If you haven't applied for a home loan lately I can tell you it is worse than the worst student email ever. For the last three hours I've been on the phone with what seems like every brokerage house in the country. A shout-out to TIAA-CREF for superb customer service. The others are just a pit of transfers and marginally useful information.It all started yesterday when I received my mortgage application packet. You see every retirement account or investment I own sends quarterly statements. But does my credit union want quarterly statements? Of course not. They want the most recent monthly statement. I tried explaining this to my loan officer but he said, "Well, you can print a statement online." I supposed that this was true, if I had ever set up online access which I had not. So ... OK. I'll do that since I don't want to be that annoying MortgageFlake that they post about on Mortgage Misery.
I spent well about an hour on the phone with TIAA-CREF. The CSR stuck with me until my problem had been solved. She put me on hold a couple of times to consult with IT but never abandoned me to some other department. I was left completely satisfied with the customer service outcome. I was online but no monthly statements can be generated. Hmmmm.
Next I called Brokerage House A. I've been locked out of my account due to multiple failed log-ins. I call the troubleshoot number I'm instructed to call. They get me on but this log-in only works for one of my two retirement accounts. I've got to be transferred to some other department to be helped with the "big" account. The next CSR tells me to double click a link on the page and go through the registration.
CSR: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: So I just go through with the registration and I'll be in?
CSR: Yes. Thank you for calling Brokerage House A. You have a good day. (click)
Me: uhhhh. OK.....
Twenty minutes later I've registered and can access all my accounts with that company. I eventually click around enough to find the online statements. Is there a monthly option? Of course not. Errrrggggg.
Finally I call Brokerage House B. I've saved this one for last since about a month ago I sent in some paperwork to change ownership of the account. So I figure that they are still "processing" it. Turns out it's not one form you must fill out. It's two forms and they aren't appended together. So I now have an extra X pages of paperwork and Safari won't let me open it....
Me: Would it be possible to get a monthly statement today?
CSR: I'll change your profile to get monthly statements.
Me: OK.
CSR: Thank you for calling Brokerage House B. Have a great day.(click)
Me: statement.....today.....?
So now I feel like a complete MortgageFlake. The TIAA-CREF CSR probably over helped me once we got past the technological difficulties which ultimately had to be fixed by IT. But I'm planning to open a Roth IRA and was having a hard time choosing between TIAA-CREF, Brokerage House A, and Brokerage House B. All are low cost, highly rated entities. But now I know TIAA-CREF is the right choice based on the outstanding level of customer service I received. This is the way that I want my students to feel when they leave my office. But from a professorial standpoint Brokerage Houses A and B probably provided the "correct" level of help and I was just asking for too much.
Q: Where do you fall on the office hour/customer service spectrum? Where should we fall on that spectrum? Am I a MortgageFlake?
These are providers selling a service.
ReplyDeleteI am not.
Crazy Math Professor, you are dealing with a broken system, so watch yourself. It has emerged that banks like Bank of America used "robo-signers" to approve some of the mortgages, and also has tried to forclose on houses they did not have title to (a man in Florida bought a forclosed home and paid cash; a few months later BoA tried to take the property from him because they though they still "owned" it.) I don't like typing in caps but GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING AND HAVE A GOOD LAWYER CHECK EVERYTHING FOR LOOPHOLES.
ReplyDeleteGood luck as you buy into the shambling wreck that is US home ownership.
At the height of the real estate boom, a number of my (undergraduate) students were working as mortgage pre-screeners. Let's just say that this fact did nothing to boost my confidence in the integrity of the financial system.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that these days you need a B.A. to work in the mortgage business (though not, perhaps, as Strelnikov suggests, the foreclosure business).
Ugg- we're going through a home purchase too and it's a pain in the ass. First we filled out an application for a pre-approval at our bank. The first question in the whole fucking process (wombats like the f word) was whether you want a traditional or FHA loan. I clicked FHA. 45 minutes later (I kid you not) I finished the application. Hit send. Get immediate autoreply "We are processing your request." An hour later, get a follow up e-mail "Your case is particularly complicated and requires further review. You will hear from someone in x-y business days." y fucking business days later I get an e-mail saying "We do not at this time provide pre-approvals on FHA loans." Three e-mails later I get a call "Have you considered a traditional loan?"
