AimLoan.com / American Internet Mortgage

One of the ways Aim Loan increases their profit is by having your home severely under appraised. The appraiser they selected for us appraised our home with "NO UPGRADES IN THE PAST 15 YEARS” even though we have done over a dozen upgrades in the last 15 years and I told the appraiser that over the phone before he arrived. But he didn’t include ANY of them on the report, thus decreasing our home’s value by $23, 000. Aim Loan’s solution to this problem is not to fix the erroneous appraisal, but to raise our points & therefore our closing costs. What a SCAM! No one should ever use this company as they epitomize everything that is wrong with the banking industry.

I did my refinance with aim loan. They have mis applied my payments on 3 or 4 occassions and charged me fees for the missing payments that were thier fault. It took lots of time on the phone with them to find the errors and get them corrected. Imagine sending your money to a "bank" and they don't apply your payments correctly and then on top of that..charge you fees. In addition to that...my insurance escrow has been handled poorly and my insurance was cancelled due to thier failure to pay my insurance on time...imaging if I had a disaster thinking they had paid my insurance out of the monthly escrow I send them every month. I can just imaging the insurance company denying my claim and Aim.loan saying they were "sorry"...they don't stand behind or for thier customers. The small amount of money you save with them is not worth the hassle and they make it up in fees they charge you that you probably will never find out about. Run away from them...its not worth it.

Aimloan.com terrible on customer service, explaining why they need information and the amount of info they need seems nonstop. Our LTV was less than 35%, we were paying down our current mortgage $140K and the only other debt we have is on a commercial rental property. No car payments, zero on our credit cards and credit scores at or above 800. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the need for complete transaction records from our Credit Union because then needed to see where the money in the account came from (its called savings). It’s like they are not set up for someone who takes care of their financial business properly or they don’t believe there are people who do.

Also, you should ask why the broker’s license was suspended for 60 days in 2003? If they were doing everything correctly, why the punitive action by the Department of Real Estate?

They are worthless bunch of crooks that wasted people time and money
Definitely a company wide scam from every people trying to charge the appraisal fee then wait until lock expired and ask document one per day ... then on and on
and try to charge the rate extension ..., then the whole process again...
What a shame!

I successfully used Aimloan in late 2007 without a problem. So I used them again on a different property April 2009. This time, they were horrible. They asked for some new documentation seemingly every day and seemed to be trying to get out of the rate I had locked in by making me go thru these hoops. I'm on a fixed pension and have sufficient assets to fully cover the mortgage. I provided them all documentation. Since I had a joint checking account, they wanted my ex-wife to sign a document that I would have access to the funds in order to close. Stupid and unnecessary. Luckily, she and I were cooperative and continued thru their many hoops.
My ex-wife also tried to use them in 2009 and their BS was non-stop. She ended up using Wells Fargo. We're each done with them.

There's more to the story than you are telling. If the automated system approves you, and you can back up ALL of the information that it approved you with, there is no problem. There was some difference between what you put on your application and what they uncovered with your debts. Period. I am on my second refi with aimloan.com and for a customer with good credit, who can prove all income, it is simply the best option available. No one else can even touch it.

I have the same problem. The appraisal came in way lower than expected. I live in tract housing so my neighbor has the exact same house. One difference is my lot is almost twice his size. We refinanced around the same time and his appraisal came in 100K more than mine. Like I said same exact house/sq ft.

