Consumer complaint received 2020-11-26
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: VA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX, applied for a refinance loan with Suntrust ( now Truist ) for my condominium that I bought last year XXXX XXXX ). The existing loan on the condo that I was trying to refinance was also with Suntrust ( now Truist ). My refinance was approved by Suntrust and the rate was locked on XXXX XXXX. Suntrust said they required to do my credit check and they needed to get my condo questionnaire to continue the application process, so they charged me {$400.00} for these tasks and completed those steps. I agreed for them to get condo questionnaire again, even though I had taken the existing loan from them on the same property just a year back. They had gotten the Condo questionnaire then too. I agreed because they said these were their requirements. 

However, Suntrust did not make any good progress on my loan application for an extremely long time after locking my rate and charging me {$400.00}. Till almost the end of XXXX they kept delaying the process through no fault of mine. I sent them many emails asking for updates. 
Reasons that were given for the delay were : " Our underwriters are beyond full right now as we have never had as many loans in the system. '' " Were definitely backed up with underwriters prioritizing the purchases instead of refinances. ", etc. 
Basically, they delayed my loan to do what is convenient for their business ( no fault of mine ). 

In spite of repeated emails and requests for updates, there was no end in sight to complete my loan. I was not given any deadline date by which they were aiming to finish the process. During this period, I had to obviously continue making my old mortgage payments at higher ( old ) interest rate. These old mortgage payments went to Suntrust because they had given me the original loan too. 

So, basically, they charged me {$400.00} for their requirements, and I had to continue making higher interest rate payments. They charged me the money and weren't able to make progress. It is extremely unfair to make me wait forever and expect that I will be okay with them taking my money and just keep making old, higher interest mortgage payments to them, when I could go with other lenders. It caused me financial loss to keep waiting for them. They essentially locked me by taking my money. I finally decided to go with another lender because I could not wait forever ... I had to close my process with Suntrust around the end of XXXX. I informed the same to Suntrust and asked them to return the money that they had charged, because they did not complete my loan process in a timely manner. If they were not going to complete my loan process soon, they should have never charged me. 

They are refusing to return me the money. I requested them to return the money through phone calls and emails.. I have wasted an extremely long time on ensuring that a big bank doesn't take a common person like me for a ride and just wastes my time and money without any consequence, They should not only refund me the {$400.00} that they charged on my credit card, but pay me for the time wasted in numerous emails, phone call and all the other efforts I am having to make to ensure the right thing is done here. In addition, they should pay for the financial losses caused due to making higher interest payments on the old loan while I kept waiting on the undue delay from them. 

I was waiting for my refinance with the new lender to complete and my escrow amounts from Suntrust to come through before I lodged the complaint. I did not want any problems from them in that process. Thus, I am lodging this complain now.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation