Re: Alphonso Gill (Wells Fargo)
I noticed that someone posted something about Wells Fargo and Alphonso Gill a few weeks ago. With the hope that other people can learn from our mistakes, please read about the horrible experience we have had over the past 2 years with a Wells Fargo renovation loan. I only hope that some other people on…
I noticed that someone posted something about Wells Fargo and Alphonso Gill a few weeks ago. With the hope that other people can learn from our mistakes, please read about the horrible experience we have had over the past 2 years with a Wells Fargo renovation loan.
I only hope that some other people on this forum can learn from our mistakes and naivete.
When I first met with Alphonso Gill in June of 2005 and told him about the mixed-use property that we were trying to close on he had exactly the kind of “can do†confidence that I was hoping for. I explained to him that we were planning on converting the property to a 3 family and that we did not have the 30% down payment that some banks seemed to require for mixed use properties because we needed part of our savings to convert the ground floor into a residential space where we would live. I explained to Mr. Gill that this would be our home for a long time and that we were looking for a residential loan and could accept nothing less than the security of a 30 year fixed loan. This was what we could afford—both my wife and I have devoted our lives working for non-profit organizations–and it only made sense to us to get a 30 year fixed loan in the climate of “record low†interest rates of 2005. Mr. Gill told me that it was not a problem, and explained that if we put 20% down that the bank would finance part of our loan as a 30-year fixed and the other part would be a home equity loan with a variable rate that we could refinance when we were done with the renovation. He assured me that everything would be okay and that we would have no problem refinancing the home equity portion of the loan once the renovations were over.
A year later when we were done with our renovation and began the process of refinancing the home equity portion of our loan things became equally frustrating with Wells Fargo and Mr. Gill. He almost never returned our phone calls and emails. When he finally got around to having a post renovation appraisal done the value came in at $600,000 less than the original appraisal he had done over a year earlier, in July 2005, when we bought the building. I was shocked that anybody could even take such an appraisal seriously, however it proved to be an obstacle in refinancing our home equity line of credit. We were particularly distraught to learn about this appraisal since we had just devoted a year or our lives and well over $100,000 toward renovating our building. We protested that the appraiser must have made a mistake, but apparently even after taking into account “new information provided by the owners and real estate professionals,†the amended appraisal still came in $500,000 short of the $1,400,000 appraisal that Wells Fargo used when we bought the building.
So, Wells Fargo ordered another appraisal, which came in at 1.4 million, (still short of the $1,500,000 we would have expected with the additional value of the renovation we had completed.) However, this appraisal was still not good enough to refinance our loan since it is apparently the practice of Wells Fargo to take the average of two appraisals, which left us with an appraised value of $1,150,000, and an LTV that was still not high enough to refinance.
At this point, July 5th, 2006, Mr. Gill told us that he could no longer refinance our home equity line of credit with Wells Fargo Home Equity and the alternative would be to refinance our entire loan with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. However, this would require paying $50,000 worth of closing costs, which we had already paid less than a year ago, including almost $20,000 in discount and origination fees.
It has now been over a year since we began the process of refinancing our loan and we are still sitting with a huge variable rate home equity loan. I cannot emphasize enough our deep disappointment with Wells Fargo and the way they handled our entire loan. We chose Wells Fargo to finance our home because we wanted the security of dealing with a well-established firm, with professional, trained agents who we could trust and upon whose advice we could rely. We did not want to have to face bait and switch tactics or other unsavory methods from the institution to which we were about to entrust our entire life savings of over $300,000. But that is exactly what we have suffered. Our experience with Wells Fargo has been a nightmare riddled with false promises, poor communication and shocking disavowals of responsibility.
I only hope that some other people on this forum can learn from our mistakes and naivete
Alphonso Gill I heard was fired from Wells Fargo because of so many complaints. He was running a scam with his clients by referring them to a few contractors, who would charge the clients thousands of dollars more and give Gill the kickback. A complete criminal this guy. Steer clear of him. I heard he was scamming old people. You were right to not trust him. good for you.
To the OP. Did a search for “Alphonso Gill Wells Fargo” and this came up. Thanks for the heads up!
Anonymous (posted 5/17 6:35pm) is concerned, a lot of lenders use the low rates to get you to closer to a point where it is almost impossible to turn around from. You have to be very careful in choosing a broker.
I am curious to know what OP and Anonymous (posted 5/17 6:35pm) has done since then. Has the situation been resolved. As far as
OP…I no longer feel alone! I have been trying to work with Wells Fargo as well for the last 2 years in trying to get resolution on a mistake they made on our HELOC.
