Amerisave is a mortgage corporation that was established in 2002. Since then, it has exponentially expanded to become one of the greatest online based home lenders. In the little over ten years since they opened, Amerisave has morphed from a few loan officers with a big idea to make mortgage shopping easy using their user-friendly website and loan origination platform that is paperless into a powerful national outfit that claims to have made over 10,000 individual loans in all fifty states. Their paperless model evolved in-house, as did their practical business model of low overhead, flexibility, and employing among the most experienced professionals in the mortgage industry. Yet despite their mass appeal and track record of stunning growth, all is not well between its customers and Amerisave. There are three common misconceptions concerning Amerisave.
1. The Guaranteed Breach of Promise Cash Awards Will Actually Be Paid Out
Amerisave promises that if they do not close a loan on time, then they will pay the offended borrower $1,000. Besides this, the company provides users with a lowest rate guarantee of $500 if a lower rate is found at the same time of comparison. The problem with such guarantees as outlined on their website is that so much fine print accompanies the offers that you can wallpaper a house with it all.
2. Amerisave is Regulated and Required to Disclose Their Profit On Your Loan
Because Amerisave turns out to be a mortgage broker bank like eloan and Ditech.com, they are able to close all loans in their own name and then directly fund these loans from their own resources. This exempts them from the RESPA disclosure and legislation. This means that they will never be required (nor obliged either) to disclose to you the amount of money that they are making from you by subtly and quietly marking up the mortgage rate associated with your mortgage.
This is good for them, since they aggressively buy mortgage leads off of LowerMyBills.com and LendingTree.com. These two primary sites for lead generation possess sullied reputations. Lending Tree, as an example, hides a loan origination fee that is computer-based. It runs up to $1,200 at closing time, and this is of course passed directly on to the customer.
Other customers have noted that they sometimes advertise one rate on their website, yet when it is clicked on by the viewer, the rate has changed. As an example, one customer noted that an ad stated a 4.25% fixed rate for 30 year term. When he clicked on the ad, went through the steps to approval, and received the final rate back, the rate had changed to 4.75% fixed on a thirty year loan. After calling customer service, the individual received two different explanations, first that they rates change quickly and had moved in the time it took to complete the online application, and second that his credit rating was not high enough to qualify for the low 4.25% rate. The customer’s credit score turned out to be more than 760, high enough to qualify for even Visa Black cards.
3. Amerisave Is Concerned About Customer Complaints
Most reputable companies try to keep their BBB file as clean as possible, at least attempting to satisfactorily resolve their disputes with customers. The Better Business Bureau claims that Amerisave Mortgage registered 145 different complaints in only the past three years. A mere 57 of them became resolved in a substantial time frame of 12 months. Anyone who searches on Google or Yahoo! for Amerisave Mortgage will find over 680 complaint listings. Some of these might be valuable to read before moving forward with Amerisave.
It is important to remember that Amerisave is not a traditional lending bank or credit bureau. This means that while they may approve you as a customer and make you the loan, the traditional and more limited and government-regulated fees that come with traditional financing outlets may not be on offer with Amerisave. They did not fund that aggressive expansion of theirs these past ten plus years with nothing, after all.
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