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 |
Earl says ... 
Does anyone have real info. about the lawsuit?
I just wanted to say that they have closed the Tampa office and have cut out a lot of people from the St. Pete location. I know they are being sued for calling people repeatedly who were on the Do Not Call list. It frustrated me as an “Assistant Loan Officer” when people.would beg to be put on the Do Not Call list, I would call a “supervisor” over who would sometimes take the caller’s information, and sometimes not, but most often crumple up the information and it never even made it to be removed. It was awful to have to work there and I always had a crisis of conscience having to go in to work there. I was ecstatic to hear that the owner, Bill Edwards, is being sued. I have never done anything I considered unethical before, and am glad to be out of it.
I have another appointment on Tue to refi the 3 time, help so under water and payments on time, make no sense where is the dream at 44.
Where is the looking out for VA???????????
Same boat
I’m so ashamed to say I was once an employee for this God awful company. Getting hired was a very simple process (i’m a licensed insurance agent with lots of sales history- but no mortgage history) I knew some people that worked for the company, and thought “why not, lets try it out”. As long as you can read clearly from a piece of paper, they hire you. A lot of the supervisors are ex-military so there is always this “feel good” atmosphere. Like we are doing veterans a HUGE favor here. After being there for a month, I was promoted to one of the “pushier” agents.
For every single objection a person give, the employees have this list of 23 different rebuttals to throw back at the person. The “supervisors” that get on the phone to remove your phone numbers? Hahaha, they simply write your number on a purge slip, and then all of these numbers are added to an excel worksheet and emailed over to some other douche bag in the company. No numbers are every really removed, all the numbers they receive are simply scrubbed and thrown back into the system.
They teach employees these ridiculous sales techniques to try and get appointments set up. Every body working there knows it isn’t a fixed loan. Please, please, please…as an old jerk who used to work here DO NOT SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT OR SPEND ANY TIME TALKING WITH THESE PEOPLE!! Once i realized the shit that went on here, i high tailed asap!!
I’m sick to my stomach that I’m one of the “assistant loan officers”. I got duped into working for them! I need the money so damn bad though. The worst part – I’m a military wife myself. I know telemarketing is annoying as all hell but at the same time, I don’t enjoy having my life threatened every day by pissed off veterans. I can’t wait until I find another job! And by the way, we can’t look up your info. It’s an outbound call center, we sit at computers with headsets, and your name/number pops up on our screens. I didn’t know about the crappy business until I searched it on my own in a fit of curiosity. If you ever get a call from me, I’m sorry. Just let me spill my stupid script out, and politely tell me to put you on the Do Not Call list. It will make our lives 100% easier and less hated!
I used to work there myself and know how you are feeling.
Hey Ernest, I also worked for MIC briefly. I am a Mortgage Loan Officer and like you I really needed the work at the time. I was the person in the field.
Here is the thing: They could have a great company just doing the streamline refinance for vets, however, they choice to rack up the cost of the loan by adding one full origination point and two discount points.
This is completely unethical. They could still make A LOT of money without these charges.
I have finally moved on to a wonderful company that does not charge and origination fee or discount points.
I know I have a loan with them and they still called me after I got the loan for over a year.
I am still shaking as I type this…the gal from MIC just came out, started the conversation on how this country is in such big trouble because of what happened with the housing market a few years back. It was because of the ARM. The paperwork began, and it was all put together like a used car salesman. I left the room to do some research. I am beside myself. After nicely trying to ask her to leave more than once, she kept on and on and how she would even accept $100 for a down payment. It came down to the last document, which was going to add an additonal $28K to the end of our loan. NO WAY NO HOW. I immediately called our bank and did a stop payment, my husband called their corporate office, which is ran by a bunch of douche bags, and he finally lost his temperment with them. We are headed to our locan JAG office first thing tomorrow morning to seek legal help. This is a scam, one huge scam. Nothing like looking at documents that state our interest rate will be over 7.5% in the next few years. Thank goodness for this blog, and for looking at BBB site as well. Still extremely distressed by this situation, and will NOT be signing on any documents. We need to keep getting the word out there.
