Homeowners Are Getting Ripped Off By Call Centers

By Jay Voorhees

January 14, 2026 4 min read

Homeowners Are Getting Ripped Off By Call Centers

Homeowners are getting ripped off left and right.

We know this because we’re seeing so many examples right now, and it’s worse than ever.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution.

The % of mortgages above 6% (21% of all mortgages) is now higher than the % of mortgages below 3% (20% of mortgages) – something I thought we might never see a few years back.

Because rates are dropping, a huge portion of those 6%+ mortgages are eligible for refis – and the loan servicers and the call centers are out in force, employing their dubious tactics more than ever.

This is something I have blogged about numerous times, and I thought I was done. But, given how many times we’ve seen these slimy practices employed in recent weeks alone, I have to hit it again.

Here are a few examples:

1. The ol’ order-an-appraisal-no matter-what trick.

A borrower recently came to us very frustrated because a call-center LO encouraged her to pay for an appraisal even though she clearly lacked enough equity for a refinance. Call centers do this because once they get a borrower to commit to the cost of an appraisal, they gamble that they can get the borrower to do some sort of refi – even if the appraisal comes in low (the sunk cost fallacy keeps borrowers wedded to the call center). In this case, the borrower wasted $750, as it made no sense for her to refinance, given her lack of equity.

This would have never happened with a reputable lender because they always carefully analyze comparable sales in these situations before blindly ordering an appraisal.

2. The ol’ roll-closing-costs-into-the-loan trick.

Call-center loan officers will often convince borrowers their loans are awesome because “there are no out-of-pocket closing costs!” This is rarely the case though; the loans are usually awful because the closing costs are sky-high – and just rolled into a much higher loan amount, e.g. the old loan was $750,000 and the new loan is $775,000 with $22,000 of closing costs.

3. The ol’ lower-rate-but-with-much-higher-fees trick.

How this still works in this day and age of much clearer Loan Estimates is beyond me – but work it does – and very often! Borrowers tell us all the time that our rate is too high and that “e-rippoff dot com” or “i-theft dot net” is offering a much lower rate.” But when we see the Loan Estimate, we invariably find an additional $10,000 of fees.

I could list many more examples (such as “the ol’ understate prepaid insurance, taxes, and upfront interest – to make closing costs look lower – trick”) but I won’t…

These tricks persist because there is still way too much capacity in the mortgage industry, and the call center LOs and managers are pushed very hard to meet quotas.

Here is one solution: agents might want to remind buyers from the last 36 months that these practices exist and refer them to a reputable lender that A) is very good at reading Loan Estimates; and B) is very honest.

NOTE that I said, “refer to a reputable lender” and not just to JVM Lending, as I don’t want this message to be too self-serving. I am legitimately just trying to prevent call centers from scamming borrowers because we see it so often.

We would of course love to be that lender, and we have several superstar refinance specialists on our team – like Hannah Papazian – but again, we just recommend referring buyers to anyone reputable to fend off the scammers.

One more thing honest lenders do: if another lender is legitimately offering a better deal, they say so.