"Gosh, STOP ruining my life!"

Welllllll you see what had happened was....

I went onto my online banking b/c I am so meticulous about my checkbook and wanted to make sure the numbers matched up. Much to my surprise, there was a nice auto debit for $450 pulled from a company that I had never heard of. Considering I had just mailed off a bunch of checks for all of my bills. So trying not to freak out I called my RealEstate Agent to see if he had heard of this special company who was taking my money. He hadn't so I called my lender who wasn't available to talk.

With no one to help answer my questions, I called my bank and reported fraud. I knew that someone was taking my money without my permission! I was pretty mad and felt like there was nothing I could do. Eventually I found out that it was a cost for my appraisal and that they had used the information off of my check to pull the money out of my account. Privacy Rights Violation was my immediate thought but I didn't want to overreact incase it was an honest mistake.

Apparently there was a communication break down along the way but that didn't stop the man in charge of handling the situation from being extremely condesending and insulting my intelligence. I calmly explained that it was NOT okay that money had been withdrawn from my account without my permission and that it was very serious. The gentlemen tried to hint at killing the loan all together and consulting his attorney to see what risk this opened him up to.

He ended up deciding that he would simply refund the money and then I could pay the difference owed on the appraisal. So, there was a second there where I thought I was going to have to look for new financing. Although I haven't received a call back today for an update on my loan; I am sure that things will go smooth throughout the rest of the process.

The moral of this is keep in CONSTANT contact with your lender and be aware of all the people who are working your loan. Personal information is sensitive and a small breakdown in communication can ruin everything.