On January 27, 2009, I signed a contractual agreement with Loren Gingrich of Wizard Lending, LLC for mortgage short-refinance services. Like many others in a similar situation, I entered into a sub-prime mortgage by borrowing money to help pay for the care of my autistic child. Now that the payments on the mortgage are growing, and property value on the home has decreased, I am stuck in my current situation and unable to re-finance into a better deal.

Loren’s company, Wizard Lending, offered a solution where he would negotiate with the mortgage companies for a lower fee on the mortgage that was closer to the actual property value of the home. The reduced fee would allow me to re-finance my home with an FHA loan (which I had already been approved for at 5%). I am currently paying about 8.5% on my mortgage, and the reduced rate would allow me to recover from the debt caused by all of our medical bills.

Loren was very prompt and courteous, and was able to quickly answer all of my questions in order to make me feel safe about the procedure. The agreed upon fee was a $1,295 deposit, plus 5% of the amount saved on the mortgage, which would be bundled into the new mortgage closing costs.

Once the payment of $1,295 was sent via Paypal on January 27, communication with Loren quickly began to decline.

I did not hear from Loren for most of February. It was only after I filed a dispute with Paypal that he finally contacted me on Feb 20. His excuses of ‘strep throat’, ‘internet outages’, ‘backlogged mortgage companies’, and ‘training a new secretary’ were convincing, so I ultimately closed the dispute to give him a second chance. The only thing I asked for was constant communications. Something as simple an email or phone call once a week stating that things were in motion and everything was fine. Unfortunately, that kind of communication never came.

Around mid march, after another month of no communication, I started investigating what others were saying about Loren on various message boards. Evidently, the excuses that he had given me were common. I responded with my similar situation on one message board, and within a day Loren called me. He pleaded that I retract my statement as it was damaging to his business, and went into a very long and detailed email about the ‘other person’ who had lodged a similar complaint. He seemed to have an answer for everything.

Finally, between March 17 and 19, I received four emails from Loren stating that he had made contact with my mortgage company. He stated that they had received the financial package that he had put together, and we would have a response within a few days.

Another passed with no response to emails or phone calls.

April 10: I received an email from Loren that stated: “I tried to get an update from Saxon today, but they closed by the time I was able to call.  I am not sure if they closed early because of Good Friday or what the deal was. … We just need to get Saxon to get this in gear and make it happen.  I will be in touch on Monday. “

Another three weeks of no communication passed.

May 01: “Just wanted to let you know that your file has finally been assigned to a negotiator at Saxon.  His name is James Rome.  He was assigned just yesterday.  He will contact me within 10 days to get this moving forward finally.”

No communication from Loren in May or June.

At this point, communication with Loren was practically nonexistent; I stopped believing in his involvement. I began calling Saxon myself to see what the holdup had been. I found that the account had actually been closed in June due to a lack of requested paperwork. Loren failed to mention that, he may not have even known. So I had the case reopened and tried to stay on top of it.

I finally heard from Loren on July 17.

July 17: “I just spoke to a rep by the name of Madeline at Saxon.  You are not going to believe this, but she informed me that there is a note on your file dated July 14th, stating that they are still missing your 2008 W-2′s that they requested. “

I didn’t know what kind of game Loren was playing, but I personally made sure that all paperwork was faxed to Saxon. I continued to stay on top of the case myself.

August 14: “A negotiator has been assigned to your file as of July 27th.  His name is Charles Wells.  I left him a couple voice mails this week, but no return calls as of today. Spoke with a Sara at Saxon today and she informed me that Charles shows the short-refi as being processed and under review.  She transferred me to him again, but ended up with a voice mail.  I look to hear from him by sometime next week. I will let you know as soon as I am in contact with him or have any further news. “

The negotiator that had been assigned on July 27 was my doing as I had been faxing them all of their requested paperwork, and I had been in touch with all of the representatives. By this point, my emails to Loren were becoming more frequent as it was clear that he wasn’t actually doing anything.

By October, I hadn’t heard anything from either Saxon or Loren, so I began following up with Saxon. Much to my surprise, Saxon had been trying to contact Loren for additional information, and had closed my case because they were unable to reach him. I furiously called and emailed Loren several times to inform him that Saxon had (once again) closed my case because of lack of communication. At this point, I threatened to sue Loren, and start telling the story of my experience with his company, and he immediately emailed me back:

October 9: Loren’s Email (in its entirety).

“Vinny, I have been trying to work with Saxon on your file for months and what keeps happening to your file is not my fault.  I have been trying to get a supervisor to complete our request for the short-refi, to no avail.  What has happened now is the same BS that happened before.  The last requested documents that they had asked for, you e-mailed me about it and said that you were sending them in yourself.  That was fine.  But, now the new negotiator that was assigned to your file is stating that those documents were never received and he closed the file again.

