* most of what they tell you to pitch to customers is a LIE. (30 day turn times, world class processing team, fastest lender in the industry, etc.)
* a lot of other things you end up pitching are at best half-truths (loanDepot does have a no-steering policy, but it's NOT unique - so do most other direct lenders. And the CEO Anthony Hsieh didn't actually start up E*Trade or Lendingtree - he founded two small loan companies that were later bought up by them).
* processing takes WAY too long to process loans (often 60 days instead of the promised 30) and they often make incompetent mistakes and even kill loans that were perfectly qualified based on the flimsiest of technicalities. And their attitude (for the most part) is rude and arrogant to the point of borderline un-professional. They even sometimes "accidentally" change the information in complete applications on the computer or delete detailed banker notes, then say the file is incomplete so it must be declined! They get paid the same on difficult loan files (jumbo, self-employed, first job, low credit) as on the easy ones. There's no incentive for them to get the harder loans done right, even if they are clean qualified files - so instead they just neglect them or change the information to make the loan look hopeless and then ask your manager to decline them behind your back. Not only that, but they repeatedly fail to respond to calls from customers, which is a major customer service policy violation (and they keep you in the dark about it until the angry customer calls you and lets you have it). I have caught several processors doing this, but they lie their heads off about it, and their managers are unwilling to hear any criticism about them so you get nowhere. Often times the banker has to also do the processor's job, but doesn't get even one dime out of the processor's wages.
* processing is full of drama, caught up in their own world and seemingly oblivious to the fact that we are there to fund loans, not argue over personal hangups or popularity contests. Something like 200 women all on the same floor, cooped up together all day, having lunch brought to them. Around the 12th of the month that whole department is like one huge PMS catfight. The upper management (mostly older men) doesn't seem to understand that menstrual synchronization is a "thing".
* Pricing is NOT competitive like they claim. On VA, Jumbo, FHA streamline, and a host of other programs the pricing sucks. LoanDepot is only competitive if you have 800 FICO score, no late bills on ANYTHING, a single family home with 3000 sq. ft. and over 75% equity, 200k in mortgage balance, no additional properties, no second or HELOCs, refinance not purchase, w2 income only, lots of assets, low DTI, etc. Anything other than that "dog and while picket fence" ideal, and your loan will cost WAY too much. The trainers tell you however that the pricing is the best under the sun, on any product.
* The "match or beat" guarantee isn't always adhered to. Sometimes even a big bank can offer better pricing (to their repeat clients of course) that loanDepot is unable to match. Yet they tell you to promise you can beat anyone's price out there. If it's more than a full point in cost cheaper, (realistically even half a point cheaper) loanDepot often won't be able or willing to beat it. Then they tell you "don't sell off of pricing, sell off of rapport or character". REALLY? You can be the nicest guy in the world, it doesn't matter, the customer will still refuse to do business if you're a full point more expensive on your FHA streamlines and low-credit loans. Then you have no choice but to talk down the competitor, lie about them being a broker/middleman with no ability to guarantee the rates the quote, when they're actually a lender (such as sebonic or roundpoint) that does control the process and has their own money. This approach works with only the dumbest clients, the ones who never commit to doing anything in the end and just waste your time 80% of the time.
* managers are overwhelmed. 15 bankers to a manager, average. Each one has around 4 loans in restructure, that makes for 60 loans clogging up the manager's time on any given day. All their time is used up rescuing dirty loans, low appraisals, hoarder houses, dilapidated properties, loans where the borrower lied about income, etc. They have no time to help you with pricing out new loans in complex situations, or in obtaining pricing exceptions, they can take almost a week to obtain and by then the borrower has already gone with a competitor.
* Tech department is very slow and acts like bankers' computer problems aren't their concern. They often take a whole WEEK or longer to respond to an emergency tech help request form a banker - and this costs the company millions in lost revenue every day due to problems in loan software, computer network, or elsewhere in the system not being fixed.They can't even fix a desk phone that's got the wrong extension or language settings, let alone the glitch-ridden loan software.
*The loan software glitches up and crashes every 10 minutes, often at the most inconvenient times, such as when you're taking a credit card down or reading a lock script/locking a loan for a borrower. You have to hang up and promise to call back RIGHT AFTER you took down their card number. That just makes you look shady, and it costs the company customers. Plus it wastes valuable time that could be spent wrapping up loans and taking more calls.
* senior management doesn't seem really too concerned with the problems of bankers, let alone the tech difficulties and lack of competitive pricing despite the company having to promise competitive pricing.
* They will fire you rather than train you to do purchases in addition to refinances. This is a big problem as purchases are now growing whereas refinances are decreasing. Despite what they say, it is apparently cheaper for them to lay off people who have been with the company long-term rather than retrain them on new products.
* A lot of under-the-table favoritism. Certain bankers who are relatives or close friends of upper management (and yes, it helps if you are young, female, and flashy) tend to get their own dedicated processor, and all the best leads regardless of talent or production efficiency. Not surprisingly, they closed the most loans, but only because they were given the most chances. Meanwhile the rest get mainly crappy non-qualifying leads from crappy bankruptcy-ridden states while our top-converting state licenses are lying idle, barely being used by the company at all. HR denies it, swears it's just a rumor, but has no explanation for why some people who lock very dirty loans still get the most leads and make a ton of money, while the rest of us have to dig for scraps, or why they will license you for some good states when the company already has too much coverage in those states, just so they can feed you the leads from the bad ones in greater profusion.
* HR is a dictatorship like no other. They lie and claim you are so valuable to the company, "your licenses make you like royalty, we spend a lot of money training you, we don't want to waste all that money and effort by letting employees go". Then they axe you without warning. The director is the worst, she has a major Napoleon complex and will threaten your licenses for even asking WHY you were axed after they told you so many times, so nicely, that you are an asset and they "absolutely" can't afford to risk having people get dissatisfied with job morale and quit. Complete hypocrisy.
* The CEO seems to have a very anti-employee and anti-fair labor laws attitude, and also repeatedly sends out scandalous hot-headed and borderline unethical company-wide emails with chronic spelling and grammar errors ("none negotiable" instead of non-negotiable is a classic one) preaching about how minimum wage laws are evil, and insinuating that if you know what's good for you and want to keep your job you should vote republican. Now I'm no socialist, but I was given the impression that this is a professional, supposedly equal-opportunity workplace where management isn't supposed to talk politics or promote a political agenda.
* no work/life balance. you work over 55 hours a week in most cases, work on weekends, very few days off. PTO is decent but if you take PTO, processing won't work on your loans. You're perpetually stuck in a nonstop hamster wheel. Not much opportunity for advancement either, most of the important positions already have people previously tapped to enter them in case someone should resign or get laid off from those top spots. In many pay periods you work long nights trying to save the loans that processing completely took a dump on, and make little or no commission as rates are going up. In was more justifiable in 2012, but then everyone had it easy in 2012, not just Loandepot.
* Parking sucks. After years, many bankers still don't have a parking permit for the company lot, and most of the reserved spaces in the lot are still lying vacant, forcing even veteran bankers to park almost half a mile away, since the neighboring food court lot is constantly filled up by cars of customers of the theater and restaurants in the plaza. Park without a permit and you get towed. Try to ask why the permits are so restricted and all you get is evasion, followed by (after more persistence) barely veiled threats.
