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Option One Mortgage Corp.

Irvine, CA

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James of Springhill FL (04/16/06)
Back in March 2005 I had a sinkhole claim. Insurance company and adjusters did what they were suppose to. I received the claim and endorsed to Option One Mortgage, which was their policy as the checks had their name as well. Well in June/July 2005 The  for the grouting company did the work needed to stablize the home. After completion and engineers report from Fla. I sent reports to Option one for work done and the company needed to be paid.  Option One never paid the funds out!

So in the meantime around August I receive a letter from said companies Attorney. They placed a Lien on my home and began to charge interest and lawyer fees. I contacted Option one again only to receive rude responses that they did not choose that company and therefore would not pay it. I again stated it wasn't their choice as the insurance company picked them from the three bids and I had to go with it or they would not issue the money.

Come October, I was 15 days late on my payment and called to make a quick collect over the phone. Well to my suprise they refused unless I was going to make the following months payment also at the same time. (WOW) I thought. I had a hard time making that month, therfore could not make an additional payment. Well by the time I had both payments they again refused and wanted December's payment also. Again, rude as could be to me they were! They started forclosure on my home at the begining of Dec 2005.

After I was served the papers I began to try and refinance and was approved only to see that Option one was playing the game too. They knew as long as they didn't pay the company for the work on the home, the lien would keep me from refinancing!  I sold the home instead. Only to lose all my proceeds in the process to pay said companies off. Including thier attorney's fees! Now I have nothing and Option one is sitting on all that insurance money and not returning it to me. They received thier payoff and now they just either be rude to me and say they owe me nothing or hang up on me when I call for my refunds.

Sherry of Jackson, TN April 14, 2006

Sherry of Jackson TN (04/14/06)
My husband and I bought our first home through Option One in April of 2001. Almost from day one there were constant phone calls about one problem or another. There were several occasions that they claimed to have not received our payment, but this only happened when I would mail the payment in. Of course their solution was to use the "check by phone", which they in turn was able to charge an additional fee of 7 to 8+. Then they would tell us that the payment was late, another 22+ in late fees.

They even claimed one time that the check was not received, so I mailed a replacement. After doing so, I was then informed that because the payment was then late they would be returning that check , and would only accept a "quick collect" payment, but even then I would have to send two payments together or else they would not accept it. Their reasoning behind this was "one payment was nearly 30 days late, and they would not accept one payment without the other." It became 30 days late because it took them close to three weeks to inform me that the check had not arrived.

This was so unlike them since they would start calling even if they thought the payment was going to late, since of course "we really don't a have a grace period." Then after going through all this, having a late payment over 30 days, paying a late fee, paying the quick collect fee, all the constant, harassing, and rude calls, like magic the "lost" check appeared. I was then informed that my check would be sent back to me by Fed X. I actually ended up with a check from another Option One customer from Atlanta, GA, and they ended up with ours. Option One had claimed that their check never showed up either. Once again magic happened. As soon as they sent in their two payments via quick collect, their check showed up. This man called to inform me that he had my check, and wondered if I had his. I did. It seems I was not the only one having a lot of problems with Option One. Our stories were almost identical.

After living in our house for two plus years, we had a visitor show up June 11, 2003 with a card stating that we needed to call Option One immediately. In doing so, I was informed that our house had been put up for sale due to non-payment since March of that year. I was in total shock. They said I would have to prove that we had made the payments. I asked why we had not been notified earlier, and I was told, "well, we tried calling, but no one answered the phone." Well, not only did we have caller ID, but we also had voice messaging. There were no messages. So I asked why they had not sent something in the mail. I was told "we did." "Okay, did you send it certified so you would know for sure that we had gotten it?" "No."

This is the same company that would call 10 to 20 times a day when they thought the payment would be one day late. This is one of the few times I had mailed the payment in because I was tired of paying all the extra fees that they charged for check by phone, etc. I was unable to find the March and April money order receipts. I asked how much we owed so we could just get it paid and deal with everything else later. They said it would be 72 hours before they could tell me the amount owed. They had to talk to the attorney that had been hired to foreclose on our home.