WELL THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET AND PEOPLE RELAYING THERE EXPIERIENCES BECAUSE THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I. I STARTED TO FILL OUT THIS APPLICATION BUT SOMETHING KEPT IRKING ME FIRST I HAD AN ALTERCATION WITH THE LOAN PROCESSORS THEY ASSIGNED ME, THEN THEY SAID I HAD TO APPLY FOR
THE MORTGAGE LOAN AS A SECONDARY HOME INSTEAD OF WHAT IT WAS REALLY WHICH WAS A PRIMARY HOME AND WHICH WAS FOR ME A FIRST HOME NOT A SECONDARY
BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER OWNED A HOME AT ALL. I AM RETIRED AND LIVE IN PUERTO RICO WHICH IS A COMMONWEALTH OF UNITED STATES I TRAVEL BETWEEN PUERTO RICO AND NEW YORK WHERE I RETIRED FROM, I STAY WITH FAMILY IN NEW YORK AND STAY WITH MY ELDERLY MOTHER INPUERTO RICO. WHEN RATES AND THE ECONOMY
BECAME A BUYERS MARKET I DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO PURCHASE I SAW AIMLOAN .COM AND THE RATES BUT FROM THE BEGINNING I HAD PROBLEMS WITH THEM AND THE PROCESSORS ONLY AFTER I AGREED TO PROCEED WITH APPLICATION AS A SECOND HOME DID THEY SEND VIA ELECTRONICALLY A WAY FOR ME TO PROVIDE MY INFORMATION. I DECIDED TO LOOK INTO THEM ON THE EVENING I RECIEVED THERE ELECTRONIC LINK AND FOUND THIS SITE EXPLAINING ALL THE PROBLEMS PEOPLE HAVE HAD WITH THEM AND ALSO THEM BEING REVOKED THROUGH BETTER BUISNESS BUREAU THANK GOD TODAYS DATE IS NOVEMBER 29, 2011 AND I AM GOING TO RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AWAY FROM THIS BAIT AND SWITCH FIRM AS I CAN. RUN RUN SAVE YRSELVES AND SAVE YR HOME BECAUSE I ALREADY NOTICED THEY WERE TRYING TO DELAY MY APPLICATION WHICH I STARTED WITH THEM ON THE 23RD OF NOVEMBER AND IT IS ONLY TODAY THEY HAVE SENT ME THE LINK ALSO I HAVE A CLOSING DATE OF
22ND OF DECEMBER LATEST 29TH OF DEC. AND I KNOW AFTER READING THIS COMPLAINT FORUM I WOULD HAVE NEVER MADE IT THANKS GUYS KEEP POSTING AND IF YOU HAVE AN ANGIES LIST ACCOUNT POST THERE ALSO POST ALL OVER ABOUT THEM WARN EVERYONE YOU CAN !

Bait & switch attempts here, too: 1) add-on $2, 380 in fees to the closing costs; 2) increase the interest rate .25%; and 3) nickel & dime an additional ~$100 in closing costs after the loan docs were signed by requesting Borrower sign a new "per diem" disclosure.

Facts
- Borrower refinancing a primary residence for $238k
- Refinance is for a 15-yrs fixed term (current mortgage is a 30-yrs fixed at 5.875% w 22 years remaining)
- FICO is 820 ("Excellent")

Further facts
- Since Borrower is recently retired, his income is lower than when he bought the property and his current DTI (debt-to-income) is 51%. Current lending underwriting caps DTI at 45%.
- To qualify for the refinance at the stated loan terms, his employed son co-signs.
- Son's FICO is 718 ("Good"). Under federal lending guidelines, the higher co-signer's FICO is used for calculating the mortgage interest rate so the 718 does not affect the 3.875% rate.
- $315k property appraisal is lower than Borrower's $350k guesstimate and results in a 75.56% LTV (loan-to-value) [or $238, 000 loan/$315, 000 appraisal = 75.56%]

The Bait
- 15-yrs fixed term
- 3.875% 0 points and flat closing costs
- No cash out & no impounds/escrows
- 30-day lock

The Switch
The loan processor sends an email with Program Guidelines informing borrower of the low appraisal. Then discloses "Risk-Based Add-Ons", stating "If you look at the attached Guideline, there is an additional .5point risk based add-on due to the increase LTV. We can lower your loan amount below at least 75% ($236, 250) which would eliminate .25point add-on. If you want to get rid of the full .5 add-on, then your loan amount will need to be reduced to $220, 500."

In other words, to eliminate .25 points (= $595), pay down an additional $1, 750 in principal; and to eliminate the remaining .75 points (=$1, 785), pay down an additional $17, 500 in principal. Obviously, paying the add-ons is a smaller out-of-pocket than paying down additional principal; and rolling the add-ons into the loan increases the monthly payment by ~$20

Do not walk ... RUN from Aimloan!
Agree with previous posters that they will continue to ask for the same information OVER and OVER in different formats. We got CONTINUAL run-around from this company for SIX WEEKS after we were told from the onset everything was fine and a full commitment letter would be forth coming.

They suck you in at first with what seems like a very easy process, but BUYER BEWARE because it quickly turns to repeated requests for the SAME information. Again ... and again ... and again. RIDICULOUS!

We have excellent credit, no consumer debt and 20% down. Mortgage would be 25% of our take home pay and we got nothing but hassle from Aimloans -- treated us like sub-prime borrowers! We dropped them like a hot potato and found another, more reputable and much more professional lender that didn't cause 1/100 of the frustration and problems AIM did. AVOID THEM!

