Good Morning Gentle Readers,
Wolfgang Puck is happy as a clam with City National Bank and he'll tell you why right here. But your mileage may vary.
Here's a little snapshot of what sometimes happens to real people who take City National at its word and look for a little help up the ladder.
- My Guy has sterling credit.
- The commercial building he owns appraises at more than three quarters of a million dollars.
- It has a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage that The Guy wants to refinance.
- He doesn't want any cash out.
- He just wants to drop his payment by several thousand a month.
We get into the paperwork hassle and a little back and forth with the loan officer and something begins to smell like week old unrefrigerated catfish. TWC asks a few pointed questions and hears a little vocal sleight of hand. So TWC calls The Guy and says, I think they are going for a hard money loan. The Guy says, I told them no hard money loan. TWC says, you better call the bank.
I won't say the suit at City National lied to My Guy, but after misleading him and ignoring him this is what he came back with:
- A short term note (maybe five years)
- Interest rate somewhere around the mid-teens
- Double digit points up front together with the usual suspect costs you run across in the finance business.
This must be why your business belongs with City National, winner of nine Greenwich Excellence Awards in business banking for:
- Overall Satisfaction
- Relationship Manager Performance
- Financial Stability
- Treasury Management Customer Service & Overall Satisfaction
- Financial Stability
- Treasury Management Customer Service & Overall Satisfaction
As Nancy Reagan once pointed out, the beauty of America is this: Anyone except Keith Richards can Just Say No! Except to the government, I mean.
TWC understands that everybody drops the ball now and again. But even in this world of mega corporate impersonal banking where a man's character and reputation don't matter so much, word of mouth still has some value. City National blew an opportunity to gain goodwill and a new customer, who, when times are good, tends to keep a pretty fat bank balance.
City National also blew the referral factor. I'll never send another client to City National for any purpose whatsoever. What is their loss? Hard to say. Maybe not much, maybe not enough to matter. Then again.....
As Ever,
TWC
