Consumer complaint received 02-02-2018 about Mortgage (Conventional home mortgage) with CARDINAL FINANCIAL COMPANY (CA).
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint: I am writing to complain about XXXX XXXX the company I found on XXXX for a refinancing and a purchase. They were not just horrible in the customer service department, but I think they are cheating customers. I refinanced a property with them inXX/XX/XXXX and then did an investment purchase loan with them in XX/XX/XXXX. 

Refinance When I first spoke with the originator XXXX XXXX about the XXXX  quote I found on XXXX for our refi, I asked him if he was able to re-lock the loan if it goes down. I've had this done at XXXX and there was never an issue when rates did go down. XXXX relocked at the lower rate. XXXX said yes, they could relock. Apparently, this was not true. The rates dropped the next day and when I called to relock, he didn't answer his phone. I emailed. I called again. Only for him to deny that he said he would relock. He then says, as a favor, I will see what we can do. He emails me with a less favorable rate and higher cost. Absolutely underhanded and lying if not illegal. 

Here 's where I think they are illegally charging customers. He told me the appraisal fee was {$600.00}. I prepaid it but was never sent an invoice from the appraisal company. I didn't think twice about this until I did the investment purchase loan with them in XXXX. This time they asked for {$720.00}. I paid again. This time though, the appraisal company included its invoice attached to the appraisal. I saw it was {$420.00}. XXXX does not have a system in place to send customers an appraisal invoice. I asked them to refund the difference and it took months! I had to contact them several times about it. In addition, I am currently doing another purchase loan with another lender and they had the appraiser immediately send me the invoice so it was clear what I was paying for and who I was paying. XXXX takes my money then pays the appraiser. They get to keep the extra and they do not tell the applicants. When this happens thousands of times, they are making money and cheating customers. Customers don't know to ask. I accidentally found out they did that to me. 

XXXX also asked me what I thought the house was worth. I told him the estimates I saw on XXXX and XXXX and told him that's where I got the numbers. When the appraisal came in low, they tried to charge me a fee because the cash out amount had changed. I complained. Why would he use the number i threw out and penalize me? I'm not an appraiser. I'm paying for an appraiser. After complaining to numerous people, including him, I finally got the fee waived. He said he couldn't do it but when I spoke to his supervisor, she said that all XXXX had to do was ask for the fee to be removed. The supervisor also said XXXX should have explained how the estimate was going to be used and the possible consequences. He did not. He was more than happy to leave me in the dark and mislead me. 

For the purchase loan, I had XXXX XXXX as the documentation specialist. She was beyond horrible for someone that just had to push documents along. Here are a list of things she did wrong. 

- She did return calls or email in a timely manner and never addressed issues I had emailed about until I talked to her. 
- She didn't know the appraisal had come in and didn't work on it until I told her about it. She let it sit for about 4 days. 
- She was constantly sending me the same documents to sign. I must have signed XXXX of the same documents just to get them cleared. 
- This one is a big one : Title and I had been telling XXXX that title has received nothing from her or anyone at the lender 's. We reached out several times. Many times. She or someone in her group had been sending requests to the wrong title office!! 
- XXXX caused substantial delay in our closing. We had agreed to a closing date well inadvance and underwriting was done well in advance. We just needed the 3 day closing disclosure notice. We ( title, myself and agent ) all called her and emailed her leaving messages for the day that the notice needed to be released that day or we would miss our signing deadline. She and I talked about this and she was on the same page but the day she was suppose to do this, she doesn't. I had to get the originator involved but it was too late. 
My husband flew home from XXXX to sign the papers. He wasted money and time because she couldn't get the disclosure out. For no apparent reason. XXXX then blamed other people when she was the only one I had any contact with. I had asked her for the contact information of the others she was working with so I could deal directly with them. She turned me down over and over. But she has the nerve to say, " I'm sorry if you think I'm the one who sends that paperwork out. '' She has told me over and over again, she is the only contact and she withheld contact information for anyone else. 

I tried to go through XXXX of the Consumer Advocacy Office of Cardinal Financial. First she seemed like she was actually going to do something. But after all that was said and done, she really was just pacifying me and not really doing anything. Everything was kept secret and I never knew what the heck was going to be done if anything about XXXX, XXXX and the excess appraisal fees. She said they would credit me back the appraisal fees I paid. So they let me overpay the appraisal fee in the tune of {$300.00} but want to give me back my own money for the trouble they caused. That was the last straw. She says there was some confusion about this but no, it is all in the email correspondence where I told her they owed me {$300.00} because I paid too much. 

This company is dishonest and management is allowing it to continues.

Company public response: Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation