We will leave the initials and location off of this submission: “I am a former household employee, I can give you alot of the dirt on household. On ethics and laws that are broken. On how they phrase things to mislead customers. Its a sleazy, sleazy business that abuses the customer who is usually poorly educated and doesn’t know better. I worked there over 2 years know it very well. Don’t get me wrong I saw a lot of loans that did indeed help customers that were in desperate help, but I also saw a lot of loans that were totally misleading and destructive and a marketing model that was totally predatory.”
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Another observer said this about HSBC: “Over the past 5 years, HSBC/HFC/Beneficial committed and followed-through with that commitment to provide their customers with great products and services. They are one of the few companies that “over disclose”. In order to even do a loan, the company must meet at least 2 net tangible benefits for the customer, or the loan is turned down. They also provides excellent benefits to it’s employees. No company is perfect, but I was shocked to see a whole web-site dedicated to the defamation of one company’s reputation. Who has time to sit around watch every move HSBC makes? If that’s the case, don’t just report the things you see as negative, but give a fair and accurate report, show the good things HSBC does as well. And who are your sources anyway? I was reading through some of these articles, and they are ludicris. Uninformed and completely unsubstantiated. Maybe you should think before you publish your lies on who’s life your affecting.”
I, too, am a former HFC employee and quit after observing that a mortgage was signed that was not in compliance with HFC and Federal loan standards. When I complained to Quality control, my so called “manager” was abusive to me and the loan did go through, even though it should have been redone with a new rescission period. All the proper papers were not signed at the time of the loan and the consumers were not given the paper work to sign that indicated the amount that their arm loan would reset. This was only one instance of HFC’s impropriety and deceptive tactics. Subsequently, I quit this job and can sleep at night.
ok. im an AMT in pennslyvania and have been with the company for 1 year. First off any person who does anything such as forging documents or being uncompliant should be terminated immediatly. In response to nancy, nancy you did the correct thing by telling the QAC as doing it the right way is what matters. now im not sure what state your in since we no longer can even offer ARM products, I have NEVER offered one by the way, however you did the best thing by protecting the customer. In todays economy it is horrible to see people who have ARM loans that are going to adjust up and they cannot make their upcoming payment. It is these kind of loans that are causing the economic problems that, in my opinion, we are only seeing the beginning of.
There needs to be some sort of law banning ARM and Neg Am loans and allowing them only under very strict guidelines and federal regulations. I have countless times had to sit with customers and literally word for word teach them about how their ARM loan works and How an amortization schedule works. I take pride in teaching customers about personal finance and have numerous times told customers they could get better deals somewhere else. I have a degree in finance so I actually enjoy teaching people how to make addtional principal payments on their mortgage so as to pay it off sooner. I always use my due diligence in providing a loan to a customer and have even discouraged people from taking loans that I felt were wrong for them.
Example: I had a guy who wanted an extra thousand bucks on his mortgage. the guy was REALLY wanting this thousand dollars. Not very savvy at all. i explained to him how if he took the extra 1k the amount of the loan would go over a 90.49% thus increasing his rate and payment by $220 per month. I explained to him he would recoup the 1k in savings over less than 5 months by simply not taking the extra grand. he looked at me and said “wow i didn’t even think of it like that”.
Example 2: I stated to a mortgage customer that it would be smarter to take 10k in his real estate loan at 7.4%(it was secured plus) as opposed to our side loan at 22.98%. this would be a tax write off and he would be paying the 10k back at about 1/3 of the rate on the side loan. now if i was a scumbag i would have had him take the extra grand and have the other guy take the side loan for the extra volume for my month. I have ethics and a consious and work hard to educate my customers about their finances. While some of my colleagues may not practice the most ethical way of doing buisness I do. As mentioned earlier HSBC is not in the predicament that most other banks are in because of our strict underwriting guidelines. seriously sometimes they are so strict it is almost as if they DONT want to do loans. Anyway please do not critize my entire organization for the bad habits and tendencies of a few. There ARE some of us who actually try and help customers out.
As an insider, I hate to say I believe stuff like the story here but I frankly do. I’m late in my career and can retire any day they “invite” me to so I’m not afraid of the truth. I can’t say I’ve always felt this way as I’ve seen some dirty things occur in branches, to customers, to management, by and to about everyone. Too many times I’ve bit my tongue or walked away to conserve my career. This is just the HFC/Bene way and regardless of the alleged ‘confidence’, fact is everyone eventually finds out who talked and there are ramifications even today. There are some solid folks here but there are some aweful ones in certain seats and those are usually the ones with enough juice to usually make life hard on many.