We found out only days before we needed to sign the docs that our rate was going to be higher than what was promised the entire month that we had been working with them. It was also LTV, because they said the appraisal that came back on our house was lower than needed (reason #1 why we didn’t get the promised rate).
Why did we sign? Because we had a check due on the closing of an investment property three days later, the reason they gave at the time for the higher rate seemed was to be easy to resolve (wrong square footage used in the appraisal), and they promised that they would work on it and adjust the rate to what it should have been. For months, we patiently called and emailed and also met with the banker (Shannon, the Manager of our local branch), and she kept blaming the slow response on others in the company. She finally provided us with a response stating that we were welcome to pay for another appraisal and re-apply for another loan. (Why? Will our 2nd experience be better than the first? And why do WE have to pay for it now?)
Enter the Credit Group Executive Office. They were actually quite helpful and responsive, but did not have the authority to resolve the issue for us. What they did discover was that Shannon mistakenly, and without our knowledge, had requested a much higher loan amount than we ended up with (140k+ instead of the 100k+ we needed and received) and this was why the LTV did not come back as we expected (reason #2 why we did not get the promised rate).
I thought the puzzle had been solved and we were on our way to straightforward resolution. Nope. The Executive Office said that I needed to go BACK to Shannon and have her fix the problem. Of course, she moved on within the company and was replaced by another manager. We needed to start all over again with our story with the new manager, and this is when they came up with a THIRD reason why. The new manager looked over all of our docs and could not find the reason why we didn’t get the promised rate since LTV was no longer the issue. He then asked Shannon about what could have gone wrong. Apparently, Shannon then claimed that she did not know that the property we were using for the loan was a rental which explained the higher rate (we were planning on moving out of our primary residence). Wells Fargo now claimed THIS was the reason why we didn’t get the promised rate. Not the value of our house, not because Shannon requested a higher loan amount. Because our house was a rental property.
Problem is, the rental property discussion was not just verbal. We have this all in email with Shannon, and the loan docs we signed with her show that we were using a rental property for the loan. Again, I thought this would be a simple resolution. Wrong again. Their stance now is “too bad…you signed the contract.”
It’s amazing that Wells Fargo is not willing to fix their mistake and give us the rate they not only promised, but one that we actually qualified for. The loan docs we signed were not correct and we have written proof. Any brick walls they try to put up in front of us are knocked down with the facts. But they still won’t budge.
I was also naive in thinking that Wells Fargo would work with us in good faith during the loan process, and do the right thing to fix the mistakes they made. I was very wrong. What are they afraid of? It’s quite perplexing.
OP – I would be interested in finding out more about your situation. What is your next plan of action? We have the Better Business Bureau as well as our state’s Attorney General to contact. Any other ideas are welcome as I am done with trying to work with Wells Fargo directly.
Perhaps you should contact N.A.C.A. and explain
your situation…
Check out their website: http://www.naca.com... the information at the site will help you to decide if they could be of any assistance with your situation.
The phone number is 212 -704 -9974.
From what I have read they can help folks to refinance predatory loans.
I wish you all the best with your situation.
To the OP, after reading about what happened to you, I for one, would never use Wells Fargo.
uh ok
you signed a piece of paper saying that all verbal representations are not to be relied upon. I guess you thought that was just a formality. Call it a lie, how can someone predict the future. Maybe your loan officer was mistaken. Was he a liar? Is wells fargo unethical? That’s a stretch.
People believe what they want to believe. Caveat emptor.
Telling people lies in order to close a deal is the kind of behavior I would expect from a used car salesman, not Wells Fargo.
Clearly you too have no problem telling lies to close a deal so I wish you would tell people on this board who you are so that they can avoid you too. If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that Coke and Burger King lie too…well, okay…but eating a hamburger and drinking a Coke is the most rediculous analogy to buying a house I have ever heard.
Basically you have reduced your argument from throwing around big words like “slanderous” to calling me uniformed when I already stated that I was “naive,” in the first two sentences of my original post.
Bravo. Well done.
I doubt it. Your comments and a few others will not knock WF out of the top three spot in mortgage lending, no matter what you want to believe.
Why not sue coke because they state “it’s the real thing,” when it obviously isn’t. Why not sue burger king because you can’t really “have it your way.” You believed that a bank could make a future promise about refinancing, anyone could have told you that the promise was worthless. You call it unethical, I call it uninformed on the part of the customer.