Topdot Mortgage

We found Top Dot as a last resort. We were trying to purchase a family members home out of reverse mortgage. Our credit wasn't the greatest and we had little money to put down. Top Dot promised us the moon and stars! We were even going to get an additional amount of money at closing to fix the house up. We were told that since the home was in a family members name, we could move in whenever we wanted, the loan was a sure thing.

We had a closing date of 10/15/09 which came and went with no contact from the company, and many many unreturned phone calls. We were told to pay off all of our credit cards which we did, and by January 2010, we were totally debt free, that still wasn't enough. After almost a month of non-stop phone calls being ignored and not returned, we called Top Dot Corporate only to be told that our mortgage guy had been fired and our file transferred to someone else.

When we finally got in touch with the new guy, he told us there was no way we would ever get a mortgage and to continue living in the house until it was foreclosed on. Our appraisal was paid for, our inspections were done and now we were going to loose the house! After we were told, in writing, to go ahead and move in. They even wrote a letter to my son's school telling them that we would be closing soon so it was okay to allow him to switch schools. We did eventually find another mortgage company and bought the house. But, we were traumatized and stressed over the whole thing, not to mention that we lost out on a lot of money.

My original loan with Topdot was with a hard money lender for 11%. Because my credit was bad, so they told me to go with this loan for six months and then they would refi me into a FHA loan with 5.5 % so they can pay off my credit with a company called Center for Financial Management in Florida, where they were very shady and took a extra $20,000 on my FHA loan which I am paying for now. And then they refi me into a FHA loan paying that hard money lender off $200,000 when I only borrowed $140,000 and only had the loan for six months. I have copies of my HUD statement.

I was at home watching television one day and I see a commercial about a government refinance program. I called the number and I reached a representitive of Topdot Mtg. Before calling, I googled them and saw some complaints, but against my better judgemant, I called them anyway. I gave him all of my info over the phone, he said he could get me a jumbo mtg. with a much lower rate than what I was paying. They told me that I would have to pay the appraisal fees out of pocket(450.00). They had me gather all of my info, 1 month of pay stubs, 2 months of bank statements(checking and savings), and 2 years of w2 forms. I faxed them all the information and waited, waited and still waited, about 2 months. In the meantime they ran my credit about 4 times.

After 2 months i started to become curious as to weather they were scammers or not. I tried reaching my broker about 3 times over a 2 week period via email and phone. Finally, I reached my broker and he shoved me off to another broker, all of a sudden i'm dealing with another guy. Once again I had to gather all my info and then they ran my credit another 3 tom 4 times. They called finally after about 3 to 4 months of dealing with them and they told me i was ready to close. I receive the proposal in the mail and the payment was the same as i was paying.

I called Topdot and they said i was applying for a FHA mtg, which they never told me. Of course they told me that they were gonna "refigure" the numbers and get back to me, it's been 3 more months and they haven't called. So basically i wasted 450.00 and a lot of time gathering info and waiting for those knuckleheads tio come through on what they told me was a "definite thing". To top it off, they didn't seem too experienced at what they were doing. THINK BEFORE USING THE LONG ISLAND OFFICES.

Top Dot Mortgage ordered an FHA appraisal on record in the FHA office in Newark NJ under FHA case No. 352 645 3751 filed by the Appraiser, Laureen Andes of LA Express in Ocean Twp, NJ, for which I paid $450 that was charged to my credit card. This FHA appraisal is not related to the conventional loan I applied for. My credit card ocmpany agrees it is a wrongful charge that should be deducted from my card but they need an appraisal that shows the FHA case number on it not just on record in the FHA office. The appraiser, Laureen Andes telephone 908-875-5014 said she did an FHA appraisal as was ordered by Top Dot and Top Dot tells me it is not an FHA appraisal, yet he does not address the fact that my appraisal is on file in the FHA office.

The appraiser said she needs approval from Top Dot in order to put the FHA case number on the appraisal.
Both the appraiser and Top Dot refuse to deal with their disagreement over this while I have been wrongfully charged for not only an appraisal unrelated to my loan but for an appraisal that another appraiser said looked very "fishy" because it does not contain the FHA case number that is recorded in the FHA office on every page of the appraisal. It seems to me that there must be some government agency presiding over a lender who cheats a borrower of not only her right to an applicable appraisal but one that does not conform to uniform standards of FHA appraisal reports.

I only have 30 days left to pursue this with my credit card company who is in sympathy with me.

This company is airing a commercial that mimics a news broadcast, making their offer appear as a government sanctioned program. It is misleading at the least and I suspect a scam.

My husband and I were referred to this mortgage company through our perspective seller on the home we are seeking to buy, and currently living in, in July of 2008. My husband and I were married in August of 2008, he previously and presently being self employed and single all his life, and me previously married and divorced in 2006, which left me a high debt to pay with marks on my credit as a result of. Knowing we had issues such as income and credit,the lender had made promises that he could work with us under certain conditions. I had started a new job and after he overlooked my credit report he had said that all I needed was "2 paychecks" and we were in. Well, that 2 paychecks came and went and we began a spirling turn into what has just recently happened when we informed him we no longer wanted to work with this individual nor his company. He then used several excuses such as I should go get a credit card and charge $100 and then pay it down to $10.

We followed his advice and that wasn't good enough. He continued to blame it on a Sears credit card in which I had to prove I was caught up in payments and had to show they had turned that into the credit beaureaus. After several times of faxing him the letter stating that information from Sears and Sears doing it themselves he claimed he never got it. When he finally was satisfied and said he recieved it after a month or so, that wasn't good enough and offered many, many more advise as to how to raise my credit score, all of which I have in emails to prove. One of the last peices of advice he offered was that my husband, being self employed, should "show more of a substatial income on his 2008 tax return and get the loan on his own without me". He PROMISED this would work. We didn't have communication with him for a month after he suggested this. After the first of the year we had told him we were going to file taxes and once we did that we would contact him.

After we filed, we explained to him that we would file our taxes jointly and only turn in accurate information as to what we had proof of for my husband's income and expenses. Even though my credit score had gone up substaintially, and my husbands income for 2008 increased he still kept us jumping through hoops,trying to get us to not file our taxes as we were going to and make changes on my husbands return to show much more income. Making me explain marks on my credit that were there back in July when he first pulled my history. I have emails on all of this. There is much more information I have not mentioned but will, however this last move he has made today, in fact is the reason I need protection, I received a disturbing email from this lender stating that I needed to let him know if we wanted to terminate the loan process, I replied to terminate, he then sent me more emails, the latest one threatening to turn my husband and I into the IRS for tax evasion and saying he used that for the reason for termination and also deception. He went on to say we were a "waste of time" and we wasted HIS time and how we stole an appraisal that HE ordered, and said that I don't pay my collections. Very upsetting and abusive.