Consumer complaint received 2018-01-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
This is a complaint about the deceptive behavior of a Bank of America loan officer, XXXX XXXX XXXX, NMLS ID # XXXX. 

XXXX XXXX played us for about 50 days by offering refinancing mortgage rates significantly lower than any other competitor. On multiple occasions, I asked XXXX XXXX to lock the rate at the rate he claimed he could lock on, but each time he insisted on waiting for a day or two to get a better rate. Finally, on Friday XX/XX/XXXX, I explicitly asked and insisted on locking the rate at the same day or on next Tuesday morning ( Monday was the XXXX holiday ), at latest. We discussed the possibility of events that could bring the rate slightly down in the following week, but I insisted that I wanted to lock the rate at the moment at my own risk. XXXX XXXX accepted and agreed to lock the rate. He just asked me to write an email to him claiming that I had a better offer from XXXX XXXX. After sending him the email, I followed up through text messages and asked if we were all set with the rate. He replied back confirming that we were all set with the rate and it was locked. 

Several days passed and the application documents on the Bank of America website did not change. I sent several emails to XXXX XXXX and all of them remained unanswered. After calling him 4 times on Tuesday XX/XX/XXXX, he finally returned my calls. In answer to my questions about the rate he delivered two false statement, ( a ) I clearly asked if our rate was locked at 3.125 % interest rate and 0 % point ( for a 30-year 7/1 ARM ) as he had promised, and he repeated and confirmed those numbers, ( b ) I asked if the rate was locked why the official documents on the Bank of America website were not updated. He answered he did not know, but he had heard the same complaint from another applicant, and suggested that probably something was wrong with the system. Both statements were lies purposefully delivered to cover up the fact that he did not and could not provide us with the rates he had claimed. 

Finally, he asked us to meet with him in person to review the application. We set an appointment for Saturday, XX/XX/XXXX. He sent me another email asking to repeat my email about having a better offer on Wednesday XX/XX/XXXX, promising that we will be " pleased '' with the offer when we review it on Saturday. Finally, Friday XX/XX/XXXX, the mortgage summary document on the Bank of America website got updated and we noticed that the offered rate was actually 3.250 % plus 1.125 % points. 

It turned out that XXXX XXXX promised the rates he did not have authorization to deliver to keep us suspended for a long time. When we finally insisted on locking the rate and finalizing the loan he started lying about having a locked rate offer. He kept us in dark for 10 days pretending that he had locked the rate for us. He used this tactic to keep us in suspension while waiting for the market to slightly improve, so that he could partially deliver his false promises. We had an opportunity to refinance our house at a significantly lower rate inXX/XX/XXXX. We stopped by this loan officer to get a second opinion and lost our opportunity to his deceitful scheme and gamble.

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