Nicole K
Proud Army Wife
Well I wish I would have came across this site last year in Aug. 2012, after my husband made an appointment with them to have our home refinanced. I consider myself a relatively intelligent person but now that is in question too. Should have went with my gut and put up a bigger stink. Anyway, maybe if I would have, I wouldn’t have spent the last two days (Friday & Today); pulling out my hair and stressing to the point of blood pressure explosion. This was in regards to having found out Thursday night during a tax prep. appointment that I owed over $1,000.00 in property taxes that were not paid from my escrow account for 2012, by the mortgage company. This is a serious matter as i found out the next day from the county tax commissioners offices. They were due in November 2012, and penalties were added. To top things off if they were not paid by today, it would go into default on Tuesday. I tried to explain this to the numerous “agents, their tax department, customer service” at MIC. They finally said that they would put a rush on it via their research department. (a rush is 1 to 2 business days). What a joke, so my husband decided to pay the bill (Friday) rather then chance the default. OF COURSE…when he called this morning they said THEY paid it… WHAT? Hubby had to fax them a copy of the bill paid(no confirmation from them), and they mentioned something about it taking 4-6 months for them to refund. Not acceptable! I’ve also called the VA, since it is a VA loan, they don’t get involved in escrow or any other matter unless it involves foreclosure and usually with the lender only. What am I to do? Oh almost forgot after pouring over my HUD/ GFE, and a crap load of websites, I believe I’ve opened Pandora’s Box to a ton of discretion’s in the numbers and allowable fees. As I said I really don’t know what to do at this point, but one thing is for certain, I’m one PISSED Consumer!! Any advise??????
Kat,
Thanks for the comment and information. If you’ve done some additional and more recent research on MIC’s charges in relation to what is typical or allowed by law, it would be great to have that information if you could share it, not just for me but for everyone who might run across this post.
Yours is a new problem to me regarding MIC. MIC , for some reason, has been getting away with their business model and charges for years, in spite of complaints. But, collecting escrow to make tax payments and not paying the taxes is, to me, a very serious breach of their fiduciary responsibility; and, quite frankly, should open a whole new can of worms for them to deal with.
First of all, I’m making the assumption that MIC is holding your mortgage and hasn’t sold it to another entity.
If I were you, I would complain loud and in every direction I could think of. Since you or your husband qualify for a VA loan one of you, or both, are former military service members. Entities shafting former military people deserve a complaint to the local congressman as well as both state senators. In spite of what some mid level at the VA may have said, I would fire a complaint off to the VA Inspector General, if nothing more that to let him know you’re dissatisfied with the VA giving these people their stamp of approval. Although, I’m not one of his fans, I would give President Obama’s supposedly strengthened Consumer Protection Agency a shot at handling your complaint. See if they measure up to all the hype that they’re “new and improved”. And, I would contact entities on the state level,the state attorney general’s office, state ombudsman if your state has one, and last but not least, the state agency that licenses this outfit to underwrite mortgages in your state. It’s entirely possible that MIC may have broken a state law by not paying the taxes subjecting them to fines and or loss of license to do business in your state. Sometimes agencies are hamstrung by policies and/ or regulations and are just waiting for that last straw to break the camel’s back.
My last comment is entirely speculative. It’s been my experience that, when companies or individuals start not paying bills or are late paying them, there’s a very good chance they’re having cash flow and financial problems. This could be very important if the entity is required by law to maintain a specific amount of liquidity to stay in business as banks are, for example.
I know this doesn’t relieve the frustration that you’ve had to experience over the past several days, but complaints in many directions may actually put some pressure on MIC and they might be inclined to get your refund back sooner than 4 to 6 months, if nothing else.
Let me reiterate, your problem with MIC is different from anyone else who has responded with a comment here, and, in my opinion, very serious.
Earl
Earl,
Thank you, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one that is taking this very seriously! First before I forget as to your question regarding MIC holding my mortgage…well yes and no. Right after we closed I received my first payment notice; that I paid, in September 2012. It was to GMAC Servicing. A letter was enclosed that stated “Mortgage Investors Corporation has engaged GMAC Mortgage to service you loan on behalf of Mortgage Investors Corporation.” So my first payment was made to GMAC, and then the following and current payments have always been to MIC. Everything seemed fine so I though, payments received, proper amount on statements, even paid a little extra to principle; and it showed escrow holdings. Now what I forgot to mention in my earlier post was back in December of last year, I got a notice from the county about my taxes being due; but it’s not unusual for them to send “copies” so to speak. Me wanting to always double check things called MIC, (even wrote down the name of the person I spoke to and the date) assured me that they had got the noticed and it would be paid before the January 1st, 2013 due date. I figured okay, (gullible me), case closed. This leads us up to the present day…and my schedule for this morning. Call home owners insurance, do a little digging, call county assessors so see if there really was a supposed double payment (over $1,600.00 in Escrow last I checked) , call back MIC again (since they never called me beck), do some more research on RESPA, etc., and go from there.
