November 2010 Archives

It's a shame that natural selection fails to operate efficiently in our species and that it doesn't seem to apply to customer service drones in large corporations.

I finally got a reply today from GMAC to the Washington DC Better Business Bureau.  (Read my previous post for the back-story.)

It turns out that not only did they apply the $556 refund sent from our flood insurance company meant for our closed GMAC account to our new GMAC account, they also have been calculating our payments incorrectly for the new account.  We would not have discovered this had it not been for their losing the $556 initially and drawing our attention as a consequence.

In their response, they claim to have anticipated the incorrect amount for our property taxes, which is of course impossible-- the correct amount was on our HUD-1 statement from closing, and it's the same amount they had been charging us when they held our previous loan.  They went on to claim our taxes had "increased" (false) and that this meant we now had an escrow shortfall, tempered somewhat by the $556 they incorrectly placed in our new escrow account.

The tone of the response was unnecessarily condescending and attempted to place the blame for this miscalculation on us.  It even insinuated that we hadn't been paying our bills.

I rejected their response.  Here's my reply:

I am rejecting this response because:

• GMAC's assertion that our taxes have increased is false.
• We have paid, on time, every time, exactly the amounts stated on all our bills from GMAC.  Our payments have been made using GMAC's own automatic withdrawal bill payment system.
  
• If the escrow amount billed was incorrect, this mistake is GMAC's.  They have not acknowledged that this is their error.
• The correct tax, insurance, and escrow information was made available to GMAC at the time they acquired our loan, which was prior to our first monthly payment.  GMAC subsequently produced statements for the incorrect amount.  Again, this was not our error; we paid the amount due on time using GMAC's automatic payment system.
• The escrow shortage we presently face was caused by GMAC's own error.  GMAC has not acknowledged that this was their error, not ours.
  
• At the time this complaint was originally opened, GMAC had no idea where the missing $556 was.  It was many days later before they finally discovered they had placed it into a different account.  GMAC has not addressed their gross lack of accountability for incoming funds/refunds.
  
• GMAC took money that was destined for one account and placed it in a different account.  This is an incorrect banking practice.
• GMAC has not acknowledged their woefully inadequate and incompetent customer service.
• GMAC has not apologized for their woefully inadequate and incompetent customer service.
• GMAC has failed to adequately explain why they billed us for the incorrect amount, especially in their light of their possession of documents from closing indicating what the correct amount should have been.
• This escrow shortfall issue is tangential to the reason this complaint was opened and would not have been discovered had it not been for GMAC's incompetence in handling the refund correctly.  It would no doubt have continued until our next tax payment was due before it was noticed, at such time we would have found ourselves in dire circumstances.  GMAC must explain why this happened and what it will do to prevent future errors of this magnitude.

I am unable to accept a response from GMAC which contains false and misleading information and which omits critical details.

At least I know where the money is now.

First, the back-story.

Back in August, GMAC received a bill for our flood insurance from our insurance company.  They didn't pay it.  September rolled around and it still hadn't been paid.  Facing a loss of flood insurance if we didn't pay up, I paid it by credit card on September 24.  GMAC had also finally paid it on September 21.  My payment got to the insurance company first.

On October 13, our insurance company sent a refund check back to GMAC for overpayment.  This check has subsequently disappeared completely.  I've made multiple calls to GMAC's "customer service" in an effort to track it down so we can get the surplus back.  The first time they transferred me quite literally in circles for almost an hour.  The second time I spoke to someone who was a blithering imbecile who wouldn't listen to a word I said.  The third time, the representative just disconnected my call.  Someone did call me back hours later, but his accent was so thick I couldn't understand a word he said.

I also emailed them once, explaining the problem in detail, and some moron wrote me back telling me that my homeowners insurance had been paid.  (This is true, but it wasn't what I was writing about.  I was writing about our flood insurance in the amount of $556, not our homeowners insurance in a completely different amount, but the brainless fecalbrain who received my email couldn't be bothered with these silly "details.")

On no occasion did anyone at GMAC take ownership of the problem and resolve to find the right person or persons to deal with the issue.  The best they could do is tell me that they didn't know where the money was.

I wonder how many of these people, if someone they knew had misplaced a check for $556 while visiting their home, would just throw up their hands immediately and say, "oh well, I don't know where it is" and think that was a satisfactory resolution.  No decent human being in his or her right mind would do that.  They'd tear the house apart looking for it, starting with the most likely locations first.

Not so with GMAC.  They're not even remotely interested in helping.  They're certainly not interested in finding the $556 we're owed... I would imagine because they quite like holding on to our money and not giving it back.

Yesterday I'd finally had enough of their crap.  Rather than spend another moment talking to yet another mindless drone in Russia, I mailed a complaint to the California Department of Corporations, the entity that regulates mortgage lenders in the state.  Perhaps that will finally get the attention of someone with the ability and willingness to resolve the problem.