ET's Info-Stew

Please excuse this rant on banks. I listen to a daytime radio personality named Clark Howard who talks all about personal finance. He calls them "Super monster mega banks" and says they have "customer no-service". I'm so tired of them.

Today I got two letters in the mail, one from US Bank, the holder of our first mortgage, and TCF Bank, the holder of our HELOC. The letter from US Bank said that I owe the insurance company for the first year insurance premium. So I called the "customer no-service" and asked them what the deal was. He said "You paid your first year's premium at closing."

"Exactly", I replied. So I asked what was going on and he said that the bank had received a bill from my insurance company asking for the first year's premium. Instead of dealing with it themselves, the bank decided to force me to figure out what happened by sending me this letter. The person told me I need to call the closing officer to figure out what happened to the money. Thanks, US Bank, for nothing. So I called the title company and, since it is Friday afternoon, I didn't get a response.

The TCF letter showed that I am signed up for a 40 year fixed loan. Since I had been told it would be a 30 year loan, this was surprising. If I paid the minimum payments each month (I intend to pay way more to pay off the loan faster), the extra $11 per month for the 30 year would save me $17,000 over the life of the loan compared to the 40 year loan. So I called up the bank to get the terms corrected and, since it is Friday afternoon, I didn't get a response.

The best part is that I'm leaving to go backpacking tomorrow, so I won't be able to deal with this next week. I'm sure the extra week won't make a big difference. But this lack of service by the banks is really getting on my nerves. I almost think they purposely make mistakes hoping I'll miss them and eventually incur fees or extra interest. I swear, if TCF tries to charge me a fee to change the terms of my loan, I'm going to freak!