FYI… If you look online there was a major lawsuit filed against MIC and other big lenders (8) on November 19th of last year in Georgia. A court allowed a Whistleblower Lawsuit alleging Fraud in Veterans’ Loans. It stated realtor’s claims that defendant lenders committed fraud by making false certifications to the Veterans Administration for the purpose of getting fraudulent claims paid by the Government in violation of 31 U.S.C 3279(a)(2) of the False Claims Act.
I believe I also read the 60 some page document on the Washington Post website.
This is all well and good, but frankly; I think it is pretty much BS that some realtors/brokers can rake in the big bucks in the name of the American People. I want to know what the VA/ the Government, etc., is going to do for the veterans like my husband, myself and others who got screwed over?? BTW….The lawyers handing that case don’t represent the little fish like us.
Kat
Dang, I may need to cancel my appointment…..
I am most likely going at this more prepared than most. I have had 5 different VA Refinance companies prepare good faith estimates with interest rates and a breakdown of all the fees. my best option so far is a 3.25% 30yr fixed with the total closing costs being under 3 grand. (that includes my escrow) the only money they are making on it as a loan broker is 529.
Sadly the company that currently holds my VA loan is Bank of America. you would think it would be cheaper and easier to refinance with them, but they want me to buy down 2.25 points just to get the rate to 3.375 making the total closing fees over 4 grand which I will not do, especially with my other offers being better.
Is the only offerings from the Mortgage Investors company the ARM loans? the “assistant loan officer” on the phone told me she had never heard of an ARM loan……..
thanks for any input!
Ed, thanks for your comments.
It’s been a number of years since I talked to them. I was specifically looking for a fixed rate loan and was told by the “loan officer” they only wrote ARM’s. That’s my experience regarding the product they were offering. I don’t think they’ve changed.
Wow. They have just called ma and tring to push a meeting time. After several rounds of “not interested,” “wife ain’t home”… Dude just wouldn’t let up until I caught him repeating from someone next to him. When confronted, his reply was “that was radio.” RIGHT!!! You, the ASSISTANT LOAN OFFICER, had to tell the radio “he can hear you.” LOL. Get a real job please!!!
Fellow vets, the only thing I’d like to remind you, you can have fun at their expense and time too.
Thank you so much to everyone who commented here! Saved our Friday afternoon from being harassed by these guys. However my husband finally had to hang up in their face when he canceled our appt. they were pushy and rude and insisted on letting us know the info we found was not credible. We let him know that 876 complaints with the BBB are probably credible. Thanks again!
Jen
I got about half way through reading all of this and I’m so mad I’m shaking. How could I be so stupid to believe these guys in the first place … 2.5% on a 30-yr fixed rate loan. I checked USAA today and their BEST rate is over half a point higher for the same type loan. I was wondering how they were making they’re money … it’s on all those up-front costs a lot of you have documented. Well, I’m not going to cancel my appointment … I’m going to let the bozo drive ALLLL the way out here and I’m going to meet him at the front door and show him the printout from the BBB that shows 512 complaints in the past 12 months and tell him I’m not interested in a company that is getting almost two complaints a day. I will not give him one iota of personal info and I will throw away every piece of mail and block their # if they start calling.
THANK YOU … THANK YOU … THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed to this page … and for your dedicated service to our great nation! God bless, Dave
Earl,
Just had one of the guy’s in our home for 3 and 1/2 hours. We were going to go through with it up until the very end. At the end he asked for $650 or 1% of the loan value as earnest money. I asked WHAT FOR? He proceeded to go into purchasing a home and blaw, blaw. We have refinanced 2 other homes we owned in the past. In fact we refinanced them several times over. NEVER, NOT ONCE did any of the lending institutions ask for money down. As he tore up the documents he said, “call Wells Fargo and ask them about this loan, they have it available and can do it also. But I doubt they will offer it to you”. Wells Fargo is the bank that holds our current note. Unknown to him I already had put in a call to Wells Fargo and they are working up several different options for us.
I called my good friend that also was my restate agent. What he said was that the loan fees sounded very high. He also said if you plan on staying in your home for a long period of time then ARM loans are not the best deals for you. I AGREE.
I also agree that the general feeling I got from the whole experience was very much “USED CAR SALESMEN”.
