little note at the top of the page saying “You have 2:15 to complete this form or you’ve gotta start over” would definitely impact your ability to carefully inspect your options.

As it is I haven’t seen the charge applied against my credit card yet, but this *is* the weekend. I’ve got a note on my calendar to check on Tuesday and cancel it. It’s a small amount of money but , gee whiz, don’t you just hate being taken for a ride?

*** Update February 17, 2009 ***

To their credit, Mondial’s VP of Marketing Communications contacted me after reading this blog and offered to initiate a refund of the premium for me. I had this on my “to do” list for the afternoon but I felt this was a nice gesture.

In his message he noted that:

The scenario you described was quite alarming to us and I want you to know that I have looked into it. I can assure you that we do not automatically charge people for the insurance. This type of “opt out” marketing practice is not used on Ticketmaster’s website. Each ticket purchaser is given the option to purchase or not purchase insurance.

I cannot say for sure how the option was presented to me, but I know I would not have opted in. And Ticketmaster’s reputation, being what it is, would leave me comfortable in the assumption that they were implementing an “opt out” strategy. After all, they are already selling tickets for more than the face price in the first place.

I see that the initial charge for the insurance premium has been applied against my charge card. I have already received confirmation that the insurance has been canceled. I’ll post to confirm that the reversal of charge has been applied as well.

** Updated February 22, 2009 **

I want to note that the credit for Mondial Assistance’s insurance premium showed up on my credit card account a couple of days ago. So they were true to their word on canceling and reimbursing me for the insurance.