So I’ve had a mortgage for about 12 years (with a couple of refinances), and I have the payments automatically withdrawn from my bank account every month like any sane human being in the 21st century. My current mortgage holder is Wells Fargo, for whatever that’s worth.
Anyway, checking the bill this month, I noticed that I have a couple of additional charges that I’m paying, both Accidental Death Insurance, for $8.95 & $16.50 a month, or $25.45 total. I never authorized these charges, but Wells Fargo tells me that they can’t stop charging me for them because they are insurance. I have to go through the two individual companies. The $8.95/mo charge is from Aegon Financial Services in Baltimore, Maryland, and the $16.50/mo is from Charter Benefits in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Wells Fargo also tells me that the only way I could recover any of these charges (they’ve apparently been on there for awhile) is to talk to the two companies directly.
I asked Wells Fargo how these charges got added, and they said that I must have authorized them at some point with the two companies. When I told them not to add any more charges to my mortgage without my direct authorization, they said they can’t do that. They said that these companies are their affiliates, and they would not have been able to add the charges without having my loan number and other information. They did agree with me that it was strange to have two charges from two different companies for what looks like the same service.
My question is should I just get an attorney now and skip the fucking around stage, or try to work with these two companies directly first? How common is this bullshit?
Before you go calling a lawyer, you probably need to contact these two companies and see what they say in regard to your “authorisation” of their services. If it turns out you inadvertently signed off on this as part of a refinance, you’re going to look pretty stupid involving a lawyer.
How common is that from a refinance? Also, Wells Fargo was not my mortgage holder for either of the refinances, they bought it from RBMG. The two companies are affiliates of Wells Fargo, according to Wells Fargo.
If this is some crap Wells Fargo attached to your mortgage without your approval, then yeah, raise some hell. I’m just saying you need to ask for the details before you get riled up. Who knows what the deal is, and you won’t know until you ask them to support their actions.
