How many of you out there have gotten a call from Mortgage Investors … or more than one call … or a whole slew of calls … at all hours of the day and night … wanting to “save you money” by refinancing your VA or other government backed loan?
They claim “it won’t cost you anything” because all of the costs are tacked onto the loan and “aren’t up front”.
Well, the rhetoric of the “assistant loan officer” is another factor that isn’t exactly “up front” either.
What you can’t find out in this introductory call is what it’s going to cost you to use this company to refinance your home.
The “assistant finance officer” doesn’t admit to knowing anything … like what their fees are … like how much are they going to tack on to the end of your loan for the privilege of letting them “help you save money”.
You’ll have to set up an appointment for a “loan officer” to come to your home to discuss all of these things with you. He can answer all of your questions when he talks to you in person.
The “assistant loan officer” wants to know 1) what your current interest rate is on your loan and 2) what the balance is on your loan.
Why?
They already have a good idea of what your loan interest rate is because they know when you last financed. They can look it up. They’re basically confirming data they already have a ball park idea of.
Why do they want to know the outstanding balance of your loan? Do they have a minimum amount that they will refinance? Just curious. Why does your loan balance matter?
They might refer you to their site. I’m not going to reference it here now. It can be “googled”. Sure, you’ll see a lot of testimonials and letters of affirmation from various government agencies indicating they aren’t doing anything illegal.
What their site doesn’t give you is any actual information of what refinancing a loan with them will actually cost. Just because they’re “not doing anything illegal” doesn’t mean that they’re giving you the best deal out there.
If you go to the VA site and look up VA loans, you’ll get a rough idea of what it should cost to refinance. A reasonable amount should be somewhere between 3 and 5% of your outstanding loan.
I actually talked to one of their “loan officers” about five or six years ago. I got the whole smear about how this was such a great deal for me, how much I was going to save over the life of the loan, no upfront costs.
What I noticed when the final document was drawn up was that Mortgage Investors were tacking on more that 10% of the outstanding loan amount to the end of the loan.
…MORE THAN 10%.
Those are some pretty hefty closing and refinancing costs for simply refinancing … and … no … I wasn’t adding anything on to do home improvements or anything like that. The “greater than 10%” was the sum of all of the fees they were going to collect to simply do the refinance.
I said “Thank you … but ‘no’.”
When I finally got the “loan officer” out of my home I felt like I needed to go wash my hands.
After I get a call from them, I feel like I need to not only wash my hands but also clean my ear.
Today, I added their number to my “blocked numbers” list.
My suspicion is that their “assistant loan officer” title is their glorified name for a telemarking telephone operator. Their business model is based on the sleazy automobile dealership “Let’s make a deal and I’ll go get it approved by the mysterious ‘Mr. Big’ in the back office. You do get to meet “Mr. Big” and you discover he has all of the charm and nuance of a used car salesman pressuring you with the well trained slight of hand of a pickpocket.
You shouldn’t be refinancing your home with people that operate their business like a snake oil side show … even if some idiot working for the government says they’re legit.
If anyone has had a different experience, I’d like to know.
12/15/2011 Update
If you have already refinanced a VA loan through Mortgage Investors Corporation, read and carefully review these two links:
http://www.vamortgagefraud.com/
http://www.vamortgagefraud.com/illegal-charges.html
Filed under: Commentary Tagged: | closing costs, FHA loan, Mortgage Investors, mortgage refinancing, refinance, scam, VA loan
One more ‘red flag’ as we were nearing the end of this guys bag of crap he asked us what our balance was in our bank. My husband told him he wasn’t going to disclose that. Now that I look back at that: his inquire of our bank balance (and from all these similar complaints) I think that by the time they get all their info on your income, etc. they use this as a base to figure out what income bracket you’re in and adjust their initial ‘rip off starter fee… or what ever they call it” according to their potential ‘clients’ financial status. Make sure you do something to protect yourself people! As these bozo’s have your SS# and can sell it… all kinds of potential scams from now on. I just feel like an all-day sucker for even giving this guy as much of our time and info as we did. Never again will we be that jack-ass!
