Guaranteed Rate, Inc.

We appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to resolve your concerns. We ask that you please contact our Customer Care team so we can gather the necessary information to look into your situation. We can be reached at [redacted] or be emailed at [redacted]@guaranteedrate.com between 8:30 am...

and 5:30 pm (CST). We take your review seriously and hope to connect with you soon. Regards, The Customer Success Team

I wanted to let Guaranteed Rate mortgage Know how pleased I am with the service of [redacted] and [redacted]) in the handling of my mortgage refinance. Their knowledge, professionalism and patience were unparalleled. Special thanks to [redacted] for being there day and night, keeping me informed every step of the way & answering all my questions. I am forever grateful for the hard work put in by these two in getting my loan approved. Once again thanks for the hard work and I look forward to doing business with Guaranteed Rate in the future should the need arise. Job well done!!!


Sincerely, [redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2015/05/04) */
Dear Mr. & Mrs. [redacted],
I wanted to confirm that we are in receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint filed on 4-24-2015. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns as your business is very important to us....


The delays you experienced were caused by Guaranteed Rate with the main causes being a staffing issue (maternity leave, poor backup) and high volume created due to low interest rates. We regret that your experience was less than satisfactory and have sent you $250 in gift certificates to compensate you for your frustration and stress.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Customer Care Hotline (XXX-XXX-XXXX) at your earliest convenience. Also, you have also filed a complaint with the Iowa Division of Banking to which we responded in great detail. I've gone ahead and attached the response from our Compliance Department for your records.
Respectfully,
[redacted] B [redacted]
Vice President of Client Satisfaction

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: One of their "Managers" finally reached out to me.  Basically said he would do nothing.  Their company charged me thousands in finance fees and they are not willing to reimburse anything.  This company is a scam.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2015/04/27) */
Dear Mr. [redacted],
The purpose of this letter is to confirm that we are in receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint filed on 4/15/2015. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns as your business is very...

important to us. The Customer Care team has already made live contact with you in the hopes of better understanding your concerns and finding an acceptable resolution.
Your request for a full reimbursement of your appraisal fee is something we believe is not appropriate for this situation. Our position is that this should not be reimbursed because...
A)Guaranteed Rate does not gain any direct financial benefit from any appraisal fee paid by any of our customers. What we do is help broker that transaction, but 100% of that fee goes directly to the appraiser.
B)Since your complaint does not comment on the quality of the appraisal, it implies that you were satisfied with the quality of the appraiser's work. You did receive the service you paid for which was an appraisal of the current value of your property.
If you did not receive that letter or have question about it, please feel free to contact the Customer Care Hotline (XXX-XXX-XXXX) at your earliest convenience.
Respectfully,
[redacted] B [redacted]
Vice President of Client Satisfaction
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 10, 2015/04/30) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
The charge against my card was required as part of the refinance process. Due to the fact that Guranteed Rate is responsible for insuring timely completion of that process, and failed to manage the process causing the expiration of my locked rate, and canceling my loan without any consultation which renders the appraisal useless. The mismanagement of your team effectively cost me $500, and unlike your name implies, my rate was not guaranteed.
Final Business Response /* (1000, 16, 2015/06/01) */
Dear Mr. [redacted],
I went ahead and looked further into your complaint, escalating it to the senior manager within that region. After looking deeper into the issue, it's clear that delays were created by both Guaranteed Rate and yourself; but you felt the bulk of the pain because the loan did not close successfully.
As an act of good faith and to compensate you for your frustration with the loan process, we've gone ahead and sent you $250 in same as cash [redacted] gift cards. It was sent overnight via [redacted] on 5/22/2015. If you did not receive this package or have question about it, please feel free to contact the Customer Care Hotline (XXX-XXX-XXXX) at your earliest convenience.
Respectfully,
[redacted] B [redacted]
Vice President of Client Satisfaction

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/10/10) */
Dear Mr. [redacted],
The purpose of this letter is to confirm that we are in receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint filed on 10/1/2014. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns as your business is very...

important to us.
We've reached out to your loan officer ([redacted] to discuss your issue. He'd like to talk to you directly about your complaint. He's stated that he's reached out to you several times, but you refuse to take his calls. We believe that there's simply been a miscommunication between our team and you; we'd like to walk you through it. We respectfully request that you give [redacted] 10 minutes of your time to resolve this issue.
We apologize for the dissatisfaction you felt during your last loan experience. Please contact the Customer Care Hotline (XXX-XXX-XXXX) at your earliest convenience, so we can set up a time for a call with [redacted]
Respectfully,
[redacted] B [redacted]
Vice President of Client Satisfaction