ReplyDeleteYes - have you considered not being a fucking retard?
So we went with Wells Fargo. So far it has been much smoother except for one thing, similar to your issue. We need two monthly statements, but we get them quarterly. We asked for monthly statements and a teller gave us two print outs. The mortgage broker is telling us "I can't use this, I need a statement." I don't know what the fuck that means. He said "This is not official. [blah blah blah] online banking and print it out yourself." So on the banks non-letterhead paper through the bank's printer is no good. Through my own non-letterhead paper on my own printer is good. Seriously. That is what he said. But compared to the FHA thing at my own bank, that's pretty tame.
Now, back to "have you considered a traditional loan?" Do you have any idea how hard it was to handle that on the other side of the phone? I mean I refrained from calling her a fucking retard, but... How can you be in the mortgage division of your bank and ask that? If I had 20% of a house I wanted to live in, I'd have applied for that in the first place. We have slightly over 10% of a house actual humans can live in. How can you offer that as a viable alternative? Oh, yeah, well, I was looking at houses twice what you could possibly approve me for, but yeah, let's go with that. I have all these kids, I can probably downsize. Where do you put 12 year olds up for adoption? I kept muting the phone and asking my husband if I have asperger's syndrome or if I was talking to a moron. He kept reiterating that he didn't think it was an either-or situation.
Oh - and the best part - they ran my credit anyway, and then I had to write a letter to the underwriters at Wells Fargo exlpaining why my credit was run on that date.
I have no interest in being on the customer service spectrum, as I do not consider my students customers. To prove this, I recently sent a student a note saying that no, I would not spend time outside of my office hours conferring with her on her own personal lute compositions, when she had not been to my lute-analysis class for weeks or done the work.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Frog and Toad. I am not an EMH, CSR, or any other acronym that implies service. I do not serve my students. I teach them.
ReplyDeleteWe are increasingly being told that our students are customers, clients, guests--anything other than students. The entire country has bought into this for K-12; hence, the only thing being addressed in the broken public school system is the "problem" with teachers. No other variable matter, because the nation has been programmed into thinking it's a one-way delivery system, and the supplier (the teacher) is the problem.
We all know it's becoming a problem in higher ed, and not just because we're seeing an entire generation of students who have been raised to think of themselves as consumers. In the CCs, the problem is magnified for all sorts of reasons.
The various foundations out there throwing money at CCs--like the Gates Foundation--are one big part of the problem. How ironic that people like Bill and Linda Gates are trying to redefine higher ed (especially in the CCs) with that customer service-slash-business model, given how super special Microsoft's customer service is known to be.
But back to your question and ending my rant, I do not fall anywhere on the customer service spectrum. I have a generous number of office hours very convenient to the students in my classes. I will meet with students outside of those hours if I can, but I don't consider that customer service--my proffies did the same thing for me 20 years ago.
And, no, you're not being a MortgageFlake.
CMP, you are not a MortgageFlake.
ReplyDeleteBut the entire system has been co-opted by (what used to be) a sarcastic management maxim: The beatings will continue until morale improves.
I read an article the other day outlining how people still are being hammered by banks with overdraft penalties.
Practically on cue, the comment section filled with "No pity, if you were responsible for your finances this would never happen" types. They totally ignored the facts of the article where it was reported that the banks often manipulated customer transactions to levy maximum penalty, e.g. held deposits until the end of the day while posting debits first thing and re-ordering debits so one large one will get paid, leaving several smaller ones to bounce, each with its own overdraft charge.
We are indeed odd animals.
From a business perspective, I'm surprised at how universally awful customer service is in the US. I'd have thought there's a niche in just about every area for a company that excels in not wasting their customer's time just to make a fast buck. Sadly, it seems I'm mistaken.
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