Geez,
Where was this site when I needed it. My husband refinanced our house after only 6 months of owning it. How they got our number, who knows because we aren’t listed. we were called numerous times a day at multiple parts of the day until we agreed to have a meet and greet. They guy badgered us. I thanked him for coming and told him we would contact him the next day with a decision. He turned to my husband who made it apparent that he is the sole provider as I was 6 months pregnant, and told him that the offer was only good at that rate for right now and tomorrow he couldn’t guarantee anything. of course my deal loving husband signs and gives a check. We got the check back 2 Weeks later but they mailed it tomy inlaws in TX. We live in Colorado. They still call after they have our business. We also are first time home buyers. If there anything we can do to get away from them??????
Wow these guys are amazing. I allowed them to set up an appointment knowing they were a scam. They refused to take no for an answer on the first phone call. They we’re offering me 2.5% 30 yr fixed. They kept badgering me so I reversed the scam and said sure just show up. I made sure to not be home. Got a kick out of watching from my neighbors as two guys were obviously stressing out after driving 2 hours to my place. Since then despite being told to not call and remove from the list they have called 8 times in a week. Including at 6:00 am saturday morning. I finally lost my temper with them and verbally abused an employee. Hope they quit, I have blocked them and reported to BBB, FCC and Do not call registry. Be very careful with these creepers.
The guy us here right now, my hubby is doing the paperwork and I’m googling to see if this is a scam
OMG! We just had an encounter with one of these clowns today. They had called so many times we finally agreed to listen to their presentation. I had made the appointment last week by phone, and had taken down all their ‘information’ so I could do some research on their outfit before they came.. check with BBB,etc. But it slipped my mind and forgotten about it till he was on our door-step this afternoon. We went ahead and invited him in cause we felt bad as he ‘said’ he had driven all the way from St.Pete (3hrs.trip) So after his long drawn out thing, we asked him several times what kind of out of pocket expense to us… he claimed ‘only $54.00 due at time of signing, they ‘waive’ the first payment and we would be getting over some kind of over $1,000.00 check back for something after closing, it would lower our payment by $211.00 per mo. blah, blah, blah. We thought it sounded great (remember if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.) So we ‘started’ the process, signed a zillion papers, everything was hunky dorey… then as he was winding up he says: “now all I’ll need from you guys is a check for $687.00 for blah, blah, blah..” Then it totally freaked me out…this is a scam.. So my voice started raising.. you told us..no money..yak yak yak… in the mean time he calls his ‘supervisor’ and gets my husband on the phone and I started getting louder and louder to get this jerk out of here… I had to get really mean… I MADE him leave all the papers we had signed, (he still got SS # etc. in his lap top I’m sure of.) My husband was still kind of falling for it telling me to calm down… but I had this gut feeling something stank and I was freaked, so i jumped on my phone and called my sis-in-law as she is a partner in a big ass exclusive CPA firm
She said for “God’s sake don’t give them banking info etc.” I had to ORDER this guy out of my house like four times… they said: Get his tag number, as he had pulled his wallet out trying to ‘show’ me all his ID’s that he was legit, I told him “I don’t care if you’re Barack Obama… get the hell out of my house.” I chased him out. Btw his name is Lane with Fl. tag number: “10-ACES” Because we didn’t know who he was from Adam. I called the police and reported him cause we were concerned cause he has SS#’s So we’ve alerted banks, put flags on our accounts, etc. We didn’t realize it was a ‘legal’ scam til I looked up after he left. BUYERS BEWARE!
It sounds like this company is taking advantage of Veterans we are already at a disadvantage with the medications we take for depression and post traumatic stress. When some one comes in dangling VA credentials our immediate response is it is a VA approved company to help veterans but closer look into this company reveals them for what they are nothing more than glorified Used car salesmen that will do or say anything to make the sale even defraud the veteran. Thanks for this site It opened my eyes and these snake oil sales men are not welcome in my house!