Hello!
The purpose of this letter is to confirm that we are in
receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint filed on 11/11/2015.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns as your
business is very important to us!
We apologize for any frustrations...

you experienced during
your loan process, but want to clarify that it was not Guaranteed Rate who
preformed the appraisal on your home.  Appraisals
are conducted by a 3rd party appraisal company.   Unfortunately,
we cannot grant your request for a refund of the appraisal fee due to the
following reasons: A) Guaranteed Rate does not gain any direct financial
benefit from any appraisal fee paid by any of our customers. B) You did receive
the service you paid for which was an appraisal of the current value of your
property.  If you still feel the appraisal
was unjust, please contact the appraisal company directly.  If you have any questions regarding the
company that preformed your appraisal, we would be more than happy provide the
information for you. Guaranteed Rate will consider this specific issue
resolved.  If you have any other
questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Customer Success team at (773) 328-6467 or [email protected].
CheersColleen [redacted]Customer Success Team

GR selected and contracted an Appraiser for refinancing my home. Said "appraiser" did not obtain accurate tax records from the county, as required. Instead he reported inaccurate information negelecting nearly half an acre of property. Since the entire property IS half an acre, this lead to a gross misrepresentation. In addition to comparables being completely off, due to his inaccuracies, the entire appraisal is worthless. GR then denied the loan, but funny enough was able to offer me a secind mortgage at a much higher interest rate. Scary bad customer service and deceptive business practices. Stear clear.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2014/07/07) */
Dear Mr. [redacted],
The purpose of this letter is to confirm that we are in receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint filed on 6-23-2014. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns as your business...

