life and puppies

I am using this space to vent.  Bear with me.

I am refinancing my second mortgage from M&I to UWCU because my M&I rate is 6.75% and UWCU will do 4.99% with no closing costs because, it turns out, a second mortgage is actually a home equity loan.  Who knew?  Well, probably everyone but me.  In any event, what was promised me was a seamless, easy process.  What I have gotten so far is anything but. 

First, it costs $350 to have the appraisal done.  This is annoying, but fine.  Then, I actually needed to fax back some borrower’s something or other.  Fine.  Then I need my insurance company to get in contact with the credit union to get them the insurance info.  Fine.  I call our condo’s management company and ask them to forward the information.  Fine.  Only, wait, turns out they don’t have that information.  So, American Family, who apparently insures our condo, does have it and they will contact the credit union.  Ok.  Then I come into today to a message from the credit union telling me that I need to call AmFam because they “have some questions for me.”  What kind of questions could there possibly be?  I pay my dues, part of that goes to the insurance, what’s new?  So, I call and Sharon tells me that she needs the “mortgagee clause” from my mortgage company, Bank of America (who holds the first mortgage).  After going around in circles for awhile, I get from her all that she needs is some sort of address/contact info for BoA in the event that something happens to the condo.  Ok.  Apparently, though, AmFam has zero other clients with lowly Bank of America that this information is not available to anyone but me.  So, I log on to BoA’s website and can’t find the information anywhere.  In fact, it takes me forever to get to my own account and I cannot go to “account details” because everytime I click on it, a message comes up saying that my insurance policy expires at the end of the month and I’d better do something about it.  So, I go to the customer service section and call the number for “all mortgages or all states.”  This seems easy enough.   But when I call, I get a prerecorded message that says, “Get a pen and write down this number.  Call Ten Fifteen Fifteen Eight Thousand.”  And it just repeats that over and over.  I hang up and attempt to call this wack-job of a number, but, surprise surprise — it doesn’t work.  So, I go back to the website and try to “chat live.”  Well, after logging in, that feature is not available right now.  So, I find some other telephone number to call and after going through the motions (one for English, any other number not to talk about some fun promo they have going on, etc.), I am asked to enter my account number (which I cannot get to because of the previously mentioned insurance message prohibiting me from seeing anything resembling a detail on my account) or my social security number.  Hooray!  Well, of course I know that.  So, I enter it.  Three different times because I am continually told that it is “invalid.”  Yes, invalid.  After I use up my alloted attempts, I am asked if I would like to speak to a customer service representative.  Yes, please.  As I await transfer, a recorded message comes on that says, “I’m sorry, we’re now closed.”  And then I am hung up on.

And people complain about government.  I’m just saying, from where I sit, giant private corporations are pretty &^%#( frustrating.

On a positive note, I’ve had nothing but excellent, excellent customer service from CB2.  New table comes tomorrow!