I will send them to him with a plea to re-open the file and complete it.  I will also get his superiors involved at the same time.  This is completely ridiculous that they keep doing this to you.  You are the one that sent them in this time, so you personally know that they were sent.  As of Sept. 11th, I was informed by them that your file was still under review with Charles and there was no indication that there was a problem.

So if you should be pissed at anyone about this, it should be Saxon.  If these negotiators do not let us know that something is missing, prior to closing up a file, that is out of my control.  This place obviously has some issues that need worked out, with the way they handle their files.  All it would have taken was a phone call, fax, e-mail, etc.  from this Charles Wells to let us or you know that he does not have those docs and we could have refaxed them right back, without delay.

I am as sick of Saxon’s BS as you are and to have them do this again is unacceptable.  I realize that the first time this happened, you obviously thought it was my fault.  This is why I assumed that you wanted to fax the additional documents that they have asked for, yourself.  But now it has happened again and you are the one that faxed it, so they should clearly show you that it is Saxon that has the problem here! I will do whatever is needed to get this done for you.  There is no way I am going to start over again.  They have everything they need and if they are missing these last docs that you sent, then we will get them to them.  You are the only client I have with Saxon, so can’t say they are singling you out for some reason.  This seems like a stall tactic that happens when a company is about to fold or merge with another.  But haven’t heard anything about it.

So before you go bad mouthing me on the internet, give me a chance to straighten this out with Saxon.  Send me the last documents that you had sent and I will get them to reopen this and finish it, one way or another.  I have never had problems like this with ANY other lender.  Even Bank of America, who is the worst of the worst, doesn’t do this type of thing.  They just don’t help their customers…period.  But they at least don’t lose paperwork and then close a file without communication.”

–

That was the last time I hear from Loren.

After several long phone calls, I was able to get my case reopened at Saxon. I was relentless and made sure that all of the paperwork was received. I was able to get Saxon’s attention through persistence and motivation. Clearly it was possible.

Currently, I am currently in the middle of the negotiation with Saxon and will be completing the job that I hired Loren for on my own.

I informed Loren of this in early November (via email) and told him that I had done all of the leg work; all he had to do was step in and finish the deal. Still, I heard no response. From October through November, I have called and emailed Loren regularly, but I never received a single response.

I finally informed Loren that I wanted a refund for the $1,295 that I had paid him; it was clear that he was putting no effort into my case, and his failure to provide the services which I paid him for was a breach of our contractual agreement. Again, Loren did not respond to any of my phone calls or emails.

I sent him a certified letter and a fax last week stating that if I was not given a refund, I would take him to small claims court. The fax was received with no response, but the address listed on his website was returned, stating that the PO Box had been closed. I did some research on the address and found that there was no PO Box at that address. The address is his personal address; I suspect he simply returned the letter.

On Wed, Nov 25, I finally called Loren and told him that I had enough. I was tired of dangling the idea of publishing my story about his lack of service on the internet, and that this was the final time I would be doing it. If I did not have my refund in 2 days, I would file my BBB complaint, begin my small claims court proceeding, and publish my story.

Within 1 hour, I had a phone call from Loren.

He stated that he would still like to continue the process of my negotiation. He knew that the deal was not yet complete because I had been keeping him apprised of my statues via email. It was good to know that he had been receiving them. He said there was still a good amount of work to be done, and he would provide the services without his “back end fee.”

I informed him that I no longer trusted him and that I felt this was just another stall tactic on his part. I wanted my refund. Finally he said “Bottom line, I am in the process of filing for bankruptcy and have no money to pay you.” Apparently he had been losing money on the back end of the mortgage closing costs, and he had not been getting paid what he was supposed to be during the refinance process.

I stated that if this was actually the case, than his offer to complete the remainder of my deal for free had even less meaning. I saw no motivation on his part to complete the deal, and frankly, his clear lack of motivation is what has gotten us to this point. However, if he was serious about completing the deal, he could issue me a refund for my deposit, and when the deal was complete, he would get it back. He declined, again deferring to his bankruptcy.

It is my opinion that in the last 10 months, Loren could easily have made the same amount of progress with Saxon that I have in the last month. Short of sending me an occasional email, I have no proof that he actually did anything. Since I ended up doing all of the leg work, making the contacts with the mortgage company, faxing the paperwork and having the negotiator assigned, I had no faith left in his ability (or willingness) to provide the services which I paid him for.

All Loren could do was state that he had no money left to pay me.

We concluded when I told him that we finally had an understanding: “He had no money to give me a refund for services which he didn’t provide, and I would continue to move forward with the BBB and small claims.”