is very important to us.
We apologize for the changing closing date and will be refunding the $140 requested. Unfortunately, we will NOT be refunding the appraisal fee because A) we only collect the appraisal fees for the appraisal company (i.e. received no revenue from this transaction) and B) you received the appraisal service (i.e. got the service requested).
Also, all other requests for compensation will NOT be honored as your loan was processed in accordance with the committed pricing and timing. The "misinformation" cited in your complaint stemmed from a lack of a complete disclosure during the application process (i.e. involved a short sale). The property was a short sale, thus it required a higher down payment per underwriting guidelines. Had the short sale information been included in the application process, you would not have had a change in down payment requirements.
We hope that this puts this matter to rest. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Customer Care Hotline (XXX-XXX-XXXX) at your earliest convenience.
Respectfully,
[redacted] B [redacted]
Vice President of Client Satisfaction
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 10, 2014/07/21) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I appreciate you correcting the error with the closing date and additional charges. I received your check for $140. However, I think you misread the statement about the appraisal. I am not questioning the charge for the appraisal. I agree that I should pay that fee. I was just stating that I think you charged me twice for the appraisalonce on my credit card and again on the HUD statement.
The idea that the company wasn't aware of my short sale until May 30 (when they informed me of the problem with the PM insurance) is not based in any fact. First, I told [redacted] about the short sale when I first talked with him. I did that with every company I contacted. After talking with another mortgage company, they told me they couldn't give me PM insurance because of the short sale. That is the reason I called [redacted] on April 12 asking him if I would have any problems getting PM insurance. He told me PM insurance was not a problem on April 14. Based on this information, I placed an offer on the house. I would not have immediately placed an offer on this house if I were told that I needed 10% down to get PM insurance. I would have seen if I could raise the additional 5% or looked for another house. I had no plans to take out money from my retirement account because of the taxes and fees. Let me be clearI was very open about my credit with every mortgage company because I wanted to avoid any surprises (like the one that happened with Guaranteed Rate).
Second, by providing me an initial approval, I know that the company pulled my credit reports because [redacted] referenced them in my discussions with him. He outlined my debt and credit scores. These credit reports clearly show that the sale of my previous house was a short sale or something equivalent because they reflect a "charge off " or settlement for the amount owed. Any reasonable loan officer knows this, as every other company I contacted saw this on my credit report and referenced my short sale. At the very least, your company was negligent in reviewing my credit report before offering me an approval letter that stated that I was approved with only a 5% down payment.
Finally, Guaranteed Rate gave me a conditional approval on May 14 that asked for a description about the sale of my previous property. It didn't mention anything about problems with PM insurance, and [redacted] didn't say anything about problems with PM insurance. I asked [redacted] if there was a problem with the loan because of this condition, and he said that they just needed a description of my previous sale for my file. I promptly provided that letter on the very next day. If I was told that there was a problem with PM insurance when I received the conditional approval letter, I still would have had time to back out of the sale (we got the mortgage contingency extended three days because Guaranteed Rate didn't meet the initial mortgage contingency date that they promised to me).
Overall, there were three times that Guaranteed Rate should have told me about the PM insurance issuewhen I told [redacted] about the short sale, when he (or others) first reviewed my credit report, and when I received my conditional approval on May 14. Unfortunately, I was not told about the PM insurance problem UNTIL May 30, beyond any time where I could have done something that wouldn't have caused me any financial injuries. Because of Guaranteed Rate's actions, I have to pay over $14,000 in taxes and penalties that would have been avoided if the company acted properly.
I also take issue with the statement in Guaranteed Rate's response that they provided me with the committed "pricing and timing." Guaranteed Rate did not provide me with the product that they offered and I accepteda loan with a 5% down paymentwhich was material to the whole transaction. In fact, the entire process was full of unfulfilled promises and terrible service. Here is just a partial list of additional problems besides those already detailed in my complaint and this response:
1. My closing was scheduled at 3 pm, and the paperwork was not at the title company until 4 pm.
2. Guaranteed Rate called my employer around 5 pm on the DAY OF THE CLOSING (2 hours after the closing was to begin) to verify my employment. Coworkers tell me that they received a call from Guaranteed Rate that day even though I never listed them as contacts. I only listed a person from our human resources department. This alone violated the confidentiality one would expect from a mortgage company.
3. Nobody was able to give me an accurate amount for how much money I needed to bring to the closing. [redacted] thought I should bring about $30,000, but this was far beyond the $18,000 I actually needed. The title company could not tell me because nothing was sent from Guaranteed Rate until almost 1 hour after the time the closing was suppose to start.
4. I began my application 55 days before the closing, but I did not have a clear to close until the day before the closing (less than 24 hours before I closed). You claim that you can close a loan in 30 days, but you had 55 days to close my loan. If you had done all of the work within 30 days, we wouldn't have had any of these problems.
5. Your customer service department was extremely rude when I tried to determine when I was going to have the clear to close. I talked with them on June 6. Allison Murphy called me and told me that they will have it closed within a day or two. She told me to call her if there were any problems. After I contacted customer service, [redacted] called me and told me that they would have my loan clear to close by the morning of June 9. I called [redacted] on June 9 and 10 to complain that they I still didn't have the clear to close. Her rude response was: "What do you want me to do about it?"
Overall, this entire process was the worst customer service I have had from any company in my entire life. What was supposed to be a happy time was unnecessarily stressful and difficult because of Guaranteed Rate's poor customer service. Guaranteed Rate is solely responsible for the financial loss I suffered from this transaction and should reimburse me for those costs that I would not have had if they had acted properly. Further, they do not deserve the loan-processing fee because of the terrible service they provided.
I would be happy to send the company all of the email communication I had with Guaranteed Rate that support my claims.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 17, 2014/08/29) */
Dear Revdex.com,
As requested, I'm providing evidence that the borrower did NOT get double charged for their appraisal. I've attached a copy of the HUD which documents all of the financial transactions involved with the loan. This is a required legal document regulated by the CFPB. If you look at line #804 on page 2, it clearly states that $300 was paid to "FOR WHATS ITS WORTH REAL ESTATE APPRAISAL". This is a typical amount and it clearly states that this money went directly to the appraisal company "FOR WHATS ITS WORTH REAL ESTATE APPRAISAL".
I hope this helps to close this complaint, but please contact me w/questions or concerns.
Regards,
[redacted] B [redacted]
VP - Client Satisfaction

Hi [redacted] and [redacted], We are in the receipt of your Revdex.com (Revdex.com) complaint. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your complaint and close your loan as requested. Sincerely, The Customer Success Team

Terrible experience with Guaranteed Rate. Missed securing our loan for agreed closing date. They had 3 months to do their job and they failed. Also failed to call us and tell us that. Had to find out from real estate agent. Failed to lock in a rate 2 times and had to argue that. It took 5 contracts for the terms to be correct. Thankfully I noticed all of their continiuous errors. Do they scam or are they incompetent? I really hope they are scammers because at least it shows some sort of aptitude instead of the bumbling incompetence I witnessed. I had to trust the biggest purchase of my life with these guys and wouldn't trust them to order a hamburger... Go to [redacted] or [redacted] loans. I had more confidence talking to one of their random phone people than Guaranteed Rate's senior loan officer.

