Alan Lakey, senior partner at Highclere Financial Services, said: “There will be many advisers who have only dealt with GMAC-RFC for purchases and remortgages, and are unaware that to start the porting process, a form has to be downloaded from GMAC-RFC’s website and faxed to its Burnley processing centre.
“48 hours later, a Key Facts Illustration arrived with confirmation of the maximum loan. It was considerably different from that indicated by the website affordability calculator, and it seemed a different, and not so generous calculation was used for existing borrowers.
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“As the existing mortgage had a hefty redemption penalty, the client grudgingly agreed to proceed. We then entered a comedy of errors where the Burnley office made promises and failed to deliver.
“The client was increasing the loan size from £128,800 to £147,000 and it was five weeks before an offer forced its way out. While this is no great shakes in normal terms it is an indictment of the folks at GMAC-RFC that, having spent so much time perfecting an online processing system to attract new clients, they fell down badly by devising a tortuous porting and further advance system which penalises existing clients.”
However, Jeff Knight, director of marketing at GMAC-RFC, said: “Our continual research with brokers highlights just how important technology is in terms of speed and ease of use. We must be doing something right, else we would not have grown so fast in 2006.”
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