I met with them yesterday and as everyone has said they are very smooth talkers. he read his laminate cards word for word and told me that he likes red wine in case i want to send him some as a thank you for all the money he was saving me. no money out of pocket but when i looked over the good faith estimate they were going to be adding over 7,000 dollars onto my loan. yes that includes money for my escrow but minus that it was still costing me 3600 to refi. i was pressured and signed the dotted line, paid 1% up front for costs and then when they left i started looking at other companies.i found one who had a higher rate but it only cost me 1100 to refi and still had the same monthly payments. i called and told them to stop everything, they transfered me from person to personj and i finally got it stopped. they said my 1% would be refunded and they appeared shocked that i didnt want to go through with it. they said they have never heard of a veteran not wanting to go through with it.
“they said they have never heard of a veteran not wanting to go through with it.”
Interesting.
Earl
Thank you for all of your, comments after reading immediately cancelled appt.
Thank you for the information. WOW!!!! It was exactly how everyone described this experience. My Wife made an appointment with MIC not knowing the background/information that everyone within this blog has provided. To make the story short, I did my homework and ended finding this blog. It’s a scam, and they won’t take “NO!” for an answer when you try to cancel. Once again thanks!
In response to the initial blog here, as an “assistant loan officer”, we do NOT have access to the information regarding your loan. All we get is your name and address. The information you provide us just allows us to enter the info into the computer to determine how much the refinance can save you. That is all we have. I don’t have any other information regarding the rest of the experience, but I at least wanted to get that part of the story straight.
Thanks Miranda.
Quite frankly, if you didn’t gather from my impression of your position as an “assistant loan officer”, I really didn’t give you credit for knowing anything.
But, anyone familiar with mortgages would know that the information can be easily accessed from public records.
And, as a person has previously commented, who also stated they had worked for MIC, your employer prefers hiring people who are ignorant of the mortgage industry, especially at your level, as you have so aptly concurred.
Earl
I was just explaining how the experience was that we had working there. I was not arguing for nor against MIC. Regardless of whether loan rates and amounts are public records, the information that appears to us on our screen holds only the person’s name and address. That was the only information I was providing. And I did not say that I had NO experience in the mortgage industry. I was simply putting out there my experience as an ex-employee. Since I feel I have been personally attacked because you feel I opposed your viewpoint, I am electing to remove myself from this subscription, so this is the last you shall hear from me regarding this issue.
Thank you for this article, they caught me when I was asleep….I accepted the meet and greet. It took me 15 minutes of 30 back and forth debates to cancel the appointment. But I stayed nice to make sure the person canceled, because I didnt want some individual driving all the way to my rural area to be turned away at the door.
You also saved my Friday afternoon which was a Bonus.
This was my first call from anybody regarding refinancing my VA loan. I had always been curious because I get two letters a day in the mail from different “VA” lendors offering stuff. So I was caught off gaurd by the phonecall.
yes they have me by the balls, they ripped me off, and it hurts so much i cant hardly even type this message without crying, IAM a father of 5, refinanced to 3.5 rate from 5 year fixed w/o knowing all the problems that arrised from there poor buisness sense. I am a veteran and the VA approves them I was behing and my wife had a stroke about the time I refinanced with MIC but they sent my home to forclosure just when we got the money to catch it up due to finnances and unable to get it straight on one income fast with rules changing to apply for a modification or work outsheet, They stalled me and have been inept, refused to be real, and poor bedside manner, Now they caused my rearrages and I wanted to pay infull prior to christmas 2010, so now They been replaced by GREEN PLANET who are they they might as well be from mars cause nobody gives a dam about my family or plight this currupt un american group is causing all accross america, sincerly John from Augusta
Great info! I just called and cancelled our “visit” The guy went all crazy and wanted to know where I got the info! I refered him here. He was not a happy camper. I ended up hanging up on him… but I was polite and thanked him for his time. He wasn’t as kind. Thanks for the save. SEMPER FI
They just left my house because my wife was not here. I felt something was wrong and decided to Google MIC and found this blog. Thanks you all just saved me from a huge headache.