AimLoan.com is using the same APR for 4.50%, 4.625, 4.75 and 4.875% of 4.981% for 30 year fixed rates with no points and only $1995 in fees over the past 4 months in their print advertising. Check out the sunday papers in Dallas, Minneaplois, Chicago, Seattle, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Houston and others over the past 4 months.Very fishy to say the least. The BBB.com has a “revoked” for their status with an unpaid bill and lots of consumer complaints. Problems……

Never ever apply with aim loan for refinance or mortgage loans. They will be quick to pre approve you only to find tons of underwriter conditions later on, which they will say they cannot disclose in the beginning . You will waste your time and lose your appraisal money. they are predatory lenders.

I re-fi'd at the end of '09 with Aimloan. Although we got the loan, there were a multitude of last-minute hoops to jump through. Had I not been organized with all my supporting documentation, it would have fallen through. And it still almost fell through due to their inability to get a notary to us by the closing date. Save yourself the stress and headache, go to a local lender.

I'm glad I found this blog... I was considering to refinance with this company again, I am a current client, have recommended this company to family and friends in the past and have never encounter any of the problems listed before. If the company has changed to such extremes I guess I will stay away from it for the time being in the hopes that I will read positive comments in the future.

I had only wished I had read all of your information before spending my time applying. We too had credit scores over 800, the house for a re-fi was appraised $60K over what we even estimated and we only owed about 1/3 of the mortgage. Only re-fi'ng to get to a great advertised 10 year fixed rate. Well they kept changing the documentation needed and then even changed their story a few times (documented in email). Very clear they don't want to make good on the rates they advertise even if you do qualify. Stay away!

Aimloan has devolved into a poor refi choice it seems. I continued thru their hoops in April, and the appraiser they had come out was simply crazy. She appraised my house at $220k when in fact the local market would put it more at the $160k level. They made it hard to comply with all their daily added documentation whims, and it seemed to me that they were trying to get out of their 4.375% commitment. I hung with them only because of the greatly inflated appraisal. The first time I used them, tho, they sent someone from 65 miles away, and a completely different market. He appraised the house in question about $100k BELOW market value at that time. In 2008, I was able to walk in to my local Wells Fargo and show them the loan costs from AIM and ask them to meet them to get my business. They did, so AIM actually saved me $1500 in WF fees...sorta. No more AIM for me.

We had a GREAT experience with them, the actually SOMEHOW for some reason held our rate, but I had a down payment of over 30% and excellent credit. I don't doubt your experiences but they worked with me on their many underwriting demands and made sure I closed with a great low rate 2.35 (I paid points to buy down)

baited with low GFE and lock. then more than 2/3 of the way through the process, i received an email from chelsea that i didn't quality despite providing all information and documents by day 3 of the lock. i later receive a phone call saying i should switch to another product that was thousands more to close and 1% higher. underwriter also refuses to even open my file to review my documents until AFTER the appraisal, and hence commiting the applicant to the $500 appraisal fee before deciding whether or not the applicant qualifies. chelsea and irma are frauds by lying and hiding fees. i was charged $395 and another $100 to be notified that if i didn't switch to another loan product, i'd pay $395, $100 and another $495 in appraisal fees for nothing.

I've been with Aimloan for over a year now and I've had nothing but problems and incompetence from them. The first problem was they were charging me the wrong payment each month. They were only charging me the interest amount each month instead of interest+principal. When I called about it, they argued with me that it was the right amount and finally they looked at the original loan documents and found the right amount and that took about 3 months to get corrected. The second issue was they didn't pay the taxes for the second half and I got a notice from the county that I was delinquent and that took about 6 months to straighten out. The third problem, I get a notice from their insurance department stating that the name on the policy was not the same as the name on the title and in the letter they had both names and they were spelled exactly the same, the difference was one name was all in upper case and the other one wasn't! Still waiting to get that resolved. But wait, that's not all, yesterday I get another letter saying I owe $2500 for estimated escrow shortfall for next year which is BS, they essentially doubled the taxes. I called customer service and she said she could see that letter and asked me to send her a copy of it and I asked to talk to the escrow dept and she said they didn't have a phone number for them, only a fax number! WTF! I regret ever dealing with them, STAY AWAY FROM AIMLOAN!

