Active Rain February 5, 2012

Pigs Only Understand Slop

This past December I established a zero tolerance policy for uncooperative mortgage loan officers. In the past 24 hours I have faced the same issue. One of my agents is representing buyers in a particularly difficult purchase. The buyer clients were telling her things that she need clarity on, and over a week ago she reached out to their loan officer at a large, well known big box bank you have heard of. 
No response. 
A few days ago, she emailed the loan officer again. 
No response. 
 
I reached out. I was less, shall we say, timid.
Here’s the response we got: 
 

I believe you should communicate with the clients who applied for the loan. I have been in constant communication with them and they can provide you with status.

 If you are not 100% satisfied with my service or your experience with <Uberbank> at any time, please let me or my manager know right away.  Our contact information is below.  Thank you for choosing <Uberbank>.

<name and contact info for manager>

This is the kind of arrogance that confounds me. What he’s basically saying is that not only does he not care, but his boss doesn’t care either. Institutionalized pompousity. Meanwhile, the client spins their wheels and the folks on the other side of the transaction grind their teeth. 
 
What do I do now? Say pretty please? Reach out to a manager who will repeat the party line? Obviously they don’t care if they never get a file from us and they don’t care if this closes. They just don’t care. 
 
Pigs only understand slop. After some thought, I sent back the following response: 
 
Believe me, we don’t exactly want to communicate with you. As a matter of fact when this file is concluded, I’d probably avoid you. 

The thing is that we have jobs to do, and communication from the loan officer is essential at some times when the client tells us things that don’t add up. 

So when  we seek you out, we aren’t looking to enjoy your sparkling, collegial personality. We seek clarity on something the client cannot offer. Why don’t you call the <Uberbank> branch in Scarsdale for advice on how to address something like that, and they might be able to offer you some insight on what we seek. I have more use for their LO team than your supervisor. 

Have a great weekend.

I fully expected another frustrating response, but I was pleasantly surprised. 
I got an apologetic voicemail (which will be saved for a long, long time!) and my agent got a personal phone call-on a Saturday- from this LO apologizing for the nastiness, and a clear status update. It wasn’t the best news, but it was news and that’s what we needed. 
 
I don’t know if my response was truly the cause, but I’m certain that something caused a change of heart over there. Maybe he googled me. Maybe his conscience whispered in his ear. I don’t care. I just know that in December I pledged not to rest in situations like this until I knew the score. And now we know the score. 
 
Now we can do our job again.