Complain about a product or service

Guild Mortgage Company

San Diego, CA

Letatia of Corona, CA December 24, 2009

In December of 2008 my husband was notified that he was being laid off. At that time it was our first contact with Guild Mortgage. We called and called and finally got through and notified the loan counselor that this was to occur in a month and asked for her suggestions because we were very concerned and did not want to loose our house. At that time we were advised by the loan counselor that Guild Mortgage Company was not restructuring or modifying loans. So we went to an outside loan modification company to try and get our loan modified, through that process and after a few months waiting on a response; we received back a letter from Guild Mortgage that stated "We are not modifying FHA loans." We received that letter in May 2009.

We then submitted in June a modification request again with the help of FHA and have never to this day received an answer. Then in September 2009 we received a foreclosure notice taped to our front door stating our home was being foreclosed on. That same notice also stated they tried to call 8 times and received no response. We never received calls from Guild even upon request from us. So we again, as we have many times before, we called repeatedly and finally got to the foreclosure department asked them for detail regarding the foreclosure and asked for an extension on the foreclosure so we could work this out. She said Guild had tried on several occasions to contact us with no success. I question the truth in this statement as our phone numbers have not changed. On the contrary it was us who called numerous times from December 2008 to November 2009 and was never able to reach a loan counselor or loss mitigation counselor. When i finally did ask one of the customer service representatives why this is she told me the process was for the customer service reps to answer the phones take a message and one of the loss mitigation reps would call us in 24-48 hours. On all the occasions we called and held on forever and left messages absolutely no one from Guild Mortgage has ever called us back.

This was extremely frustrating and did not show that Guild was working and making an effort to assist its customers. Shauna the first one who answered her phone and would return my calls but at that point our situation was in default and on its way to foreclosure. Shauna gave me the phone number of a loss mitigation representative to talk to about our package she had and the programs available to us including the FHA-HAMP. Ines had the package for several weeks with no contact or response from her to us. So we called Guild repeatedly again being told the messages would be returned within 24-48 business days and the call was never returned. Unfortunately Shauna became our only lifeline to the company so my calls for everything were to her because she would answer the phone or return calls. Finally she sent loss mitigation an email advising she has postponed the sale and asked for her to review the file before 11/10/2009. This did not happen and again no response from Guild Mortgage. We are being very tenacious about coming to a collaborative agreement one that will take care of delinquent payments and create an affordable payment taking into consideration my wages and my husbands unemployment.

I wrote a letter in the beginning of November to the President of Guild Mortgage and coincidentally I received an email from a loss mitigation rep of Guild Mortgage stating he was trying to work with me to get this solved. He was very helpful in the beginning and offered me insight on what changes Guild Mortgage has been going through with the increased volume of mortgage defaults they are servicing. I understand this however it does excuse the fact that I am very willing to make Guild Mortgage whole and obtain an affordable mortgage monthly payment considering our current situation. He suggested I call or write FHA and my State Representative if I was unhappy with the restrictions of my FHA insured loan. He also reminded me that we should be more aware of what we sign when purchasing a home and know that default can lead to foreclosure. I was told that Guild is on the "servicer" of the loan and can only do what FHA allows. I don't understand this because FHA is the "insurer" of the loan so why is the servicer bound from doing anything like modification/restructuring loans as the "servicer?"

He sent us a request for financial statement, bank statements, paycheck stubs, etc. We sent all that in and he suggested we cut expenses and we did, now hes saying upon our return if these forms that it appears nothing has changed. We took a few weeks to negotiate and reduce our monthly obligations, our food bill, attorney fees, credit card payments etc. I feel like we are on a merry go round and all we want to do is what everyone in America does, that is to have and maintain our home, health and dignity. We are proud to be home owners and are doing everything possible to keep it. We desperately need help and we need it right away. Now it is difficult to reach him, we have not received a return phone call and after a couple of email requesting a response finally got one which is when he said "he didn't notice anything different from the last submission" well the financial statement is different because we did reduce monthly obligations as he suggested so it is all confusing to me.

We are very serious and desperate about saving our home and making amends with Guild Mortgage. We just feel it is very difficult to reach someone to work things out, we are getting the run around, poor customer service and miss information. It seems as though the feeling is just foreclose because that is easy, don't try to help the customers. It is difficult to find someone who will work with us to ensure we stay in our home and Guild Mortgage can be made whole. We would like someone to listen to our situation and restructure/modify our loan so our payment is under 1900 a month even if our term needs to be stretched to 40-60 years. We love our home and do not want to be discriminated against because of a series of unfortunate events starting with my husbands layoff from IBM and the current global recession our country is dealing with. We are proud to be homeowners and happy to have a stable and permanent home for our two children to grow up in. We have done what was asked of us; we lowered our credit card payments, lowered our food bill and most every necessity to the bare minimum. My husband is going to be enrolling in school in the winter to retrain and expand his options for employment and continues to receive his unemployment.

HELP! Are you experiencing difficulty too?

Rhonda of Eagar, AZ December 10, 2009

My payment sent via a bank payment system had not cleared the bank and it usually does on the day and sometimes 1 day behind that. It has been 5 days past the due date and the check still hasn't cleared. While waiting the 30 minutes on hold waiting for someone I registered on their website and it showed the payment being received yesterday.

I finally gave up on holding but is it fair to a consumer to hold a payment for 5 days? This assumes the bank didn't make any errors or the post office. I realize I must pay interest for the higher amount for those 5 days. frustrated that I can't seem to get ahold of anyone and the payment showed up so late. But I do want to report it to find out if this is becoming a common occurrence with other customers.

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