I was skeptical like everyone and after receiving numerous mailing from them I responded and set up an appointment with their rep. He came and after listening to him and how the mortage worked I signed the dotted line. I missed 2 months of house payments, got my escrow returned and my good faith money returned all within a week of setting down with the representative. The closer was very knowledgeable and spoke from experience. He was a Veteran who also refinanced with them, plus he turned me on to USAA home owners insurance where I am saving even more money. I jumped on this b/c I plan to sell my home soon and sure needed lower payments..I went from $1222.12 to $873.00 per month and if the rate does eventually climb to 8% it will take 8 years to get there and by that time my payment would still be lower than it was before I refinanced..all because you pay down the principal amount of the loan instead of paying interest. The man who bought this company is also a Veteran and deals exclusively with Veterans only..so you are in a special club to say the least. It is a good company and deserves credit for what they do..and no I am not affiliated with MIC in any manner..just someone who listened and took advantage. The numbers don’t lie and if you run the numbers you can see the savings you will incur. Most people are fearful of the ARM but this one is so different than your typical ARM in that your rate of 3% stays the same for 39 months then it can either go up or down depending on the market but it can only go up only 1% per year…so after 39 months let’s say it goes up to 4% then finally after 8 years it goes to the max it can possibly go to and that is 8%, as I say even at that my payment will still be lower at 8% than it was at my original 6.5% fixed rate so why wouldn’t I sign up for a refinance with numbers like this and the longer it goes even at 8% I will still be paying down the principal and still saving money. So there are some people in the business that lie or turn out to be not so warm and friendly..my wife didn’t want to go through with it until she sat down and listened and she worked in all phases of banking for many years then was in Finance at a well known university so she understood how it worked just as I did. I think they are doing good work, don’t know about each individual that has complained or what really happened as your reason to be disgruntled I just know it works for me.
Thanks for your input.
So, …
If you don’t know what really happened for me and others to be disgruntled, then you need to re-read my post and their comments. That’s what really happened.
Now, let’s look at your case. For some reason, lowering your interest rate by more than 50%, 6.5% to 3%, only lowered your payments by 29%. A 3% interest rate sounds good, but a 1% increase after 3.25 years is a 33% increase in the interest your paying. At 6 years, your interest has doubled.
I understand there are a lot of variables that effect all of these numbers. It’s not as simple as the picture either your or I have painted.
It’s my understanding that MIC is a mortgage broker; i.e., they don’t service mortgages but solicit, package and sell them. I don’t recall myself or anyone else specifically saying they were lied to, simply that their advertising from their pseudo-official looking mailings to their website reeks of snake oil as well as their “assistant loan officer” telemarketers who “know nothing” and can answer no questions to their loan officers who, in more than one person’s experience, have all the charm of a snake oil salesman. Tacking closing costs onto the end of a loan is not “costing you nothing” and greater than 10% closing costs is about three times what the VA says it should be.
I wish you good luck.
Earl
I have also refinanced with MIC, and have absolutely nothing but good things to say about them. Everything the salesman said would happen did, and it was all good. Any money that we put out was returned within 2 weeks, as he promised it would. I realize that they make money by having the buyer put some fees into the loan, and I questioned the salesman on that and he said that was true, but it is better to have the customer put money into the loan and then be refunded than to simply charge closing fees like other loan companies do. Besides, if you don’t want the fees to be tacked onto the loan, you can apply the refund to the principle when you receive it. I never received a single call from them, only one post card, and I called them to set up an appointment, and I am glad I did! I will save thousands over the course of my loan, even if it does go to 8% eventually. And that is the bottom line for me, saving big money in the long run.
Thanks, Greg.
Hummmm, how about some numbers, … some data, to back up your impression of this “great deal” you received???
Otherwise, my impression is that you were either duped or work for MIC.
Earl
Earl, I have been contacted by this company (Morgageinvestors.com) to go to work for them as a Loan Officer! Sound’s like I should pass?