Earl you seem like you are trying to help Veterans, but let’s be honest, is your house paid for? I’ve lived in the same house for 17 years and refi’d 3 times and I’m still with the same sh**y loan amount from when I bought the house. The big banks aren’t any better than MIC and this loan was written by the VA. I’ve researched loans everytime there’s a refi boom and the bottom line is you either pay closing costs upfront or you pay more over time in the end. I’ve done it the banks way 3 times, I’m going to try the VA’s way, because MIC didn’t design this loan, the VA did.
where do get help if taken by these people?
we did signed up and cancelled the next day first thing in the morning. called the office in the afternoon to make sure they cancel it and the representative on the other line told me it has stop on the application. then 3 days after i called again and asked if when are we having all our paperworks that we signed since we did cancelled and the representative says it will take about a week out of the box. my concerned is do they just say that or they are still continuing the process of refinance even you told them very first thing that you want it to stop or cancelled the application since they are not being true.
I’ve talked to these goons a few times now.
I finally got them to stop calling after bringing out someone 2 separate times, and while nice to visitors in my home, was very direct with both them and the “manager” on the phone. They finally stopped calling me after I used the tactics published on a California website about fighting back against Telemarketers. Basically, I had THEM by the short hairs, and they knew they were about to be in legal trouble (I forget what it’s called, but there’s something you can request if they contact you, and they have a small window of time to send it to you or they will be in violation of federal law.. they stopped calling when I asked for that).
So recently I’ve been hitting a few different lending sites, and a couple of them have hit multiple lenders. *(#%@& if one of those lenders wasn’t MIC (no mention to me beforehand or I’d have excluded them). My search was *specifically* just for 30 yr fixed rates.
So of course they called again. Ugh. Told them I wasn’t interested in an ARM. They don’t know what the offers are. Whatever. Fine. I’ll throw another one out.
So the guy comes by, and damn if he didn’t talk us into it. Now this wasn’t the first time this person had been out. He even offered to my partner to just call in and say he’d been out here before and that we didn’t want to talk to him. She asked if there was anything different than last time and he said “Yes”. She came to get me (I was still working).
What’s different?
He’s saying that something Obama signed 2 months ago made a change to the way the VA loans work on stuff, and that we can always reset the rate to 2.5%. I went at this every way I could think of, and he showed me some piece of a law that, well, it looked very much like a law (I’ve read a few). The part he pointed to was part that was amending part of another law, in other words it said crap like “In section blah blah of blah blah law strike blah blah and insert hoo rah rah”. I didn’t see anything that said squat about preserving an interest rate or allowing me to adjust down if the rate increased.
He was a fast talker (literally), and knew better than to push us, but he had our attention with the idea that we could easily reset back to 2.5% if the interest rate tried to go crazy. I was skeptical about the 2.5% reset, but knocking $500 or so off my monthly would be nice, and it’d be several years before the interest rate was high enough to do anything to bad to me, and there are *some* provisions for getting out of an ARM with a VA loan.
Of course, I’ll still want that in writing (if I do decide to do it eventually, but after the below, that’s not likely to happen)
So then he starts going over numbers with me… I look at the estimate thing he wants to show me.
Over $20,000 added on to my loan. Basically I go from owing 378k to 398k.
He saw “that look” in my eye but pushed a little further, until I showed him I could get a fixed rate @ 2.875%, told him I’d seen offers for 2.75% on a 30 year fixed, and those with no closing costs, and I could do 2.75% with my current bank with half the costs of what he’s showing me, and almost the same payment. Either way, this was some bull puckey. He quickly backed off.
Said they’re having some big sale management meeting thing mid october and he’s hoping they’ll move to be more competitive and he’ll let me know and hopefully have good news for me.
I think I’ll just hold out for the 2.75% to come back, or a 2.875%, below 3% basically. Only reason I’m not already doing it is because I talked to a bank that was going to do it 2 days before rates sunk below 3% and they didn’t want to move me so letting things expire to talk to them again (and keeping an eye on things in the meantime). Rates are still falling so, should be fine for a few more weeks.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and my bank will do 2.75% for almost nothing. That’d be nice. Then I don’t have to change anythign.
MIC though… I want to meet this “Marine” that “owns” the company. I really do. I want to meet him.
