I've always been sort of a perfectionist. I was in Air Force Intelligence for 26 years. If I screwed up, my pilots could get killed on their mission by something I overlooked or told them wrong. Later, I worked as a computer programmer/analyst in a large company where bad code or slowness in fixing a midnight crash could cost thousands of dollars in penalties to my employer.
I strive for accuracy and excellence in everything I do, and I come close most of the time, but being human, I make the now and then error, and feel very bad about it until I've done everything I can to make it right.
I've been with the same auto insurance company for 41 years. My wife, the MP, (Hooah!) has been with them 31 years. Along the way we added on home insurance, life insurance, banking, credit card, investments, brokerage. They're now deeply involved in our financial life.
18 months ago my wife took out a car loan with them and asked that the payments be deducted from her checking account on a certain day of the month, just after her payday when there would be plenty of cash to cover the payment. They said fine and then set it for a bad date. The payment bounced and they notified us that all 3 credit bureaus had been informed of our bad debt.
I have had a spotless credit rating my entire life, and I was so enraged by this that I fired off an irate letter to the Chairman/CEO of the company demanding that he fix the situation right now. To his credit, he did get it all fixed right away, and even credited a payment to my wife's loan. But, that was STRIKE ONE for this company.
In April 2009, home mortgage rates bottomed out and I decided to refinance. I first tried my current lender, but their closing costs were too high. Just for the heck of it I called my insurance company/bank. They had decent closing costs and a good interest rate, so after checking some others, I called them back, locked a 4.75% rate and gave them $450 earnest money. Closing was to be Jun 8th.
Well, they ordered a title search, flood plain certificate, appraisal, and requested us to provide pay stubs and all the usual financial documents. The company's web site listed the lady to send the stuff too, with her phone and fax numbers. Only problem was the lady had a different last name, a different phone number and a different fax number from what was listed. That made for communications difficulties.
My wife finally tracked her down and faxed all our papers to her. Then we waited in the dark for a while. The only time we talked was when we initiated the call or email. We didn't close on the 8th, she mumbled something about underwriting and rescheduled us for the 11th. We didn't close on the 11th, I heard something about the title, but we're the original owners of the house and the website shows the title search complete.
Rescheduled closing for the 12th and a notary public actually showed up with the closing documents. But the numbers on them were all wrong. The payoff balance on the old mortgage was about $1500 high, the earnest money was stated as $350 instead of the $450 I gave them, etc. I declined to sign any of the papers (after exposing the notary public to some adjectives and adverbs that he may never have heard before).
I immediately sat down and composed an incendiary letter to the chairman and CEO of the company (different guy than last time) explaining the situation to him and what he was going to have to do to make me happy again. I express-mailed that to him, supposedly faster than Fedex over the weekend. He needs to work quick to get that mortgage closed before it expires, because I've got a lawyer waiting in the wings to sue for breach of contract or whatever the appropriate legal action is.
Meanwhile, this was STRIKE TWO for this company, and I don't give no stinkin strike three. I've picked out an insurance company that is higher rated, and I'm a member of a local credit union that can handle my banking. I'm planning to leave my credit card with the company because I pay it off each month rather than carry a balance, and that costs them money.
Mediocrity - ya want fries with that?
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