Five years ago I bought my first home though a Wells Fargo program for 1st time home buyers and a non-profit. I was given $15K towards the back end and paid all closing costs up front. The $15K was amortized over 5 years and is now completely cleared. The non-profit gave me a “Deed of Reconveyance” which I am told will clear the “second” on the mortgage. I am going to file that doc with the county recorder soon.
Having the documentation to clear the "second", I recently I applied for a HELOC with Wells Fargo. I went into an office on July 28th and filled out an application requesting $110K. My home is worth about $200-203K and I owe about $75K on it. My mortgage payments are relatively low and the $77 HMI payments that I've been making for the past five years will drop off in October per WF. Also I have very good credit.
At the time I thought I would be dealing with someone local, but on July 31st I received a “secure” email and a voice mail from someone with WF in Phoenix, AZ who said that he would be handling my application.
That weekend I started doing a lot of research on HELOCs and realized that there was more to it than I thought and decided that I wanted to take some time to think about it more before committing. I don't really need the money, although it would be nice to have that HELOC there in case something ever came up.
During the first week of August WF guy asked for my paycheck documentation by 8/4. So I sent an email to the WF guy via secure email on 8/4 telling him that I need two to five weeks to think it over and that if I did decide to go forward I would likely also apply with at least two other banks. He didn’t respond and left another VM on Monday 8/7 asking for docs. So I resent the same email in plain text (not secure) telling him I wanted more time to think it over. The rest of that week we ended up playing phone tag.
Finally last Friday the WF guy calls. The first thing he says is that the call is being recorded and he tells me that my application had been accepted on Monday 8/7 (which he never said before in email or vm) and approved for $88K and then asks me if I accept the offer (without even telling me the interest rate). I thought that was strange since I had not even provided any paycheck documents yet. I said, “no” and asked if he had read my email asking for more time to think about it. At this point his voice sounds stressed and frustrated and he says that the offer is only open until Thursday 8/17. Then he asked for a time to call me on Monday. At that time I told him I would call next week and that I had to leave for work to avoid being late (which was true). He kept repeatedly trying to get me to commit to a time on Monday. I said I had to go and hung up.
Something tells me this guy in under pressure to reach some kind of quota and he’s trying to pressure me, which I hate. I don't buy things under pressure sales tactics.
Compounding this problem is that fact that I have a lot of questions and this WF guy is clearly from UAE or Pakistan and I can barely understand him. Now I work in IT for a huge, global company and speak to people from all over the world, all the time, especially India and UAE. I’m far better than most Americans at understanding Indian or UAE “english”. I know this because I end up translating their "english" to Americans all the time. And yet I can barely understand this WF guy. I don’t know why WF would do that, put someone with such doggy English skills in that position.
I’m concerned about this 8/17 deadline date and whether or not if WF closes my application, will that affect my credit negatively? Do they really close out apps that quickly? They can’t put it on hold even for a few weeks?
I have a long standing relationship with U.S. Bank and am considering applying with them and perhaps another party or two, if I actually decide to go forward with a HELOC.
Another thing that concerns me about WF is this very recent article with new allegations of WF mortgage fraud:
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/12/theres-a-new-wells-fargo-scandal-this-time-its-the-trucoat/ . Now I feel like I have to go through my mortgage statements to make sure I was not charged for this “insurance”.
Any advice would be appreciated since I am new to all of this.
