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We contacted David K. at Lending Tree to discuss getting a first mortgage on a home we own in California that was just appraised for 320, 000. We were asking for 160, 000 to pay off all of our other debt. The home is fully paid for and in great condition. We we just making some phone calls to see what kind of rates and terms we could get. David K. told me he needed 400 from us to process the paperwork. I flat out told him no way in the world we were going to give him 400 and he told me this was simply to lock in the terms and rate if we wanted to proceed with the loan. He informed me the 400 would guarantee our 5.5% apr for 30 yrs fixed and if we were declined for any reason other than lying on our app or the appraisal not meeting the value to secure the loan, we would receive a full refund.
We have great credit scores, have never defaulted or even been late on ANY loans, we are attempting to pay off 2800 a month in outgoing bills for a new outgoing bill of about 1000 (the mortgage), so there was no way in my mind we could ever be declined for such a no-brainer, intellegent loan like the one we were trying to secure. We told David K. on our first conversation that my wife inherited the home from her father who recently passed away. We told him it didn't make sense for us to sell the property in a down housing market, so we are going to pay off all our debt and wait for the market to rebound a bit before selling the property.
After an entire month of wasting time, he tells us we haven't been on the deed long enough and we are declined due to that. THEN he said because we didn't disclose this fact, he was keeping our 400. What a scam. We told him my wife just inherited the house and everything else he asked in complete honesty. We lost a month and turned our own bank down (temporarily) because of the low 5.5% 30 yr fixed quote which they could not match. We are really angry... more at the wasted month than the 400. It is completely apparent these guys are in the business of getting 400 from people and maybe getting them a loan if it can be sold for more profit than the original 400 based on the rate they quote you.
Maybe 5.5% apr 30 yr fixed was a little low for them to sell on a second home/investment property loan and they just decided to keep our good faith money... they are CROOKS. Do not do business with Lending Tree, imo. These people need to be stopped as soon as possible. They are running a complete scam.
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/lending_tree.html#ixzz0oJglVqBV
I could not find a way to remove the complaint I posted yesterday regarding Lending Tree and their refusal to refund our "Lock In" fee. I received a call 20 minutes ago from a Lending Tree Representative stating they ARE going to issue a refund for the $400 we gave them. The gentleman was very nice and in fairness I need to retract my statement that they are refusing to refund our money as promised.
Possibly Complaintsboard.com helped or perhaps they reviewed our case and found they indeed did owe us a refund. Anyway, case closed as far as I am concerned.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I constantly get ads and mailings from lending tree, This place finds creative ways to take some money from you without ever putting out a dime. Everywhere I look to investigate the validity of this company, I find the same complaints, reviews, and scams. They have a crazy fee for everything which never bares any results. The agents lie up front about how much they can help you (to be expected), then the processing and security fees start rolling in over the next 6 to 8 weeks. Then comes the big bang, denied for some crazy reason once they tap your wallet for anywhere from $350 to $700. I wanted to see if the complaints were real, so I applied for a $10k personal loan. The process cost me $600, then i was denied because I didn't make enough money and I didn't have anything to secure up to $80% of the loan. This was just a test run to see if the company was real. I'm an investor, My current holdings equal above $65 million. My current checking account is over $7 million and lending tree says I don't qualify to be able to pay back $10k. Lending tree is a giant scam!
The latest scam is the promise for the freddit mac refinance at 3.25 and 3.50%, they promise that you will get the loan because the loan is owned by freddie mac. Then it turned into " private investors buying the loans from Freddie Mac" and they decide which loans they want to chance. They charge you 350-450 for an appraisal and make you sign papers and then a month or two later you are told its a no go or that the rate will be higher. There has to be some group out there that can look into this huge scam on promising loans and taking appraisal fees.
This is an ongoing scam by many many of these so called lenders. We have paid 350.00 for an appraisal in 2010 plus 60.00 to fax all the documents, just to be told a month later we are turned down. Just again in August, now appraisal was 400.00 and we were told NOT to pay the morgtage because it would screw up the payoff amount and we would close before it was 30 days late and they would cover any late fees on the morgtage. Well, after a month and half of being jerked around, we were turned down. We are a white/caucasian family with two incomes. We have great credit scores ( 790 and 749 ) thru credit report.com but yet these companies claim our credit is lower and want us to sign agreeing to their credit scoring ( so they can charge us higher interest on the loan they promise at the 3.50 % ). Big scam.
Countrywide pulled the same 400 doller lock in scam on my father then handed the loan to lendingtree where they procided to back date his paperwork six months changed it from 6% fix to a 10% adjustable loan charged a bunch of hidden fees i just found the proof. this caused my dad a stroke a foreclosure and the loss of my family home i im going to the media and lawyers they are about to pay