I was working on a loan on behalf of my mother to consolidate 2 loans, pay-off a student loan for $37K and credit cards. The property even with an appraisal of 20% LOWER than what it is being taxed at she still had 30% equity. Day 1, I told Ben, the ###, that we wanted to consolidate the 2 mortgages, student loan and credit cards. All docs were sent immediately and my mother has an 800+ credit score. The guy screws around even though I did ALL the work with the docs and in week 3, tells us that the DTI is too high so need to pay-off a student loan for $2500. We did that in an HOUR. Supposedly they need 7 days for docs yet my mom "closed" within 24hrs. We "closed" on May 23rd. Our lock expires May 29th and my mom still see's nothing paid-off in her bank account. On June 6th, Ben the ###, says "The credit card went from $3000 to $6200(for my sisters wedding as my mom had to step in), yeah but that was in APRIL and we could have paid that OFF as before. He also says the student loan magically appeared...NO f'ckhead as I told you on Day 1 that was to be paid off. I then proceeded to write VP of Loan Production, Ted Iturriria, who simply repeated what I said in the email, 4 days later. I'm baffled how they messed up a refi and apparently the only lender in the country who doesn't consolidate outside debt. If that was the case Ben the ### should have told us May 1st., as the DTI almost falls in HALF with consolidation. How convenient that our interest rate of 3.25(3.37APR) suddenly is 3.75% now? I was with Countrywide in the heyday and while I enjoyed my job no question these guys will disappear like Countrywide and unlike Countrywide these guys are the most incompetent people even up to this VP Ted guy who apparently lacked a HS education in reading comprehension.

Had a horrible experience. We were asked for the same documents numerous times. They took our $395 fee knowing full well they would deny us based on my husband's self-employment status for less than a year--they could have told us that right after we applied, rather than dragging us through two months of requests. In the end, the DAY we were supposed to close we were told we were denied. Couldn't imagine a worse scenario. I had a good experience with them when I bought a prior house 2 1/2 years ago, so I thought this would be the same. Don't know what happened, but this is a loan company to stay far away from. They lure you in with promise of good rates, but it's not worth it. Fortunately, we found a lender (yes, we're paying a bit more, but not much) who is working with us and offered that the loan could just be done on one (mine) salary to avoid problems with my husband's situation...AIMLoan could have told us that BEFORE they took our money. We're requesting our money back, but I'm sure we'll have to file a dispute with the credit card company.

All of the bait and switch comments are true. Many of them sound exactly like what happen to us. Unbelievable, poor service, delays, excuses, then...today...loan approved...BUT can not give the rate they had locked for us and provided on the HUD estimate because it took too long. NOT OUR FAULT! Disgusted and appalled, not to mention they can not possibly refund our $395 appraisal fee. This is going to be submitted to an off site complaint site not the one offered at AIM website.

I have three loans through Aimloan. One owner occupied and two investment. Couldn't be happier with the rates, service etc. I have requested the same processor each time, Khola, and have been pleased.

I'm sorry for all the bad experiences people have had with AIM. I must say we recently purchased a second home and the process went flawlessly, we closed June 1st, 2012. We had issues with the sellers and the closing date. AIM contacted the closing attorney and made arrangements for my wife and I to sign three days before the sellers signing. The closing attorney only had to submit several additional papers which he said was very easy to do. The loan funded and we are enjoying our new home. I did contact AIM when I first read these comments. I spoke with my rep before sending any money about the negative comments. She assured me that she would do everything possible to make the process go smoothly. I was concerned using an on line mortgage company but having the initial person to person contact made it better. I want to thank Linda Flores for exceeding our expectations and delivering everything she said she would.

Aimloans should be investigated. This company clearly is running a sham by advertising the best rates, then finding whatever excuse they can to increase it after they get you to commit to paying for the appraisal and draging you through document hell. I experienced what most others have ... a bait and switch. I wish I would have found this board prior to me trying to obtain a loan through them. Would have saved me time and money. Stay clear of this organization!

in late february 2012: searched on-line. they had the best rate by far (cash out refi). i locked in and we closed in less than 30 days. we have good credit, supplied them with all the documentation they asked for, they even worked with us to sign paperwork in the hospital (sudden illness on my part). they were prompt, courteous, flexible and communicative. they were upfront about closing costs (minimal) and explained everything to our satisfaction.
i am so glad i DIDNT do any research on them beforehand - we would have missed a great opportunity. it couldnt have been easier and i would do it again.