Freaking-A! Can we just talk?

For the most part, I am a proponent of new technology, and don't normally find myself concerned with its ubiquity, or even the way we tend to rely on it. I get the concern some people have, but it’s just never really bothered me personally. Heck, my paycheck is directly tied to the success and propagation of (telecommunications) technology, so for the most part, I’m all for it. But there are obvious times where it just makes more sense to talk.

Sarah & I are refinancing our house into a shorter-term loan with a lower interest rate. The idea is that this will allow us to get our equity back ahead of our owed principal much quicker than had we proceeded with our existing arrangement. It will be a good deal for us, allow us more flexibility when it comes time to sell, and is a way to better diversify our investments.  Anyway, the beginning of the process was ridiculously easy. We are using the FHA streamline program, and it was literally just a 20 minute call to get approved and sent to the underwriters. Piece of cake.

However, since then, we’ve run into several discrepancies with our paperwork and the settlement costs. We aren’t talking huge money here, maybe less than a grand, but still… I would like to have it done right. The lady that is handling our account (implicitly) refuses to call me to talk about it, and I don’t have a number to reach her. By design, the communication channel for this process is set up to essentially rely on email. The result has been 31 emails back and forth over the last 24 hours. I thought the issue was resolved last night, and I notarized and overnighted the required documents so we would make our closing date.

Since I’ve been dealing with this lady for over a month, I have asked her to call me 4 times so we could discuss questions I have, never to any avail. Yesterday, she wasn’t responding directly to my specific questions, so I wrote, “I really think this could probably be resolved in less than 5 minutes over the phone rather than going back and forth via email for hours on end. If you wouldn't mind calling me, please do so @ 815-814-xxxx."

 She wrote back, “I can’t call right now, I am going through a package with someone but I will call this afternoon.”

Unsurprisingly, she never did.

So today, UPS shows up with an overnighted new version of the same packet I signed & sent yesterday, but with different closing costs numbers (more in line with what I originally expected they would be.) So of course, I want to know why I got a new packet, and what happens with notarized forms I sent last night. Basically, I just want to know what is going on, why did I receive a new packet, and why didn’t you tell me about this?

I had to email my questions & am still waiting for a response. Please just freaking call me this time!