American Financial Resources, Inc.

I have ranked them with one star only because I cannot give zero. My entire housing payment is completely botched up. I went online to make my monthly payment in November. As a surprise, with no notice or explanation, the monthly payment due (mtge + escrow) had suddenly increased by $ 316.37. I called, and they explained the increase was due to a change in my escrow, as my property taxes had «increased.» I called the City Assessor’s office and the City Treasurer’s office, both of whom told me that no such increase had occurred. I relayed this to AFR, who called the City, confirmed this, and called me back to admit they had made a mistake. Sounds easy enough to fix, right? No chance. I was told that a «new analysis» had to be done to correct the issue, which would be completed by «November 19^th.» Since then, I’ve had many phone calls, with many different reps, NONE of whom could tell me if/​when the new analysis had ever been — until today, December 18^th, when a rep (finally) explained that the new analysis actually had been done back on November 23^rd. No explanation as to why no one had ever told me this. So, problem fixed? Not so much. Here’s the rub: (1) my «new» escrow amount will actually be $ 1.33 LESS per month than my old one, and yet my «new» total housing payment (mtge + escrow) will be $ 149.32 MORE per month than my old one (what kind of math is this?!?); and (2) even though they admit they screwed up my escrow amount back in November, they say I still have to make payments for both Nov & Dec that are $ 316.37 MORE than my old payment amounts, only to have a «credit» added to the account and my overpayment «refunded» to be later (allegedly). This is because their computer system will not recognize that an updated payment amount until January 5^th (18 days from today!!!), even though earlier in the conversation she that that this normally takes 48 – 72 hours. There are just no words to explain how dissatisfied I am with AFR. I am not a fan of large banks and lending institutions, but I wish I were still a customer of CitiMortgage’s, where there was NEVER a mistake made with my mortgage or escrow accounts, for the nearly 12 years that they serviced our mortgage. I refinanced our home earlier this year in pursuit of a little better rate than Citi could offer, and ended up having the note sold by the mortgage broker to AFR. It took AFR less than a half a year to completely screw up my account. I cannot recommend them, whatsoever.

What began as a simple equity cash out turned into three months of inept unprofessionalism. Week after week we were assured that it would close in a few days yet another request would be asked despite the fact that it was given weeks before. After 90 days we fired them. Just not worth it.

Can a less than 1 star rating be given for American Financial Resources. I’ve come to find out their biggest problem. Outsourcing??? Yes, they outsource almost everything and no one can make a decision because they must EMAIL back and fourth.
Their customer service is poor and lacking competency. These representatives do not care if they’ve collected more than half of a person’s taxes incorrectly and provide canned replies when questioned. Our son’s nightmare has been going on 16 months with American Financial Resources to no avail. Buyer beware!

I read most of the reviews and I see I am not the only person who was mislead. I was looking to refinance into a 15 year mortgage. I wanted out of my FHA and to try and have more hope of someday retiring. I was told by Andrew this was no problem, and we would be closing in October. I was scheduled for surgery due to breast cancer, a few days after I had gotten the ball rolling with the refinance. I was assured I had given them everything I needed, not to stress, and get better. This was not the case. The appraisal was ordered. I had only gotten home from the hospital, but I wanted to proceed in a timely manner. The appraisal went well. My home appraised for $ 30,000 more than expected. I was told things looked great. Once you’re out of the underwriter we will close. My contact with Andrew and also Jessica had been almost immediate, but now everyone seemed to disappear. I wanted to know the status since October was almost at an end. When I finally got in touch with them I was told I had to explain some things on my credit report, and needed to show student loan documents. I was furious. I’d been emailing and calling with no response for two weeks. Of course whenever they needed me to produce documents it was immediately. This is very frustrating I’m trying to heal, working 55 hours a week, and being ignored by the bank. I settled the credit questions and went out of my way to get the student loan documents. I emailed my documents to both Andrew and Jessica and asked to be notified if that was what was needed. I honestly don’t think it would have killed either Andrew or Jessica to say we got it and it’s what the underwriter needs. That can be done via email in two minutes. No response weeks went by my emails and phone calls went unanswered. I called the main number and was assured Andrew would get back to me. He proceeded to say there was a LTV ratio issue. I have a very good income, and to use that as an excuse was pathetic. I said so when was someone going to tell me? He apologized, and assured me Andrew would call. To be honest he called but I couldn’t answer at the time at work. I called him back on both his numbers and he did not get back to me. I called a few times later leaving a message to just email me what had happened, still nothing. I’m not sure what the point is of starting a loan process and abandoning your client midstream. I canceled my biweekly withdrawals because I was expecting to close. I’m guessing there must be some financial incentive for them to lie and not close. I will never recommend this company to anyone ever again and if the topic of banks comes up I will be sure to inform others of the unprofessional way they operate. They are not worth the headache, stress, and disappointment. Remember if something sounds too good to be true it is!!! They DO NOT deliver what they promise. I paid for an appraisal I can never even use since every bank uses their own appraiser. I encourage you to go to another financial institute!!! Run don’t walk. American Financial Resources has poor customer service skills. They should realize all their reviews are all negative, and consider making changes in their current way of practice.

