My past experiences with Vantage Point Title have been good, but I just had a very bad interaction with them today.
It’s Friday, and I just got off the phone about an hour ago with Vantage Point. They had called me on Wednesday for a signing on Thursday at 8 pm, which I accepted. I immediately called the borrower and left a message to confirm.
I received the documents Thursday afternoon, but because I had other commitments, I didn’t get to the docs until about 5:30. Portia had sent the docs by e-mail in which she said that the docs were a QCD and the Deed of Trust with a “new signature page and acknowledgment”. I looked through the Deed of Trust, which was a copy of the one filed in 2012, and found that there was nothing to sign, no new signature page, no acknowledgment. I e-mailed Portia. No response. Fifteen minutes later, I called her direct line and got her voicemail.
I immediately called VP’s “800” number and spoke with someone from post-closing as no one else seemed to be available. After I explained the situation, he looked up the file and confirmed that there was no signature page in the docs I was sent. He spoke with his supervisor who said that I should attach an all-purpose acknowledgment. I explained that I couldn’t do that, that there needed to be something for the borrowers to sign. He put me on hold again and spoke with another supervisor, and when he came back he said that they advised we should cancel the signing until the proper docs could be obtained. I asked if I should contact the borrower or if they would. He said that they would if I wanted them to, and I said yes, please.
In the meantime, I had already printed 2 copies of the QCD (3 pages) and the Deed of Trust file (63 pages).
About an hour later, I got an e-mail from Portia. She said, “It’s there.” Since I believed the issue to be closed for now, I didn’t respond. This was a half hour before the scheduled closing time.
Today, the scheduler called me and asked what happened, the borrower said I didn’t show or call. I explained the situation from last night and that the person I spoke to said he would call the borrower that we had to cancel. Portia then got on the line and started immediately speaking in harsh terms. “I answered your e-mail last night and told you it was there, but you didn’t respond!” I told her that was after we had decided to cancel, and the borrower would have been called already. I didn’t say it to her, but I had thought with her short quip of an answer in the e-mail of “it’s there” we would get nowhere since the signature page was clearly not in the docs I received.
She said the borrower texted her at 10:30 last night that no one had called him. She asked why I didn’t call the borrower again to confirm before the appointment. I said that I typically will call a couple of hours before if I haven’t heard back from them, but with all of this, I obviously couldn’t do that, and I was told that Vantage Point would call to let him know we had to cancel. Again, it was obvious that they didn’t do what they had promised to do.
She went on to say that I should have gone out to get the QCD signed, and I responded that I was told to cancel the signing. I would never go out with a partial set of documents to sign when I was told we would need to cancel the signing due to not having the right docs. She was very argumentative and even used foul language. I told her she didn’t need to use curse words with me and that was very unprofessional. Another person was also in the room on her end, and he was either the person I spoke to last night, or his supervisor. I could hear him confirm some of what I said, but I couldn’t hear everything, and she didn’t relay any of it.
She then said the signature page was on page 24 of 26 pages. That rose a red flag. I said, “Wait a minute, did you say 26 pages? The docs I received was 63 pages!” It became obvious to me that she had sent me the wrong file. Did she admit that this was all her fault? Of course not! She said, “Oh, that was the (word I don’t remember) file, you should have known that was the wrong file!” I said no, I had no way of knowing (it was a Deed of Trust, just an older, recorded one). She then said again that I should have gotten the QCD signed. I again said that I wouldn’t go out with a partial set of docs if I’m told to cancel the signing.
She continued to berate and “yell” at me and wouldn’t let me say anything without interrupting. When I could get a word in, I told her that this was her fault and she was trying to blame me for her mistake, and that if she didn’t want to work with me again, that was fine with me, and I hung up.