ING Direct what a farcical company !

BBDom

Currently sitting next to a rather grumpy ratty wife thanks to ING Direct.

Here's the story .....

Around a month and a half ago we finally decided to get our fingers out and find a better rate than our current 4.8ish percent SVR from the BOS.

We decided on the Lloyds deal at 1.29% above base rate and apart from the 2.5% arrangement fee (around £2125) it seemed a good deal. We called them and were accepted on the spot for the mortgage - only paperwork to sort out and we were saving £120 a month on payments. The paperwork arrived a couple of days later followed by a phone call from Lloyds to see how we were doing.

Just before signing on the dotted line, I noticed ING were mentioned on the MSE as a company who didn't sell through brokers so I had a quick look on their site.

I was pleasantly surprised - the fees were easy to understand and at £949 all in were less than half the price of the Lloyds fees. Calculating the overall cost and doing forward predictions of what would happen if rates rose by 1% over the next 2 years convinces us that ING would probably be the better/safer deal.

Then the fun started .......

The wife had many years ago used ING for a savings account and had a login password etc for them. Unfortunately she'd forgotten it so rang them - informed them that she had a different surname (she married me a couple of years ago) and was at a different address and they decided to send out a new "PIN" for her.

Unfortunately we have never received this and can only assume they have sent it to the old address.

Then she set up a new account on the system - time was ticking by and we were spending far too much on our current mortgage. She applied for the mortgage online and was meant to get a decision on the mortgage within 72 hours from the date of application.

Now some background here - we have a £180k house with £85k remaining on the mortgage, no debts or outstanding balances on credit cards and are up to date with all bills, our joint income totals around £30k, I'm a househusband looking after a child with a disability with my own part time business and pull in a few pennies which are re-invested. My wife works full time and has been with the same company for around 7 years now.

The application was sent on the 5th June, nothing was heard by 9th June so my wife called them to see what was going on. She had 45 minutes on hold to get through to someone then spent another 40 minutes speaking to a representative. The CSR apologised and said they only had 3 members of staff manning the phones as they were trialling a new system of shift work and they usually have 15 CSR's manning the lines.

He went through the application to see why her application was refused but there were two counter offers - these were for 30 years (instead of the requested 22 years) or a reduced amount - £65k instead of the £85k requested.

Obviously either of these were not acceptable - we'd asked for 22 years at the advertised 2.99% fixed for 2 years.

She was then told that as I was a "dependent" because of my low earnings, they couldn't lend us the full amount but if my wife took the mortgage out on her own then they could lend her 4 times her income which would then fit in with their "affordability criteria".

She wasn't happy with this but as we trust each other we decided we had nothing to lose by progressing with the mortgage just in her name.

He advised that it could be declined as we'd altered the request for the mortgage by taking me off and also that it would have to go through underwriting again and there would be a decision on Friday the 11th June.

My wife rang up on Friday and he wasn't available so she went through to the Team Leader who apologised and said they had a backlog so there wasn't a response yet. He said they would chase it up with the underwriters and would get a decision today (14th June).

My wife went online today to see what was happening and it came up with a message saying "they have no record of an application in progress, it might have been cancelled or expired".

She then phoned them and after being on hold for 20 minutes, got through to someone who looked through it and said that "unfortunately it had been rejected as it had come back as less than their criteria to lend". My wife then complained about all the problems we'd had and said she wasn't happy at how much we'd been messed about but the attidue of the members of staff at the other end was a "not interested - thats the decision, sorry".

So ...... weeks wasted, hours spent on the phone and thoroughly messed about by ING. We've never had any correspondence back from them despite them having our email address and telephone number. All the answers we've had from them have been from us chasing them.

We've now lost the deal we were intially going for through Lloyds including their reduced SVR at the end of the mortgage.

My wife is fuming, I suggested she wrote this on MSE to let off steam and let the other members know about our experience with ING but got told to "do it myself" so here I am.