Guaranteed rate made promises all the way through the process that we were good to go. My husband and I have a very complicated portfolio with owning a business and multiple properties. communication was set from the get go that we were split between 2 states and to gather all information early on as we were planning a very large move and paperwork would be split. 2 weeks before closing when I asked if there was anything further needed I was told no, they had everything. Then the paperwork never showed up for close. and we started questioning 3 days prior to close where's the commitment. Guaranteed then started requesting information in large amounts. Wanting things verified that should have been on the radar for weeks. The night before closing was supposed to happen we were told it wasn't happening. They could see no way around it. After badgering the agent about what was wrong and being told that they found a $65,000 credit card debt that we didn't disclose they couldn't loan us the money. We do not have a $65,000 credit card debt. Turns out our agent/broker didn't know the difference between credit card debt and a $65,000 bank line of credit for our business, which was not to be part of the paperwork at all. For 2 more days we jumped through many hoops, our closing was delayed and we had to threaten them that if they didn't get it together to close they would lose our business and be facing a judge. We were pressured to delay closing by a week "because that's the normal thing is to delay closing". We gave them 1 day or we walk. They finally pulled through after a lot more stress and deliberation with the sellers to work with us. They made us look bad, they aggravated an already tense long distance move and they will NEVER get our business again! a few weeks later, we received notification that they had already sold our mortgage to another bank. Good riddens! I found out later by my realtor that after she had done some digging, our agent only had 4 years experience, which was evident in the way he handled business.

My husband and myself had a horrible experience with Guaranteed Rate, the licensed Loan Officer, Vanessa [redacted] and the Regional Manager involved, Jim [redacted]. We found them to be unprofessional, uncaring, manipulative, and flat out liars.
In the first week of September of 2015, we accepted an offer on our home, based on a prequalification letter provided by Ms. [redacted]. Based on this prequalification, we went under contract to purchase a new home. We were assured that the buyer of our home was well qualified, and closing would be in approximately 45-60 days.
As is usually the case, we had to provide an earnest money deposit, spend funds on a home inspection and appraisal and other fees.
We had no news for several weeks, and then the misinformation and outright lies began. On several occasions, we were told our buyer would be receiving a commitment letter “in a day or two”. We went on the assumption that the buyer would receive his mortgage commitment and closing as scheduled, we packed up our home, obtained a storage unit to hold our furnishings until we could close on the new home. As we did not have furnishings in the home, one of us went to reside with family with our infant child while the other remained at the home for both security and to care for our pets. This went on for several months.
We opted, several times, to cancel the contract as the buyer had breached the terms. Each time, the loan officer, Vanessa [redacted], asked for a couple of days to finish up the paperwork. As we had taken our home off the market and were committed to purchase a new home, we allowed extensions based on assurances that the buyer would be receiving his written commitment within a day or so.
One of our biggest concerns in how this company, and its sales force, including Vanessa [redacted], provide false information and outright falsehoods in order to try and resolve loan issues with their customers. We were told, more than once, that the buyer’s loan was approved, and a commitment would be forthcoming. The loan was not approved, in fact, it was recommended for decline based on information that was readily available when the buyer was “prequalified”. Either they did not do any due diligence in obtaining information prior to issuing a prequalification letter or the letter they provided was not based on fact.
This loan took over 150 days to close. During that time we had to expend funds for a storage unit, rate lock extension fees and other out of pocket costs. Guaranteed Rate, and specifically, Vanessa [redacted], had no concern for the inconvenience and expenses her lies cost us. They did not follow Mortgage Banking regulations, as they did not render a decision for well over 120 days. They provided false information in order to induce us to remain in the transaction so that she could earn a commission, regardless of the cost to us as a family.
If you are selling your home I would urge you to think twice before accepting an offer from any party that is "prequalified" by Guaranteed Rate or has Vanessa [redacted] listed as the loan officer.