Less than 30 minutes later my husband called back and asked the same question on the amount owed. They told him approx. 3,500. (Our monthly payment was less than 400.) According to them we were 3 months behind. Hello, how did it get to be 3,500. Well, there were fees for everything you could think of, no homeowners insurance (we did have it), unpaid taxes (they had been paid in Feb.), almost 400 to some guy that they claimed was sent to "drive by" our house to make sure that we still lived there, late fees, attorney fees, etc. There were so many different fees that I just stopped writing and told them to send us the paperwork. We were told that we had until the first week of July to come up with the 3,500, or it would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

I called back approx. one week later to let them know that we were in the process of trying to borrow the money. That is when I was informed that the amount had increased nearly 1,000. I don't even remember what the reason was for the increase. The following week I called again to see if there was any way we could extend the deadline so we could get the money. This time I was told that not only had the the amount increase nearly another 1,000,(lawyers fees I think), but now we had to have the money by June 28. This was a few days away.

Needless to say they took our house and sold it. We had to move into a drug infested neighborhood, in a two bedroom duplex because our credit was ruined. I later found out that they had reported to the attorney that we had not paid any house payments since Jan. According to them we owed Feb., March, April, and May. I also was not sent an interest statement to file on our taxes the entire time we lived there, despite several attempts to get one. After we moved, I was finally sent one to cover interest paid for the months of Jan., Feb., and March 2003. The amount was incorrect, but the big issue here is how did we pay interest on payments that they claim was never paid to begin with.?

Now here it is April 2006, and we have been given a chance to purchase a home through a reputable company. When they ran a credit check this is what showed up, "Option One-there is not a balance showing on this mortgage loan, but it does say that foreclosure process HAS BEEN STARTED." The house was sold in July of 2003, and has since been remodeled and sold again in 2005.

Brendan of White Plains, NY April 6, 2006

Brendan of White Plains NY (04/06/06)
I own a small title company. A check overnighted to Option One in the amount of 273,000.00 was received by Option One on 1/14/06, returned on 2/24/06 as being short on date of receipt, which Option One states as 2/24/06. The check was sent with our proofs and cover letter setting forth reason for resubmit. Received the check back 4/4/06 with letter indicating check short as of date of receipt on 3/17/06. We'll prevail, but Option One has a costly scam going.

The credit report of borrower will show foreclosure of mortgage.

Megan of Fairfield, CT March 24, 2006

Megan of Fairfield CT (03/24/06)
We had an emergency situation where we needed fast cash. We used the monthly mortgage payment. We called Option One to explain our situation and tell them we need a letter stating that the payment was overdue because we wanted to make the mortgage current by taking a hardship withdrawal from my retirement account. We CALLED seven times, emailed two times and faxed them four times over a period of three months to request the letter. We knew we were going to refiance and felt the best thing to do is to stay in constant communication with them as to not affect our credit.

During each phone call customer services told us to fax our needs to the research department and they will get us what we need. We faxed four times (I have documentation of all this as well as the emails and the dates I called) and no one got back to us. Finally we received the letter not because we requested it but rather due to the fact that the mortgage was so overdue. We recieved the letter 45 days after the first request.

We took the hardship withdrawal, sent the check  to Option One overnight as instructed and still received harrassing phone calls. Option One said they never received the check and that we should instruct M&I to stop pay. When I went back to M&I my retirement account they said the check had cleared. Option One had the check  for 15 days!!

Option One reported us late for three months to all three bureaus. We are attempting to put an addittion on our house and we can not get a mortgage. I called option one to discuss and they said we need to send a fax to the reserach department (been there, done that).

Leonardo of Miami Gardens, FL March 11, 2006

Leonardo of Miami Gardens FL (03/11/06)
In my case my bank took a long time to clear a check that I depostited to pay my mortgage on time, so the payment was rejected by the bank and of course my payment was past due, then I made a second payment on line and I wrote a wrong bank account number, so another rejected payment and still late, after all this I paid two months together, and everything seemed to be all right, I know that all what happened was not Option One's fault and the representative that took care of my case when I called them was very gentle and he was the one who told me that my account number was wrong and every thing was solved over the phone.

Now Option One call me almost every day asking me when I'm going to make the next payment, and this is HARASSMENT,the last time I talked to them they told me that I'm not supposed to use the 15 days grace period, that they want the payment the 1st day of the month. This is horrible!! Every time I check my caller ID is Option One calling again and again. And my payments are not behind so I understand all the people that had been into bigger problems with this company. My advice: If you are thinking in buying a house or refinancing and your option is going to be Option One, you better run and try a different mortgage company.

Scott of Steger, IL March 3, 2006

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