Dang it, I DO so enjoy their cute commercials. I hope edwino doesn’t have a run-in with Geico. I just love that little gecko.
crosses fingers that Washington Mutual stays hidden and can run fast in case Crapital One looms on the horizon
I cancelled my credit card with them when, despite my stellar payment history, they told me they were going to start charging me $48 a year (or, convenient monthly payments of $4) for the privilege of continuing to use their card.
Ha!
Tell them you’re recording the call at the beginning of the conversation. That might cut down on some of the yelling, although it probably won’t help you with the empathylessness.
CitiMortage bought out my previous mortage company. I got one letter informing me of this, then nothing from them at all. I continued to send in my payment since I got nothing telling me different then 3 months later I get a foreclosure notice. Dirty rotten SOB’s had been sending the bill to someone on Florida and not collecting the checks I’d been mailing in. No problem, I thought, my account is over by three mortgage payments, we’ll get this fixed up in no time. HA! The fees and lawyer costs and etc. ended up emptying my savings account and I still haven’t got the credit report cleaned up.
Sure, I should have noticed and proactively tried to figure out who now had my mortgage and call them up hoping they could find my account number. Middle of first month - “Hmm, that check hasn’t cleared. Eh, they usually take a couple weeks” Second - “Wait a minute, two haven’t cleared - who was it that said they bought our previous bank?” Third month - “Oh hell, we have to find that letter or get online to find out what’s going… Hello? Foreclosure? Who is this?? ARGH!”
I suspect Citi is a large part of your problem, mostly because I’ve not dealt with Capital One.
Mortgage banks are evil. Evil I say.
Try this link. Click on database. I only see a listing for Capital One credit, not mortgages, but you might be able to hop over.
Also, according to the message board there, if you select the Lost or Missing Card selection, you get a Real Live Human.
This happened to me once, not with cap one, I said just give me the 10 day pay off amount and I will satify the loan if they can’t correct it. They promptly corrected it, actually I think it took one to two seconds, no late fees, no nothing.
There is only one way I know of to end up with a mortgage holder who doesn’t sell the mortgage: Finance through Navy Federal Credit Union. Other credit unions may have the same policy, but in NFCU’s case, that’s just about the biggest selling feature going. It enables them to be unbelievably picky when you get the loan initially, but it’s WELL worth the aggravation, knowing that you will then never have another day’s worry about it.
We had an almost-as-bad situation when another mortgage we had, not, alas, financed through NFCU, was bought by Household. Same situation with useless phone numbers and screwups galore. We ended up taking a hit to refi and get the hell away from them as quickly as we could, too.
We bought a house four years ago with a mortgage from Navy Federal Credit Union. When interest rates dropped two years later we decided to refinance. I actually considered some refinancing offers lenders that LendingTree dug up, but thankfully came to my senses and refinanced with NFCU. A year later, we moved unexpectedly, sold our house and bought another. This time, we didn’t even consider any lender except NFCU. (Interestingly enough, the folks who bought our old house also financed through NFCU.)
We are very happy with them, and stories like those in this thread only reinforce that.
The only other financial institution we would ever consider for a loan is USAA. Our car loans have alternated between them and NFCU.
I have, some time ago:
- When I first started with them, I required a “proof of Insurance” form- as soon as I requested this, they informed me that I was being canceled. I informed them that this was illegal under CA state law, they re-instated me.
2.Some 2 years later, they sent me a letter about various froms of payment options. I have never liked payng my insurance by the half-year, so I started sending in my payments monthly. They cashed the checks for 7 months, then informed me that I was being canceled “due to non-payment”. Seems like there was a $1.50 a month surcharge for monthly payments, which is pretty standard- but rather than tell me about this, or ask/bill for the extra $1.50, they just canceled me *ex post facto * without any warning at all. Again, after some blather on their part & threats on my part, they re-instated me.
3.A year later I got into a small accident- not my fault but the other guy didn’t have insurance. They were cheap and slow in paying the claim, left me without a car for a month (I ran out of the one month “free rental car coverage”, which only covered about 75% of the cost in any case.) Had to file a complaint with the CA Dept of Insurance. I then gave up, despite their low rates- what use is low rates if you have no coverage?
Cuter the commercial, worse the service. If they have good service, word of mouth will help sell the product.
You are very welcome.
Probably because the numb nuts on the phone doesn’t know what the law regarding that is. Doesn’t mean you don’t have rights.
Have you found out where those two payments went? Because if it’s Hibernia that’s got 'em, you are likely within the 60 day transfer period and they can’t treat them as late (or charge you any ridiculous fees).
I can’t even begin to tell you some of the things I see go on in this industry. It’s not just any one lender, but some are indeed worse than others.
I think the key to getting anywhere when things go askew is knowing your rights, keeping a paper trail, and being willing to escalate your complaint until you get to someone in a position to help. Don’t be intimidated by the drones you are talking to.
I work in a related industry and have a decent idea what I am doing when I have to talk to the mortgage lenders and it can be frustrating as hell for me. I can imagine how much worse it must be for someone who doesn’t do it a lot. Hope you kick their butts, edwino .
