Strange and scary happenings at the witching hour
We were in the process of financing a beach home in the panhandle of Florida. We had been approved for a mortgage; the rate was locked (a low rate that we were happy to qualify for) and the closing date was set. I drove from Indiana to Florida expecting to close, I had power of attorney to sign my husband's name on all of the papers and I was all set.

The afternoon before the closing, scheduled for 8 a.m., I received a phone call from the mortgage company, supposedly one of the "best" on the Emerald Coast. A man, with whom I had never spoken, announced that he was "taking over" our file and he regretted to say that we did not qualify "after all" for the lower interest rate. I was beside myself. My husband said that we should cancel doing business with them and move on to another company. Unfortunately, the closing was imminent and I did not even know who to call for help.

Our situation was unique. We had to move on the loan quickly, because our private, interest-only loan we had already secured for the home was ending and we needed new financing immediately.   

I asked the man on the phone what he actually did for the company and why had our file been given to him. His response: "This is what I do, deliver the bad news."

I wish I could say that I did go with another mortgage company and called their bluff, but I didn't. I was just glad to sign those papers and get out of there. I still cringe, four years later, when I see the advertisements for that mortgage company -- the glossy picture of the woman who is the top dog of that agency smiling out at me.

The refi that never was
I have been trying to refinance my mortgage since April 2006. The mortgage company's name is Monster Mortgage; they are a subsidiary of Monstrous Mortgage Corp. I began the deal with one monster that I was later told left the company. Approximately two or three weeks after sending this particular monster my information to get the refinance started, MonsterMatt called to tell me that he was taking over the file.

He claimed that the refinance could be completed within two weeks. After the two weeks were up, MonsterMatt told me that the mortgage company needed additional pay stubs. I sent them the same day.

A few weeks later, around June 28, I received a packet from them. The numbers were all wrong, I had asked him for a one- or two-year ARM, interest-only, and he gave me a 40-year loan with an interest rate of 8.77 percent.