ING ? Never again !

Thrugelmir

So ...... weeks wasted, hours spent on the phone and thoroughly messed about by ING

Your time frame is somewhat overstated.

You applied on Saturday the 5th June.

You were ringing them on the 9th , less than 2 working days later. Despite ING saying 72 hours.

Rang them again on Friday 11th and Monday 14th.

Maybe a little more patience would have been advisable on your part, then you wouldn't have wasted either your own time or ING's.

BBDom

Going by what the wife was quoting to me across the room lol.

The follow up calls were all made in the timescales requested by the customer service guys - they chose the timescales not us. The wife has just informed me that it says within 72 hours from submission - not 72 working hours .......

She has also said that it states on their website that you get a decision within 25 minutes - it was an "in principle" decision more than anything else we were after but that never happened either.

Thrugelmir

BBDom wrote: »

Going by what the wife was quoting to me across the room lol.

In that case I'm sure she's right.

sleepless_saver

I sympathise with the OP. I am very happy with my mortgage with ING as it is now 1.39%, but they were very sloppy in setting it up.

Despite my making it very clear from the outset when I wanted it to start, they tried to start it 3 weeks earlier which would have landed me with a hefty ERC. After that they appeared to stop work on it completely so I got it 6 weeks late (something to do with them not being able to cope with the different Scottish system they said....)

BBDom

Ok - an update.

ING will never see any of our money again.

The wife found a fairly decent deal with Britannia. From the start we've got nothing but praise for this company. They have returned all calls, never given us a moment of hassle getting things set up, everything has been done and organised on time and this morning I had a telephone call from their solicitors to confirm that everything has gone through and we're now with them for our Mortgage.

A very very different company from ING and we're more than happy to give them our money.

Excellent service

moneysavingobsessive

I too am having problems with ING. Three times my application has come back from the underwriters with queries (I have a mail re-direct and a car registered at another address, both for genuine reasons, the property I am trying to re-mortgage is my main residence).

It's fair enough coming back with queries, my issue is that it takes almost a week for them to respond to the answers, so the whole process is dragging on. Why not ask all the questions at once?!

It shouldn't be an issue at all, I am asking for a smallish ltv and income multiple of 1.5!

Anyone else had any issues with retentive ING underwriters?!!

BBDom

We just totally gave up with ING.

We were only after 60% LTV, no bad credit, no outstanding debts, easily able to cover the payments but they kept messing us about. In the time it took for them to mess us about, we managed to get the mortgage sorted and transferred over with Britannia.

Fingers crossed you get yours sorted out with ING - its a pain in the rear when they are messing you about.

moneysavingobsessive

Thanks. I baulk at the £999 arrangement fee with Britannia though! Unless it is quite a substantial mortgage then this stops it being cost effective.

First Direct looks good but its 3 weeks before they will call you back because they are so busy. It seems that if you want decent customer service then you have to pay!!!

BBDom

Our previous alternatives were Lloyds who were pretty good but had an arrangement fee of just over £2.2k !!!

To be honest with you, the £450 difference between the Britannia and the ING arrangement fees faded into insignificance when you bargain in the lost savings in interest plus our time and stress levels trying to deal with ING.

luckyfool

moneysavingobsessive wrote: »

Thanks. I baulk at the £999 arrangement fee with Britannia though! Unless it is quite a substantial mortgage then this stops it being cost effective.

First Direct looks good but its 3 weeks before they will call you back because they are so busy. It seems that if you want decent customer service then you have to pay!!!

You take the chance on the rate still being around in 3 weeks when your appointment comes around as well, and even if it is, First Direct cherry pick their customers so you might not qualify which puts you back to square one and potentially having missed out on a good deal elsewhere if another lender has put their rates up.

edit : from reading other peoples posts, it does appear that FD do guarantee to hold the initial rate as long as you keep the appointment. The 2nd point regarding them being extremely fussy and potentially missing out on deals with other lenders would still stand though.