Bad customer service & Hidden Fee's (Countrywide Assured)

Member Name: wellyboot

Product:	Countrywide Assured
Date:	15/04/04 (3721 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast Appoinments

Disadvantages: Incompetent, Bad Customer Relations

Countrywide Financial Services/Conveyancing - June 2004

We are currently in the process of completing on the sale and purchase of property and have used Countrywide to do this.

After telling us there were no additional costs involved if we used them to arrange our mortgage rather than going direct to our lender, we decided to use Countrywide (to go direct would have taken 4 weeks to get an appointment and Countrywide offered us a mortgage arrangement appointment the same week). Upon receipt of all relevant literature through the post, both my husband and myself read through it at length and again were able to confirm the service was stated as being completely FREE.

However, after 2 hours sat in the office on the day of our appointment we were asked for a fee of nearly £300 to cover our mortgage arrangement fee to our lender. We were confused and told our advisor that we had looked recently at the cost of our lenders mortgage arrangement fee and that it was some £120 less than the figure we were being quoted from Countrywide. We were told that fee's had recently gone up, but not by that much, and were told that we must be mistaken. Not convinced we resolved to double check once we got home.

To our annoyance, we had indeed been completely correct. It turns out that Countrywide charge an additional fee for arranging it through them, despite their assurances to us that there were no extra fee's!

The following day I went into the branch where we had held the pervious days meeting and voiced my concerns. I was met with complete ignorance and refusal to see that if we'd gone direct to our mortgage lender we would have saved £120. Therefore to arrange our mortgage through Countrywide had cost us £120 more - meaning that arranging a mortgage through Countrywide was not FREE at all, and costs an additional arrangement sum over and above that which is charged by the lender.

In none of their literature that they give out to their clients is this mentioned. Therefore I believe this is a 'hidden' fee and would heartily recommend anyone thinking of using Countrywide demand to see a full breakdown of the mortgage arrangement fee BEFORE waiting for an appointment and sitting through a 2 hour meeting!


In addition to this highly unprofessional hidden fee, Countrywide have been consistently SLOW and have lost at least 2 separate documents that we have sent to them. In addition, it took them 2 weeks to provide us with a copy of our survey results, and we had to phone and ask several times before we actually received these.

More recently, a fax that we wanted to get sent to Countrywide's head office regarding our mortgage, they claim was not received (despite it being faxed to the correct number, as confirmed by the fax receipt we have) in fact I believe they 'lost' it when they received it. It was faxed AGAIN this morning and we were told that it will take approximately 3 days to get confirmation of receipt! In addition, the formal complaint I sent to head office regarding the hidden fee some 4 weeks ago has yet to receive a reply.

Suffice to say, I will definitely NOT ever use Countrywide again, nor will my friends and family and I would urge you to think carefully before doing so.

UPDATE: After 5 weeks I did receive a reply, and Countrywide have agreed to refund me this hidden fee.

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