Wow. I’m glad this site is still up. We have been receiving calls from MIC all day long, everyday. How do I make them go away? Today I answered the phone and got all these questions from this guy acting like my best buddy. I informed him in the event that my husband and I do agree to refi our house, we would be doing it with someone / some company we already know and trust. I asked for a website, got one, checked it out and it looked too good to be true. I told the guy on the phone that I needed to do some research and would get back to him if I needed him. Now I know….I’ll never get rid of him. But we are not signing ANYTHING with this company. Even through there are some good reviews…it sounds like the writers don’t really know how MIC affects them long term, they just like that their monthly payments are lowered for now.
Oh boy, we’re in the process of being taken by these guys… my wife got the mailer and though “oh this is great” and the guy came, we signed a bunch of paperwork and stupidly handed him a $650 check for a “good faith” deposit.
Are we too late; we haven’t finalized (completed the closing) as they’re supposed to send a notary out to complete it but i’m worried we signed a contract binding us at this point.
Can we tear it all up and tell them to pack sand?
In all honesty, it didn’t seem too bad. The refi costs were only about 5.5% of our loan not the 10% some have experienced. We’re also moving next year so the house will going up for sale so the arm is a non-issue.
I literally canceled an appointment with them close to 20 minutes before I got on here. I called them last night to set up an appointment and while talking, it dawned on me that I didn’t do any research on them (something I’d normally do). I saw some negative reports about MIC (after finishing the call) and per my wife’s advice, I decided to call back and cancel the appt. I got an answering machine when I did. So I waited until today and talked with someone about cancelling.
Dude KEPT trying to convince me how I could save money and he kept wondering why I changed my mind. He eventually got to the point of telling me (after I kept holding my stance) to call them back whenever I want to save money and then he abruptly ended the call. Thank God I dodged that bullet.
The “loan officer” just left our home. Wow, talk about persistent! We simply asked for time for my husband and I to discuss privately, but in her “won’t take no for an answer” attitude, it became a 2 hour battle! I finally excused myself and did a quick search, and am grateful I found this blog. I gave my husband the “cut” gesture, and then began the last hour of trying to get her out of our home. Of course, saving money sounds good in theory, but you’re adding SO much more to get “close” to saving. She wanted us to tack 18K back on our loan!!! With the way we pay, we would still take a year to recoup that amount! So, my hubby doing his number crunching game found that it would only save us 1428 a year! Give a little more with the years following, but to refi with a reputable bank could just as easily do that with a FIXED rate in the 3% range (national average). I’m sticking to my guns that a simple (less costly) bank refi would be the better (and less headache) way to go! Thanks for y’alls insight!
This company has called my husband and I repeatedly for MONTHS!! Thank GOD my father inlaw stopped us before we went through anything with them but they will NOT leave us alone!!! We have politely asked them time and time again to stop calling us and to remove us from the call list. Tonight they call and ask for someone else and when told they had the wrong number they started talking to my husband asking if he was a home owner ect ect and we, again, told them we wanted to be removed from the call list. The person transfers my husband to somesone else who asks what the problem is and my husband tells him and the guy proceeds to try to get my husband to refinance!!! OH MY GOD really!?!?!? My husband tells him he doesn’t understand what is so hard to understand about “I’m not interested please stop calling and remove me from you call list!” The guy tells him that they are just trying to do their job….ok…I understand that but when told NO and STOP calling you do exactly that!!!! Do not refy with this company!!! We got lucky and were stopped before we did and I am gratefull!!!!
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!
I work for a mortgage company and it is required that we see a bank statement and income because we need to know what you can afford. NOT to rip people off. It sounds like the people getting ripped off arent reading the fine print in the closing costs.
