Here at Consupo, we often hear from people who have experienced, well, less than satisfactory customer service, and who are not always sure how to go about sharing that experience. The simplest way is to post a case on Consupo.com, and that is usually where we refer them. But sometimes, we get stories emailed to us that just have to be shared. The following is by Piney Kahn about IndyMac Federal Bank.

My mortgage company is IndyMac and I received a letter from them stating they had no evidence of my home having hazard insurance. I must provide this info immediately, or they would "assign" me with an insurer (this was around February of 2008). Of course, there was no way I could have gotten a mortgage in the first place without having insurance, so this was pretty baffling. I had my insurance company immediately fax the info, but the letters kept coming from IndyMac. The paperwork had been faxed and mailed multiple times by my insurance company and myself. No matter what I did, the letters kept coming and every time I called I was subjected to the same long, irritating message (lecturing me that I needed to provide proof of insurance) and voicemail loops, there was no way around it and no direct extensions. Every person I talked to would also lecture me about what I had to provide. My insurance people had even gotten a hold of specific people and faxed it to their individual machines. I kept asking if there was a way I could scan it in and e-mail it, but IndyMac does not have e-mail that works outside of the company (only internally).

One day I received a letter from IndyMac stating that an insurer had been assigned and I was responsible for around $1200 and they billed me. I paid this because I couldn't risk losing my house over this, but went back to trying to resolve it - again, phone calls, faxes, mailings from myself and the insurance company. FINALLY they said they received it, but only for one time period and were still charging me for an alleged "lapse in coverage." Again with the calls, faxes and mailings - every customer service person was useless, telling me the same thing...that I needed to fax in or mail this info - not one of them provided any other alternative. Then, one time, I was told that the info had been received, I’d get a refund, blah, blah. This never happened. I called again and was told I needed to provide this info, that there was a lapse in my insurance, etc. This happened at least 5 times. Someone would "find" it, then the next time I'd call, I had allegedly never provided that info. I FINALLY got to a supervisor with a direct number around October 2008. Her name was Molly and she was the most useless of all, promising that she'd resolve the issue, be responsive, call me right back, etc. My insurance company faxed it directly to her. I called her for 3 straight weeks, each time leaving my mortgage number and asked that she just let me know what the status was. No response. Finally, I left a very snippy message stating that I'd thought, since she was a supervisor, she'd actually be helpful, but apparently I was mistaken. With this, she finally called back, left a message and AGAIN neglected to give me any status update at all. Just "call me back and I'll be happy to help you." One more time, back to the general line, through the pre-recorded obnoxious messages telling me what I had to do to resolve the received letter, and then I finally got to a person. I explained my situation and was told "this department isn't the one that issues refunds, you should be talking to such and such department." Yep. Over 9 months of trying to resolve this and nobody had ever once told me this.

I talked to the other department and a woman told me that it was on file (dated back 2 months) that I'd provided proof. Thanks, supervisor Molly, you couldn't have looked that up?! She also noted that, "gee, this is odd, I don't know why a ticket hasn't been issued to cut you a refund check." She took care of it and I got my refund check a couple of weeks later.

It is amazing, IndyMac is certainly organized enough to constantly call me to offer me new loans, mailing me loan offers, etc, but the 20 some odd people I spoke to over a 10 month period could not resolve something that was entirely their mistake in the first place.

The first chance I get, I'm refinancing right out of that idiotic company...no wonder they went bankrupt.