Seneca mortgage has been a nightmare since taking my mortgage. They have horrible customer service. And treat you like your a dead beat who doesn’t pay their mortgage. They have charged fees illegally and also filed my excellent credit to two months of over 30 days late. When I made payments and they made deductions causing the payment to be less than.
I have called before and after all this. Spoke to many and they are rude and unprofessional. I have had mortgage for 25 years and never had these issues with other lenders. This is bad. We need to get together and file class action suite. And get these criminals shut down.
PM me if anyone is interested.

It’;s not worth your time and energy to deal with this company. We almost lost the house we were buying because of them. They lie. They don’t return phone calls. They delay, and delay and delay. Find another company. They tell you what you want to hear until they have you locked in.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY ~
They sold my mortgage to Seneca Mortgage Servicing (also did a negative Unilocal review for Seneca…) and it has been a disaster. They failed to notify me that my loan was being sold, called a phone number that I no longer use and then when I continued to send them payments they did not notify me either by phone or by certified mail. One would think with a mortgage over $ 300K that they would at least pick up the phone or try to track me down? Seriously?
Please everyone call/​write your State Attorney General’s office and put these people (and Seneca Mortgage Servicing) out of business ~ with the banking mess that we have just been through you would think these people would have cleaned up their act!

…I have them now. They have requested an increase in my escrow due to the school tax not being paid… it was in July. I have attempted to call and there is an endless stream of voice prompts that take you to people that have no idea what they are talking about. I have even provided a reference/​ticket number that stated they would get back to me in 10 days (October 7) it is now November 6.

AFR, Inc., acquired my mortgage from another lender. The phone staff are extremely rude and do not know their jobs very well. Loan hand-​off has been very adversarial. E-​mails have so far gone unanswered. I would never use this company is I had any choice in the matter.

Denied an application which we had been working on 6 days before closing because of work history??? which they were aware of the whole process…

Wish I could give this company zero stars! From day one of sending a brokered loan to this garbage dump, I’ve had nothing but nightmares. My AE is worthless, not to mention the assistant to the AE, believe his name is David is incredibly rude ! When I escalated to his manager, I got the same type of attitude from his manager so obviously this type of attitude is accepted by managers at this dump! If you think that rude customer service isn’t bad, how about dealing with 4 months of tryjng to get the easiest type of loan (FHA streamline) closed! This place is a joke. I will continue to make sure everyone I speak to in my network doesn’t use this horrible company. Just a tip for the management of AFR maybe start off with training your manager, Chris L how to talk to customers. That’s a start! Again DO NOT use this company for brokered or retail Loans! You will regret every moment of it!