Sure, but what can you do when the drone you are speaking to refuses to transfer you?
Is there a way you can conference call Hibernia and Cap One at the same time?
Hibernia, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t exist anymore.
I’ve gotten creative about that more than once:
I have asked for the name and operator number of the person I was talking to (which they are supposed to give you). For documentation purposes…because if I need to call back again I want a record of who I spoke to and how I was treated.
People are a bit more helpful when they can be identified later.
Purposely called another department, and when I got a person told them that I was having problems and I need a supervisor for the department that I really want. People from another area will sometimes hook you up, because they aren’t afraid you’re going to complain about them
Called and told them that I had been disconected three times already while being transferred (while sounding irritated, of course). Even if you haven’t actually been cut off three times, sometimes the fib is enough to get you a little extra help.
Dirty pool? Maybe. Fighting fire with fire? More likely.
YMMV, of course, but those are few of the ways I have gotten around the seemingly-impenetrable system before. And it’s even harder to get past the gate when you are negotiating for a client and are not the borrower yourself.
It’s not easy…but it’s not impossible, either.
I believe you have had the “pleasure” of speaking with my husband’s ex-wife. Last I heard she was a Captial One bill collector.
Yep. Definitely her. I feel your pain.
It’s interesting that the reps are allowed to refuse to transfer you through to a supervisor…
Over here (AU), we can get in serious trouble for refusing to allow a customer to speak to a team leader. It can lead to a formal warning if the call is being monitored, and I believe there may even be ombudsman rulings penalising a company whose staff refuse to escalate calls.
I mean certainly, if the customer’s asking for something a TL can’t do, we’re allowed to tell them that the TL is unable to assist with that enquiry (for example, TLs in our centre don’t have any technical training at all. So if you want to escalate to a TL because your internet keeps dropping out, they’ll listen to you bitch then suggest they put you back through to a rep who can actually help you resolve the issue), but if the customer pushes then we have to get the nearest TL and escalate, or else arrange a callback.
Wasn’t Hibernia headquartered in Elbonia? I swear this sounds like a Dilbert strip!
Sorry for your pain Edwino! That truly sucks. Sounds like you spent your vacation in bizarro world.
I cancelled our Capital One card years ago b/c of outrageous fees. And just cancelled the Provident account for the same reason.
But Capital One still sent applications. For a couple of years we’d get an offer every month or so.
So you know what I finally did?
Instead of digging out the shredder, I wrote “NOOOOOO” on the application (such that it would be impossible to fill in the name or address), tore it up in big chunks (leaving the pre-printed name for their reference), tore up the envelope it came in & all those little flyers they enclose, and stuffed all the paperwork (along with some other shredded paper I had laying around) in their postage-paid reply envelope & sent the sucker back.
They’ve finally quit writing us.
edwino, I had a somewhat similar situation with a billing error when our 2nd mortgage was sold, but thankfully mine was handled quickly, efficiently, and kindly on the first call I made. However, I’d suggest that you follow up as I did, for your protection, should it become necessary in the future.
When IndyFuck Bank sold our 2nd to Countrywide, we received correspondence from Countrywide in October, informing us of the transfer, what our new account number with them would be, and that our first payment due would be December 10th. Fine. Also in October we receive our November billing statement from IndyFuck, which indicated that the November payment due was $0.00. Cool. Must be some kind of grace period during the transfer or something. However, I like paying extra towards our principal balance every month, so I amend my December budget spreadsheet to reflect a double payment in December anyway, to make up for not having had to make one at all in November. I momentarily considered making a November payment in November, but since IndyFuck sold the note and said I didn’t owe anything to them, and Countrywide not only said my first payment wasn’t due until December, but hadn’t sent me an actual billing statement, I didn’t want to confuse the issue or have a payment floating around somewhere that noone knew how or where to post. So I waited until I got an actual bill.
Flash to December 1st, and I get our first bill from Countrywide – indicating a “late payment” and the fact that they’ve turned our account over to their “collections” department, along with a threat to report us to the credit reporting agencies. Outrageous! So I phone Countrywide, explain the timeline of events, make an immediate payment by phone (for which he waived the standard phone payment fee, and he expunged the “late” fee, as well), and got a payment receipt confirmation number.
I then composed a letter, addressed to the representative who had handled this transaction, recapping our conversation and outlining in writing the events. I included copies of the supporting documentation (the original notice that our first payment wasn’t due to Countrywide until 12/10 and the payment stub from IndyFuck showing our November payment due to them was $0.00), re-confirming the payment made with the confirmation number they’d provided, and this is the important part, and asking for confirmation in writing from them that our account was in good standing with them and that they had not made any reports to the credit reporting agencies or any internal records for the purpose of reporting to other financial institutions (that’s supposedly a dirtly little secret they don’t tell you that they do, that can also seriously affect your ability to get credit!). Believe it or not, I actually got a letter within a couple of weeks, confirming that our account was in good standing and that no late payments or negative reports were recorded or filed anywhere.
Good luck – I hope you can get this all straightened out. Stay on top of the bastards!