Capstone Mortgages – Disgraceful – Ripoff

Capstone Mortgages – Rip Off

UPDATE 12/01/2010

I am getting a letter a week at the moment from Capstone Mortgage Services telling me that they are charging me for my arrears. My insurance company have told me in writing that they faxed this years insurance documents directly to Capstone and yet Capstone have still forced me to have their Insurnace product.

The Ombudsman is weak and inept and companies such as Capstone are able to play on this, Capstone Mortgage Services will not be getting this money and I am now talking to a solicitor to see what my options are for sueing them direct.

I will update on how my capstone action pans out.

But ANYONE reading this must avoid using this company at all costs.If you are contemplating using Capstone Mortgages then you may want to read about my experience which is similar to many others, you may well want to think again.

UPDATE I am getting a huge amount of negative feedback on Capstone Mortgage Services, it must be time for some investigation with teeth into the practices deployed by Capstone Mortgage Services by official watchdog bodies.

Capstone have been the worst mortgage company I have ever dealt with and I am amazed they are getting away with the practice of trying to intimidate people into paying twice for home insurance and when they don’t pay twice then Capstone levy charges which I believe must be against the code of conduct.

How is this done?
Well its quite simple -

• First you must be one of the unlucky people to have taken a mortgage out with them or their other face which is ‘Preferred Mortgages’.
• Then what you do is get your own house insurance because the home insurance they offer is not competitive.
• Then on the anniversary of that insurance you renew your policy as normal because its value for money.
• About two months later Capstone start sending you letters telling you that your mortgage is in arears.
• Your name is then entered on an auto dialing system and their collections department start ringing you night and day but when you answer the phone hangs up immediately and you hear a message to urgently call them.
• You call them and stay on hold for up to 30 mins.
• When somebody answers you are accused of having mortgage arears and that your house it at risk if you do not pay up.
• After 15 mins you find out that what they have done is forced you to have their home insurance without you signing a single document and that the arrears is actually the £300 they have charged you for this privilage.
• After explaining that you have your own house insurance you are then told that you should of sent a copy to them and because you didn’t do this they can force their own expensive product choice on you.
• When you argue about this practice you are told that it is in the small print of your contract but when pushed they refuse to show you this.
• When by chance you discover that Capstone have a copy of your own house insurance on file because your insurance company sent it direct they still refuse to refund the money and continue charging admin costs.

When this happened to me I contacted the customer services manager after four months of Capstone telling me not to worry on the phone and then sending demanding letters through the post and threatening answerphone messages left on the phone.

This Capstone manager promised to sort it out and promised that the Capstone Mortgage Auto Dialing service and their collections team would leave me alone. He also promised that the charges that should never have been levied would be rescinded. Now almost a year on I am still getting the same letters, the same threatening phone calls and the same charges being levied, whats more today I had a big suprise!!!!

You guessed it, one year on from the first attempt at extortion Capstone Mortgage Services have sent me a new letter for this years insurance, even though Legal and General faxed the insurance policy DIRECT to the Capstone HQ and Legal and General wrote to me confirming this.

That is another £300 added to my ficticious outstanding account!!!!

I rang them immediately and was told by customer services once again that this was an error and that they would refund the cost of the insurance, however, they cannot refund the charges because that is the collections department who are independent. I then found out that last years insurance was refunded but only to the tune of 50% , the other 50% they requested from Legal and General who quite rightly told them to get stuffed so they levied it back on me.

Now considering that they cannot show me my original contract or where I am bound to take their insurance without signing for it, even though I have asked repeatedly to see this contract, also considering despite this lack of proof I have complied with their wishes and so has a leading insurance provider, how can this practice be legal and not outright extortion?

• When you investigate further it becomes clear that this practice is designed to bully people into giving Capstone Mortgages money under the pretence of mortgage arrears.

It does not make sense to avoid factoring this story into your decision making process when looking at mortgage providers – Capstone Mortgages would be the last company I would use and I will not roll over and just accept this immoral and unethical practice either.

Watch this space too…..

Responsible Finance is an issue in other countries too – Kenya