I found AFR on the internet. I also read the reviews first-​most of which were negative. However, they immediately took my application over the phone and a credit card in case an appraisal was ordered in the future (kinda weird, but ok).
I was originally assisted by Chris Holwill who is a Sr. Loan Originator. He was fine to deal with and got me answers. I had a bankruptcy and foreclosure in the past and he assured me that I would be fine to qualify for an FHA loan. I contacted other lenders that said they couldn’t help me until I had satisfied the bankruptcy discharge 2 years to the day. AFR said I was eligible the very day after the discharge was satisfied (not 2 years later).
After Chris, I was handed off to another loan officer and some other assistant to deal with. I will say their attention to detail is horrible. I had to ask for a correct commitment letter 3 times before they got the financials right. They took constant prodding to get information so the communication was far from perfect. However, whenever I needed help, I would email Chris and he’s respond right away.
The process took a while, I applied in January and closed March 31. However, they were able to get me a loan and into a house which feels like a miracle.
I guess it depends on your situation as to the type of service you get.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY
They don’t specify what their requirements are then come back to the customer for additional fees to do the same procedures over again. Then they delay even more needing additional information on documents that they have had for weeks but wait until almost closing dates.
I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY TO MOST WORST ENEMY.
If I could give theM ZERO STARS I WOULD…

They only have 1 star for good reason!!! Tried to do a refi. Use them if you don’t mind spoon feeding your lender information. Never any follow up. Everything is blamed on the underwriter. I gave up and went elsewhere.

Keeps calling me from disconnected caller ID line. Twice a day for several days now. I’ve asked them to stop. Calls from 760−892−6142 which shows up as Level 3 Communications when I google it.

Nearly 3 months have passed since the initial application and still no answers. I have applied for re finance of my condo on June 4^th. Now it is August 28^th and they are still looking at it? From the beginning, I told them of my situation that I have a former bankruptcy 3 years ago. I earn over 400K per year and the condo that I wanted to refinance was an owner financing from the previous owner. I wanted to rebuild my credit. I have been paying 4 – 6000 dollars per month on this condo and I could be done paying it off in 2 more years. All I wanted was some credit history in my own name if I am going to pay it off. They knew all this going in and they told me it was a done deal. I pay for 500 dollars in appraisal. That was in mid June. Since then, they have been jerking me around by every ten days or so would pass, I get frustrated and call, then they tell me they need this or that. Every 10 days, they ask me for new set of additional documents. It ranged from bankruptcy papers, loan notes, my bank account information, tax returns. If they wanted all these from the start, I could have given it to them. But they do this only after I make the call every ten days or so. Finally last week they told me they couldn’t do the loan because I was lacking some banking receipts! I got mad and wrote a nasty email to the manager. A manager named William Carrol gets involved and acted like he was going to handle everything. I gave him some more documents that he wanted. This was Thursday, 6 days ago. Since then I sent him two follow up emails to see what the update is and no reply.
I have never seen a company such as this. No action and they act like they have all the time in the world! Why delay for 3 months for a yes or no answer. Why make me spend 500 dollar appraisal fee if 2.5 months later they were going to say no! Well, they haven’t yet come back and said «no», yet. I am writing this review out of frustration. If you go with this company, be prepared to be put through the ringers. No one ever calls you to follow up until you pick up the phone first.
Never been so frustrated in my life.

if I could give them ZERO stars, I would. THey are hands down the worst wholesale lender I have ever had the DISPLEASURE of working with. DO NOT send them loans, they will only delay them to the point where the borrower walks away. They are inconsistent, unreasonable and do not care one iota about your relationship with your borrower, Realtor, etc. The AE is absolutely NO help.

