Imagine you go to a Ford dealership, test drive a car, and then sign a contract to buy it. But as soon as the deal is done, they tell you you're actually getting a Chevy, and the dealership across the street will be handling the details.
Or you go to a restaurant and order a steak, only to have the waiter tell you you're going to get fish, and another restaurant will be preparing it.
Sound crazy? Not in the illogical world of finance.
If you own a home, you've probably had something similar happen to your mortgage. After weeks comparing rates and loan features, you decide on a lender, and go through the approval process. Then, maybe a month after the loan is funded you get a letter from the lender saying they have sold your mortgage to another "servicer", and you will be doing business with them from now on. Goodbye.
The sophisticated financial types will tell you this is perfectly normal. Your mortgage stays the same. It has just been sold on the "secondary market." Nothing to worry about.
Well, the problem is, the new "servicer" usually isn't very good at "servicing."
I recently had my mortgage sold and was told to start sending payments to a new "servicer," a huge bank you would all recognize.
I'm still trying to straighten out a series of screw ups by this new "servicer," including their inability to pay my homeowner's insurance premium, even though the money was sitting there in the escrow account.
Tonight on News 4 at Ten I'm doing a Trouble Shooters story about a San Antonio couple who actually ended up paying TWO mortgage payments during the month of August because their lender sold their mortgage to a another bank, and then both lenders proceeded to take a payment for the same month! Neither "servicer" would admit to taking a payment they weren't entitled to, or give the money back. In fact, the couple spent hours on the phone with both "servicers," trying to get someone on the line who could fix the problem, to no avail.
We finally helped them out, but the outcome will have you shaking your head.
And the big mortgage outfits wonder why we have no sympathy for them when they go belly up.
In what other business could you promise a product or service, sell it to someone, then just walk away, and turn the whole obligation over to someone else?
Tune in tonight on News 4. I promise the channel will not change between now and then. I will not hand you off to another "servicer." I will do the story myself.