The MIC folks will get there DAY there is a God and HE knows
Are you saying this is qa ARM loan no friken way I will ever do an ARM! If you have to use an ARM to afford your home you best be looking at a little less home! I have an appointment for tomorrow, I don’t mind paying a few thousand to refinance my home loan. I Just refinanced my home and made the 1st payment last month I went from 6.5 to 4% the Loan officer i talked to said they can reduce it to 2.5% and save me an additional &190 bucks a month but if this is a ARM there is no friken way you take ARM loans when intrust rates are high as they were under Jimmy Carter and they have a good chance of going down but at 2% there is only one way to go and that is through the roof. Isnt this how we got into this mortgage crisis by uneducated public being coned into taking ARM mortgages when the banks knew the intrust rates were climbing?
I was just contacted by this company. The assistant was sly and the next guy was slyer. They tried everything and were very pushy to have someone come to my house. I told them I needed to do some research on their company before anyone steps through my door. The slyer guy didn’t like that idea too much which made me even more suspicious. I’m glad to find a site that is attempting to protect veterans like me and I hope more people read this website and the comments that have been made. Also to confirm what other people have said, they told me no upfront costs and used ‘double team’ tactics to try and force me into a quick decision.
Thanks for sharing your experience, John.
By the way, it takes a lot of hits from searches for an article from a blog to make page one on a search. I appreciate the time people have taken to look through the pages once a search is done and then actually clicking and reading my post. It helps to get the information closer to the front of the search for more people to see.
Thanks.
Earl
This company has been calling my cellphone at all hours of the day and evening. Any respectable company offering a worthwhile service wouldn’t need to do that. I’m glad I googled their phone number first.
and BTW my mortgage payments are already at 1,299
I had 2 reps that came out to my home this evening. They laughed at me and my 4.875 interest rate and told me they could lock me in a 3%. The “loan officer” ran through his presentation by reading every word on the elaminated card, to include the questions like “Wouldnt you like to have an extra $200 in your pocket?” Before even asking me if this refinance was something I wanted, he just began filling out loan paperwork pushing for me to sign. He showed me the numbers and told me he could get my payments down to $1,127 (including insurance, etc). Then I realized this was an ARM, and I had a bad feeling in my gut. The seccond “loan officer” was like the wing man because he kept distracting me when I was asking about the loan being an ARM. I asked him what would my out of pocket expenses be to close, and he told me there would be 0 out of pocket expenses, I just would need to leave a good faith deposit to show that I would go through with the loan. I told him I had issues with the deposit, and he stated that I would not have to leave anything. An hour or so later, the other guy was asking me to leave a deposit of $2,000 in good faith. He said I would get the entire amount back at closing, minus $22 for the credit report. I told them I wanted to think it over for tonight and that I would get back with them the next day. The first loan officer made a shifty eye at his compadre which then proceeded to persuade me to make at least a $100 deposit, while the other guy called his manager at headquarters. He puts me on the phone with him, who began badgering me as to why I would not accept their terms of the refianance. I told them I had a right to take a day to think it over since it was MY money and MY HOUSE. I then threw them both out of my house. The loan officers were very fast talkers, please pay close attention when dealing with them. They are worse than any car salesman or mechanic I have ever dealt with!!
Bettie,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Double-teaming … AND … Mr. BIG!! That’s an interesting evolution of their approach.
Credit report … not required on a VA refinance. Interesting.
Deposit … again, as far as I know … not required.
It sounds like you experienced more of an attempted shake down than a “Veteran’s Administration approved lender” experience.
It also sounds like you were on top of the whole situation.
Again, thanks for sharing.
Earl
I had my run in with this company today. My wife takes care of all the house payment stuff so she was on top of her game. She told them over the phone that she would listen to what they had to say but if it was anything other than a Fixed rate then we were not interested in refinancing our home. Well the man came out and low and be hold it is a hybrid loan….3year fixed at 3% and than it can go up to as much as 8%. We told him that we were not interested has we have a 5.5% fixed and we are currently about $5,000 ahead. He kept repeating how this is a benefit for me that only Veterans can get. After he was satisfied that we weren’t buying. He ask to use our phone to call his manager. His manager tried some hi pressure sales tactics on my wife but we stood firm. In my opinion Mortgage Investors Corporation Seams use hi pressure sales then helping you out. After talking to these people I felt slimy. Just stay away from them or at least trust your gut.
