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Mortgage Lenders' Fax Machines losing faxes.
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Richard_Webster
Posts: 7,646 Forumite
As a conveyancing solicitor one of the most frustrating activities is getting a letter answered by a mortgage lender.
Usually some point arises where we need clearance form the lender. It may be minor, but we have to tell them.
The typical scenario is we tell client this and he says "Can't you ring them?" "Yes, I can, but I will need a response in writing from them." "Well, fax them then, that'll be quicker..." Little does the client know!
Lenders (and probably lots of large organisations) have some whizzo fax reciving kit which stacks all the incoming faxes up. Presumably somebody sits in front of a screen and looks at them and is supposed to allocate them to the appropriate person or "team" to deal with. This typically takes several hours. So if I fax something at 12 noon it won't emerge from the machine until may be 9am the next day and the hard copy will arrive about then and will be dealt with by their incoming post routine and will hopefully get scanned into their system by the afternoon. (A percentage will drop off the edge - somebody told me once that a large factory conveyancing concern reckoned to lose an average of 4% of post by it not being scanned in properly!)
However what generally happens is we ring the lender the following day at say 12 noon and quote the account number etc and ask what they are doing about our fax. "What fax? We haven't got anything registered on our system." "I sent it 24 hours ago - you must have it." "Fax it again to this number...." So I am coming to believe that lenders have some special software that randomly destroys faxes in their big machine just for the fun of it. It keeps happening and this set of events is almost standard when dealing with large lenders these days. They have one catch all fax number for everything rather than separate ones for different teams etc.
Once they admit having it , the letter gets allocated to a team and when you phone to chase progress you usually can't talk to the team itself. They tell you things like "We have asked our communications section to forward it to our surveyor for his comments." The surveyor is part of a bigger set up again serviced by an admin centre so when they get it they have to send it to him and wait for a reply. It all gets so convoluted. So recently I got hold of the surveyor's admin centre and they said they had faxed a reply to the lender who should have had it....but the lender said it hadn't...
This is a rant really, but:
a) have any others in the conveyancing business who look at this site had similar experiences?
b) those buying and selling may perhaps understand some of the frustrations we face and what takes up our time!
Usually some point arises where we need clearance form the lender. It may be minor, but we have to tell them.
The typical scenario is we tell client this and he says "Can't you ring them?" "Yes, I can, but I will need a response in writing from them." "Well, fax them then, that'll be quicker..." Little does the client know!
Lenders (and probably lots of large organisations) have some whizzo fax reciving kit which stacks all the incoming faxes up. Presumably somebody sits in front of a screen and looks at them and is supposed to allocate them to the appropriate person or "team" to deal with. This typically takes several hours. So if I fax something at 12 noon it won't emerge from the machine until may be 9am the next day and the hard copy will arrive about then and will be dealt with by their incoming post routine and will hopefully get scanned into their system by the afternoon. (A percentage will drop off the edge - somebody told me once that a large factory conveyancing concern reckoned to lose an average of 4% of post by it not being scanned in properly!)
However what generally happens is we ring the lender the following day at say 12 noon and quote the account number etc and ask what they are doing about our fax. "What fax? We haven't got anything registered on our system." "I sent it 24 hours ago - you must have it." "Fax it again to this number...." So I am coming to believe that lenders have some special software that randomly destroys faxes in their big machine just for the fun of it. It keeps happening and this set of events is almost standard when dealing with large lenders these days. They have one catch all fax number for everything rather than separate ones for different teams etc.
Once they admit having it , the letter gets allocated to a team and when you phone to chase progress you usually can't talk to the team itself. They tell you things like "We have asked our communications section to forward it to our surveyor for his comments." The surveyor is part of a bigger set up again serviced by an admin centre so when they get it they have to send it to him and wait for a reply. It all gets so convoluted. So recently I got hold of the surveyor's admin centre and they said they had faxed a reply to the lender who should have had it....but the lender said it hadn't...
This is a rant really, but:
a) have any others in the conveyancing business who look at this site had similar experiences?
b) those buying and selling may perhaps understand some of the frustrations we face and what takes up our time!
RICHARD WEBSTER
As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.
As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.
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Comments
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Ah Richard how do we become so cynical in this business lol!
I used to work for a lender and can say that there was no special software but the underwriting department fax machines tended to be the most used in the building and sometimes if the machine had run out of paper although the machine will store XYZ pages for a time if the machine isn't reloaded then some of the faxes that have been sent through in that period may not get printed.I am a Mortgage Adviser
You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.0 -
i wanted to fax a document to a council housing benefit department recently - but they would only accept a letter - on the grounds that a Fax could be tampered with ???? how does that work then ????0
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Hi Richard. I fully share your experience. It is so frustrating. I have to call them to confirm reciept. Often they will simply say they have it but it wont be looked at for 48 hours. Imagine if we said that to a client or an agent!
I have this vision of a rotting 'In Tray' where all these missing faxes go together with the socks eaten by the washing machine!0 -
Why do they even use faxes? It's the 21st century. Haven't they heard of e-mail?0
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You having a bad day Richard?
Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
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Most lenders don't give us an e-mail on their letters that send out mortgage instructions, so no, they are still not quite in the 21st century.Why do they even use faxes? It's the 21st century. Haven't they heard of e-mail?
Not that bad, actually. In fact the fax I was waiting on the matter that caused me to put fingers to keyboard and start the the thread actually came in today!:jYou having a bad day Richard?RICHARD WEBSTER
As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.0
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