Withdrawal of mortgage offer

lougarden

Hi
Has anyone had this problem.
Our current mortgage deal with C&G runs out at end of May. We need to borrow extra funds, so decided to shop around for another deal. C&G came back with the best deal for us which is a tracker with no redemption penalties. They gave approval for the additional funds there and then without the need to value or survey our property. We received the application forms in the post and returned them about a week later. At the end of last week, though, the C&G rang to say that mortgage offer had been withdrawn and offered us an alternative that had a 2 year redemption penalty. At no point did they tell us that this may happen either on my initial contact with them or in their correspondance. Can they do this?
My other beef with them over this mortgage deal are the arrangement fees (over £1000). I object to such high fees when they spent 5 minutes on their computer system and gave approval to the additional funds immediately - I could understand these fees if they had to carry out a survey or valuation with the associated admin but when I asked them to re-consider or reduce the fees, it was a complete blank wall - no movement at all.
Finally, have you tried to contact the C&G mortgage centre to speak to anyone? I've tried several times (only open during working hours) and given up as there is a 20 minute wait. Today, however, I decided I had to contact them (to discuss the above) and waited 28minutes before getting cut off the first time, then 38 minutes before talking to anyone the second time. Okay its a freephone but I have better things to do in life than wait on the phone.