how in the world can a Loan Officer that is both state and federal background checked and approved, provide an applicant with accurate information if they dont know what your pay off is? Any financial institution MUST know this information to continue. As far as a social security number…..if a bank is going to refinance your loan, dont you think they need to know your social security #? Talk about a jack ass….. who would provide a mortgage to anyone, a veteran or not, without checking their credit? You cant finance a $400 tv at Best Buy without providing a social security #. I work in the Mortgage industry as a mortgage broker….a middle man. I dont like MIC because they are untouchable as far as rates go and they take all of our business. Fact is, ignorant people, like you, just dont understand a benefit when they see it. Every applicant is sooo protected by the Federal Government, and if a Veteran, they are further protected by the Veterans Administration. So mr. jack ass, one question, if you are at a car lot and the dealer asks for your pay off on your trade in, or god forbid need your social security # to see if you even qualify….. how in the world do you expect to do business???? I bet you drive a 1982 Lebarron and probabaly live in a house that is sub standard to the VA. Did you give your name to the elementary school when your parents enrolled you???? Stupid is, is stupid does. I would hate to imagine the way you handle any business transaction. 10% costs???? shows your intelligence…..RESPA laws prevent this and plus the VA has a maximum percentage of costs any institution can charge. Please stay out of our brokerage office, because we are going to need enough vital information to continue We, like banks or brokerage need this cost paid up front most require a upfront application charge. GOOD LUCK
This is one of three comments supposedly made by three individual entities (W. Ramsey, Steve Johnson and Nicloe Brown) which all come from the same IP address located in Tennessee and all written on the same day. All three comments are favorable to MIC. While it is possible that these three comments were made by three seperate people on three separate computers part of a private network contained within that specific IP address, it’s a slight stretch to believe that Steve J. actually wrote his comment in North Carolina and had it routed through this IP address although that is possible. Please take this information into consideration when evaluating the validity of these comments.
Earl
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??????
This is all very interesting to me. I’m skeptical on both sides however. We had an MIC loan officer come into our house who was extremely pleasant. I’ve never received a single phone call, just a letter in the mail.
She went through all the numbers, and explained the “truth in lending”. I understand how angry I would be if I felt like I was lied to, but I don’t, and sympathize with those of you that feel like you were.
I sent the numbers over to our financial consultant, who initially said that any arm is bad (before he looked at it). Once he had time to review everything, he suggested we proceed.
Here are my suggestions,
Look at the amortization schedule, this will show you exactly what you owe on your house each year. Compare that with your current amortization schedule. This shows you how much you pay in principal vs. interest.
Look at the truth in lending statement, and good faith estimate.
Yes, I had to pay a deposit of 3100 to get it going, which is equal to 1% of my loan. I get that back. I’ve bought and sold a few houses, and this did not strike me as unreasonable.
The final numbers, for my loan show this (note that currently my loan is at 4.5%)
I will save 412.00 per month on my payment.
I will be applying an additional $236 per month to principal for a total benefit of $648 per month.
I will be tacking on to my loan about 20k with points buy down, escrow, etc…
Factoring in the 412 in my pocket, the 238 more per month going to principal, the reduction in interest etc, based on the amortization schedule I will owe approximately the same on my house after 18 months as I would if I stuck with my original loan. After 19 months, I would owe less than with the original loan. After 36 months, it is significantly less.
With a traditional ARM your interest is calculated based on your original loan amount, same with a fixed rate loan. With the 3/1 hybrid, your interest is calculated based on current balance. What this means is that even if at year 4 my interest rate goes up to 3.5%, my current balance is such that my payment will still be much less than it is currently. Taking worst case scenario in to account, if the interest rate goes up max 1% per year, max 5%, after 8 years, would put me at 7.5%. My outstanding loan balance would be much lower that it would have been with my original loan, and my payment will have gone up 18 bucks from what I pay currently.
So at worst, in year 8 my payment goes up 18 bucks and what I owe on my house is reduced significantly versus my current loan. I can live with that.
Keep in mind, I plan on selling my house in 5 years, and this will put me in a much better position to do so. I’m at work right now typing this, and no I dont work for them. When I get home I would be happy to scan the numbers and post them. These are all approximate from memory, but I understand how it works.
Had someone here last night to talk about this. I am just a little confused though. I see a lot of bad reviews with this company, but from my point of view it didn’t really look that bad. 2.5% for 36 months, up to 1% increase per year after that, which i am not stupid, i know the game it will be the 1%, nothing less, so that puts me at 7.5% at the 8 year mark which is highest it can go. i also realize that is high especially right now, but they were up front about the rates. I checked the math that guy did after he left and he was correct in all his numbers. Would i be financing more than i currently owe? yes i would and i know that, would i pay more in interest over the life of the loan? yes, i would if i live in the house for the life of the loan, which i won’t. Do i lose all the interest i have paid off on the original loan? yes i would and i know that too. Would it give my and extra $250 a month for the first 3 years? yes it would, and to tell you the truth i could really use it. So Earl or anyone for that matter please tell me what makes this company so evil? If i truley making an mistake and putting my family at risk, help me adjust my fire before i do. Thank you for your time.
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.
