Staff Knowledge

Posted Mon April 21, 2008 12:00 pm, by Ajay M. written to U.S. Bancorp

Write a Letter to this Company

I have a Home Equity Loan with your organization and I called for some clarification on the computation of interest that I saw in my statement.

After being on hold for about 10 minutes (which is probably fair), I was talking to an agent. I explained that I am not sure if the interest computation on my statement is correct and asked him to explain to me how the interest is computed.

He quickly responded with by saying "Principal Balance times the interest rate, divide by 365, multiple by # of days between payments".

That was perfect, and I asked him to look at my last statement and apply the above formula to see if he can come up the same number that is listed under the "Interest" column of the statement. He could not come up with the number on the statement. Over the next 20 minutes, he tried to explain the discrepancy to me and the answers ranged from:

"Mabye becauseI don't have a calculator hence I could be making a mistake."
"Probably that is how the system computes it."
"Maybe the system delayed the application of the payment and hence the discrepancy."
"Maybe you are not counting the days correctly, remember that Feb had 29 days."
"What exactly do you want me to do?"
"I have no idea why the numbers are different."

Appalled, I asked if I could speak to a supervisor. He put me on hold for 15 minutes and then came back and told me that the supervisor is busy and cannot come on the phone now and that I should call later.

I am not sure why your agents are unable to answer questions based on your statements that are generated by your systems, and "Maybe" and "Probably" are not the best terms to be used in answers to specific questions.

As a customer, sometimes a simple "I don't know, but will check and get back to you" works much better than the run around that I was given above.

My account # is ####-####-##8-913.

I would appreciate any help or clarification on this matter.

Log In/Create an account | 4 comments

del.icio.us      Digg this

PlanetFeedback Comments are subject to strict terms and conditions. We reserve the right to deny site membership privileges to any individuals acting inappropriately.

Re: Staff Knowledge by RedheadwGlasses Posted Mon April 21, 2008 @ 4:09 PM From my recollection, from having mortgages and a couple of home equity loans/lines of credit, there are two interest rates. One interest rate is the rate they tell you about, the rate that gets advertised (for example: 5.75%). The other interest rate is the one that factors in all the fees, closing costs, other "unknowns," and then they compute what your ACTUAL interest rate ends up being when those things are factored in. This may or may not account for the discrepancy you found. Reply However by RedheadwGlasses Posted Mon April 21, 2008 @ 4:10 PM If my explanation IS the explanation, the CSR you talked to surely should have been able to tell you that. I think you deserve to have your question answered in a way that makes sense, and in a way that gives you confidence that the mortgage loan personnel know what they're doing. Reply You would think.... by AjaySM Mon April 21, 2008 @ 5:06 PM He probably doesn't even know the formula by RedheadwGlasses Mon April 21, 2008 @ 5:26 PM