Ricky,
Thanks for relating your experience with this outfit. I don’t recall whether they were offering hybrid loans back when I dealt with them. I was only interested in a fixed rate and very emphatic about that.
Did you even get a quote on a fixed rate?
And, did you get to the point of discussing closing costs?
That’s what really shocked me, especially after reading on the VA site what I should expect the “refi” closing costs to be … basically less than $1,000. I may have underestimated the closing costs but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be their >10% of my outstanding loan.
It sounds like they certainly weren’t offering you anything better than you had.
Hopefully we’ll help some other vets from making a costly mistake.
Thanks again for sharing your experience.
Earl
I can say as an past employee there they do lie and tell you no money out of pocket when there is always money out of pocket…we are told to tell you its a fixed rate when its not and we are telemarketers not asst loan officers and your right its just a title that make us sound better…..The company preys on unknowledgeable vets that dont know anything about theri mortgage….they dont even want folks to work there with past experience in mortgages cause they say they know to much ofr think they do…the company has several lawsuits against them from not only employees but costumers as well
WHOAH!!!!!
Thank you VERY MUCH for your comment!!!!!
I just hope this gets to the attention of more veterans.
Thank you.
Earl
no your welcome and if there is anything I can do to help any veteran out there Im more then welcome to do so……btw the company does monitor these type of sites just to see whos writing what so they can pose as customers and write back…..this company is just terrible and its just sad to see what they do to people all around
Thanks for the information about the monitoring. I’m not surprised. We’ll see.
As far as I can, you’re privacy is protected with me.
Earl
Since you admit there are several lawsuits against the company by the consumers, I was wondering, can you inform me if this is a class action, or simply individual lawsuits? I am inquiring because my husband and I are getting ready to have to file suit due to many illegal things they have done in our recent refinance. Unfortunately, we only contacted the Department of VA to ensure the company qualified as a lender for the VA, and now, we have discovered numerous issues in our refinance, and per the instruction of an attorney. However, the attorney instructed us to research to make sure there was no legal class action suits against them. When we financed, we never got a copy of our original documentation, the only thing we did receive was the Deed of Trust, showing a notary who never was met with by my husband and I, and not only that, but the notary was in a different county, three counties away, whom we never did meet with. The attorney then accessed the local register of deeds, discovered several issues he noted were illegal, and immediately instructed us to begin our research. Is this something you might be able to answer?
“You shouldn’t be refinancing your home with people that operate their business like a snake oil side show … even if some idiot working for the government says they’re legit.”
You on target here.
many folks believe them when they say fancy things with cool blobs…
nice work here
Thanks.
It really bothers me that a lot of Veterans dealing with this company are paying way more than they should to refinance their homes. I’m sure the same applies for other programs.
Earl
P.S. (I know I sound a little obsessed about this people, but I’m pissed!) In addition to yesterdays post I made in regards to the tactics used by one of MIC ‘loan officers’ yesterday I wanted to add one more thought. Even if MIC did have a legitimate offer that was to our financial advantage, he would have been totally understanding of our apprehension and that we needed time to think about just handing over a check for almost $700.00 to a complete stranger. I told him “you OFFEND my sensibilities” and that I am a ‘lay person’ when it comes to refinancing and needed a little time to make an informed decision. His response to that was ‘I take offense to that ma’am!” Lol! And I told him if he was a ‘true’ professional he would not take offense to my wanting to investigate. When he called his ‘superior’ he was talking real loud and bold (over my hollering) about ‘we have trust issues here” as he was packing his bag of crap. Well DUH!! Somebody is rippin’ somebody off by every passing second these days. You’d be a fool NOT to check into things before you make a decision like this. “Well, I was just trying to save a fellow vet over $200.00 a month”.. like we were idiots and he was this sincere, compassionate fellow comrade that had nothing but our best interest at heart.(Ofcourse all the military jargon had taken place with the small talk at introduction.) It’s all a crock. Just HAD to add this!
THEY’RE CARPETBAGGERS… SO BEWARE!
Firstly, is a nice site you have here.
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