This is what happened to us and we called and cancelled the appointment and they keep calling and calling and calling!! UGH! I am at the point now where if they call again I am going to call a lawer because they are out of line! We were going to do what you did but I work from home and was very busy the week they were scheduled to come so we cancelled instead.
thats awesome, u should keep scheduling appointments and not being there on purpose
First: You did buisness with them. They have six months where DNC does not apply.Abuse them all you want. They know where they work.
All I can add — seems they have a formula — is do not trust what they say if you ask them a financial question. I simply asked — What is the worst case financial exposure on this loan? I wanted to know how much I would save refinancing. I was shown a significant number “worst case.”
After the dude left — I ran the numbers again for myself. Because, it felt “wrong.” My head these numbers do not compute. Oh! Surprise! A $150,000 swing — not in my favaor. The amount quoted was near (but better) than the BEST Case scenario,
Yup, and stupid me out a few hundred bux. Sunny side is I got a mailer the next day.BBB Member 1 resolved complaint in several years. Bonifide A+ member — same starting rate and low and behold for 30 years FIXED. Immense savings and no “worst case” applies. $70,000 real savings.
Note interest rate dropped a few bits. Before fin al signing — so its cheaper!
Scammers for sure. Any company that calls you 3+ times/day 6 days/week is probably not a respectable company.
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!
We had the appt on Sat, the guy was here for 4 hrs, when it should have only taken 1. We went through process, gave check and were told they would call us back in 5 days. We were still deciding, and they called my ins company, requesting a declaration sheet with their name on it Instead of the current mtg company. So I had my husband google them and this is what I’m finding
same situation.. then i googled Disney world and realized they had more complaints. FACT i discovered after talking to the VA, that they were right… the VA created this loan as a clear benefit. I called my CPA and she reminded me she was a tax professional, not a licensed loan officer and reminded me how serious the federal government is about mortgage fraud. Sure enough EVERYTHING they said was true. Not only am i saving 303 per month, i also get 137 dollars a month that goes straight to my principal…wow, i read this stuff and wonder why other veterans who are bitching couldnt see the forest from the trees. oooh yea, we compared the total payments with their loan to my existing one which was at 4.375%…..we are saving a total of 41,238 over the 30 years compared to myoriginal truth and lending. Great job Robert. It all went down as you said. By the way, i got back $3250 just in time for our family vacation. I missed the next months payment AND ALSO got my escrow money back from current lender. If i had another va loan, id call MIC back tomorrow. This process not only fixed me for the remainder of term, but also allowed me to get back on track with my finances. I had to give a 1% deposit to show i was serious, but also had been shopping around and learned that USAA and quicken yourgage as well as many others rerquired a deposit also. Heck, we had to give a deposit to the resort, that was not refundable ,to where we later took our vacation. Thanks again
Steve J
North Carolina
This is one of three comments supposedly made by three individual entities (W. Ramsey, Steve Johnson and Nicloe Brown) which all come from the same IP address located in Tennessee and all written on the same day. All three comments are favorable to MIC. While it is possible that these three comments were made by three seperate people on three separate computers part of a private network contained within that specific IP address, it’s a slight stretch to believe that Steve J. actually wrote his comment in North Carolina and had it routed through this IP address although that is possible. Please take this information into consideration when evaluating the validity of these comments.
Earl
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.
yea, i just canceled my application. unfortunately, i already had an appointment with a guy.
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.
Miranda, you are a scumbag for working for a company like this. Find some integrity and get a proper job.
this info scarted me too. I called local va rep and was confirmed that this is a loan the va designed. My deposit was a little less than 1% and i needed to post date it for 4 days. i figured i had 4 days to figure it out. I ca;lled to ask about canceling and was reassured because the hundreds of thousands of veterans they had helped, like a 93% ratio. People just dont put good things on web. They cant change the numbers once i get the good faith estimate unless they decrease them, so i gave it a chance. Turns out im glad i didnt act on hasty gut feeling. By the way, the phone calls from mic and the countless other banks were annoying. My big concern was why are they come to my house???? the state approved office was 4 hours from my house in Charlotte ….another benefit, because i woulnt want toi drive that far. i love my loan. no other bank has a rate that low…..not even close. Real company!!!! do yourself a favor and dont just read one negative comment and make your decision from there.
coastguard212@yahoo.com
This is one of three comments supposedly made by three individual entities (W. Ramsey, Steve Johnson and Nicloe Brown) which all come from the same IP address located in Tennessee and all written on the same day. All three comments are favorable to MIC. While it is possible that these three comments were made by three seperate people on three separate computers part of a private network contained within that specific IP address, it’s a slight stretch to believe that Steve J. actually wrote his comment in North Carolina and had it routed through this IP address although that is possible. Please take this information into consideration when evaluating the validity of these comments.