Absolutely astonishing level of incompetence. They get 2 stars, because they were able to close the loan, but overall it was terrible.
The issues started almost immediately after I locked my rate. First, the original quote changed, as the loan officer Richard Silva misread the email and thought it was a rate and term refinance. I then was forced to pay $ 895 fee and for appraisal.
My mortgage officer simply ignored my phone calls, and refused to return any messages. I would have moved onto a new company THAT DAY, but rates had risen suddenly, and it would have cost me .25%, so I was stuck. I sent in all documents required the day they asked for them, to ensure I was not slowing them down at all.
I sent in information, and at that point the appraisal was «called to schedule» by Rich. Only after I called the main line a few days later and they lied and told me my credit card had been declined for the appraisal, and I had to tell them I never gave it to them, were we finally able to schedule.
From the time my loan was submitted to underwriting May 7^th, with extra conditions sent on May 9^th, and then supposedly to my appraisal coming back on May 20^th (about 20 days into the process) I was informed that now they would start working on their end, as they are worried the loan would change. Other refinances have been ready to close when the appraisal comes in, but at AFR, they only start really working on your file once the appraisal is in.
I wound up calling their customer care department a couple of times a day as we got closer, as they were making limited progress on their end as the 45 day rate lock came close to expiration.
The overall system is poor at best, and the communication I got from all levels of AFR was terrible. Somehow they were able to close the loan within 45 days, but not without a ridiculous amount of headaches and unnecessarily poor communication. With so many options out there, I would absolutely avoid this company.

This company is a at best, the worst managed lowest class skid row mortgage company in the USA. At worst, it is a well coordinated organized scam worthy of a full investigation for a RICO violation by the attorney general of New Jersey.
Do yourself a favor.
Ignore the bait and switch that starts at
with the attractive rates.
Do NOT even think about doing business with this company.

IF YOU ARE A LOAN OFFICER, DO NOT USE.
If I could give no stars, I would. I am a seasoned loan officer, and I brokered out a deal to AFR because it was a VA streamline and with my current lender, the borrower needed an appraisal which would cost them $ 500.00. On the surface AFR sounded like the right option because my borrower didn’t need an appraisal, I thought I would be saving my borrower $ 500.00. but it turned out to be one of the most horrifying loan officer experiences of my career, I have not had an experience like this on a loan since the crash in 2006. For those of you in the business, you know a streamline is one of the easiest ways to go. you have to go out of your way to mess up a streamline. There is no income /​in this case no asset docs (borrower was getting a credit).
Here is a little recap. AFR drew docs incorrectly, had borrower sign, then said borrower was getting back to much $, then asked me to tell them, THE LENDER what the loan amount should be, instead of working from your worksheet,(LOL) This is when I should have known wee were in trouble and a part of me did. I was flabbergasted. We did it and sent them a new 1003 and gfe, then AFR told us we were clear to close then asked us for updated insurance to cover more months (AFTER THEY ISSUED CLEAR TO CLOSE AND DREW DOCS WITH THIS INCORRECT INSURANCE, IF THEY NEEDED 60 DAYS COVERAGE THEY SHOULD HAVE REQUESTED THE 1ST TIME THEY CLEARED AND DREW DOCS), then they said we were short to close, we had to upload new 1003 and gfe, AFTER that AFR said we had wrong mortgagee clause, even though they had 3 weeks before THEY DREW DOCS THE FIRST TIME. Then when questioned said, AFR said it was correct initially and that’s why it was originally signed off, said either WE or escrow changed it without being instructed to do so, we looked in AFR uploaded docs system, only insurance had AFR’s mortgage clause the whole time! Then after we get them this! They tell us our pay-​off is going to expire!!! And they need a new one 2 DAYS AFTER YOU ISSUED CLEAR TO CLOSE AGAIN! Then we get new pay off then told we are SHORT TO CLOSE, THEY NEED ANOTHER 1003, GFE, MIND YOU BY THIS TIME WE ARE WELL OVER THE END OF THE MONTH, WITH THE REP ASSURING US WE CAN STILL FUND INTO THE MONTH IF WE GET DOCS MONDAY (THE 6TH) WE CAN STILL CLOSE, THEN I REMIND THEM THE RIGHT OF RECISSION IS UP ON THE 9TH AND WE ARE OVER OUR DEADLINE SO WHY ARE THEY STILL TELLING US WE CAN FUND, Then it’s as if the lights went out and no one responds again ever, like it was all a dream.
Do yourself a favor, do not use them. save your deal, your going to end up with pissed off clients