Bank of America

Can a huge business be both everywhere and nowhere at the same time? With the advent of the web, loans and loan processing can be done nearly anywhere in the world — yet it also gives rise to a faceless unresponsive culture.
I’ve finally decided to buy a home and used the magical «Power of Good» to shop for rates online. I queried Wells Fargo (professional association), Chase (current bank), and BofA (just for grins). BofA turned out to be the lowest at the time and I got matched up with a loan officer in Dallas. After the preliminaries, my file was assigned to a processor in Arizona (AZ).
Most of the document requests were funneled through AZ via email and I replied via fax and email promptly. Part of the frustration came when checking the online mortgage status page — stuff I had faxed up weeks prior was still showing up as «open» on it. And, calls to the AZ loan processor were met with either (a) clueless politeness, (b) fluffy apologies, or © unreturned calls. Needless to say, this was maddening to me since my job revolves around money and timely performance.
Calls to my loan officer were met with polite apologies but no real solutions. And, the work schedules for both loan officer and processor left much to be desired with each one being off on random business days — my impression is that there isn’t a «capitalistic» work ethic there as much as socialism run amok. You’d think this was a French operation with 30-​hour workweeks and mandatory 6-​week vacations. Maybe I should be generous and think that they were both moonlighting on the BP oil disaster fix-​up crew. I mean, who thinks up things like the «Junk Shot» or «Top Hat» but bankers?
While my rate was locked early, the overall mortgage rates declined in the weeks following. A call to my loan officer to ask about unlocking it to relock at the lower rate went nowhere fast. If anything, they accomplished their larger goal of getting more dollars out of my loan by dithering on my question. Congratulations, I guess.
The icing on the proverbial cake was that the Keystone Cops routine of flubbed document handling stalled my closing by a week. No apologies or concession offered.
So, what’s the moral of this story? Shop via internet on rates and fees but actually walk into a local bank and work with a live local loan officer — that way, you’ve got an actual person with built-​in levels of ownership to go with the faceless bureaucracy.
* My new name for BOFA = Bank of Fooling** Around.
** «Fooling» was not the word I want to use but I’m keeping it clean.