Earl
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?
Earl,
Dude you obviously know nothing about mortgages. Just because you cut your interest rate in half doesn’t mean that you cut the payment in half. Keep in mind that MIC generates mortgages they can’t magically change how math works. If you don’t know how mortgage payments work then look online at a mortgage calculator. I used to work in the mortgage industry before the meltdown and I refinanced with MIC because it was a good deal for me. They do not charge 10%, which from your comments I can see that you probably don’t know how to do that sort of math. They charged me 3% plus third party fees(about 2%) which totaled about 5%. I was told they charge the same prices to everyone. I did think that was a little high but I needed the savings. I referred my brother to the company and they showed him the same presentation they showed me and charged him about the same amount.
Hey earl I hope your post on here doesnt cause people who need to save money (so they can keep their house) from taking a honest look at what MIC could do for them.
This loan may not be for everyone but if you need to save money you can take it from me that the guys are doing things on the up and up even if they use sales tactics to get you in a new loan. The presentation was quite comical but hey i got a laugh and save some money.
The problem with post like the ones on here is they all seem to be from people who don’t know much about loans.
Leigh, I do know that 10% is twice as much as 5%. I also know that actuarial tables and interest calculations do skew the pure math. But, it all follows a linear pattern, not exponential or otherwise, … and that doesn’t require a loan officer to understand. I also know that there are additional costs attached to loan payments like mortgage insurance, but that easy to deduct. What’s left over is very linear, … Dudess.
Earl
Earl,
What you are missing is that YOU PAID A FULL 1% ORIGINATION FEE AND A FULL 2% IN DISCOUNT POINTS!!!!!! Had you gone through any other institution you would have only had a processing or underwriting fee that would have been somewhere around $800 to $1000. So if your loan amount was $100,000 you paid a ful $3000 which is equity they took out of your home. You can have had the exact same deal for less money if you had just check around.
No, Laura, I didn’t pay anything since I didn’t do a loan with them. And, $6,000 (what they wanted in closing costs) is 10% of $60,000.
Earl
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?
You are lying because we also have USAA and they have the highest home insurance around. This is for big muny
Alma, I had my insurance with Traveler’s and it went from $1700 to $2500 in the first year then this last year it went to almost $4200, which by the way MIC paid with out informing me. Then they sent a letter less than a year into the loan saying that my loan was going up almost $300 which is what they were suppose to be saving me a month based off the Good Faith Estimate because they said I was $2660 short on my escrow. I understand that is because my insurance went up. However as I was told by MIC that their policy is not to inform but to pay and collect the difference by increasing the MONTHLY PAYMENT OR PAY THE DIFFERENCE UP FRONT UNLESS IT IS A HARDSHIP! Hello, of course it is a hardship. This could have been a easy fix. Especially in this day and age, with a thing called the internet. However the policy or their refusal to manage the loan caused me to come up short. A simple e-mail saying we received a bill from your insurance company and it went up over $1700 from the original cost do you want us to pay this for the next year. I could have fired the insurance company a found a new company and we would not have this problem. I would have fired them and went with my new insurance company USAA which is about half of what Traveler’s wanted. I would have fired them just like I’m about to do with MIC. My original loan went from $240,000 to about $257,000 after MIC finished with me. They paid a loan for about $2500 and put $3660 toward my escrow. The rest was charges for the loan, including $5078 to buy the interest points to 2.5%. The loan was a ARM and I was toward that it was not “scheduled” to go up until 2015. This a hell a way for the VA to take care of its veterans since you have to be veteran to qualify for this loan. Be cautious when dealing with VA loans.
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?
I think I may have been scammed by these people too. I have noticed too many inconsistencies and two different account numbers on my closing documents. Also, VA sent me a notice telling me that my benefit has been all used up. I must have signed for them to take the rest of whatever was left in there. Please tell me if you have an attorney I can call for the class action, or at the very least to get me out of this.
“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!
Earl:
I have benefited from these comments. Just this morning again, a MIC called and I felt ready to counsel him for 3 seconds. It’s been more than 2 years with repeated refinance deals. I reminded this caller that I have so many times told them to stop calling my number. “Well, I am going to make sure you are on the not calling number list” he said, and I hung up.
Thank you for the great job YOU are doing.
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