Prudential Bank

CD investors beware. Yesterday a five-year cd came due at Prudential Savings Bank. So we went to the closest branch, but learned that we needed to return the following day. Today my wife went to get a check for her IRA CD only to learn that she would have to pay a $50 "Transfer Fee" to get a check, a fee that was established in June of '17. Futhermore, she is not transferring funds, she is redeeming a CD. Had this fee been in existence when she obtained the CD, she would not done business with this bank. We are trying to appeal to upper management, but to this point none of our many calls have been returned. The branch manager we have faced for two day in a row claims he has no authority to wave the fee. Charging customers a fee that they were no informed of at the point-of-puchase just simply is not a fair practice. We would not recommend this bank.

I wish someone had responded to your question about Prudential Savings Bank, it would have saved me so much frustration.

I refinanced my mortgage with them around November of 2016. From start to finish, it took 3 months to complete. Worst banking experience of my life.

The terms were great, and they said I could choose to not escrow and not pay a penalty to do so. That reminds me, one suggestion: keep an eye on the fees that they quote on the loan disclosure document. They changed almost each time a new disclosure was issued. (I received about 6 through this process).
And some were flat out never done. (They charge an 'employment verification fee'. They never contacted my employer, but they still charged me for it).

Anyway, at first, they were very responsive, and proceeded to scheduled the house appraisal. For those who don't know, you don't get to pick who does the appraisal. Prudential works with an appraisal mgmt company (AMC) who sends a random appraiser out. That way the bank doesn't have any influence over the results. Well, at least that's how it's supposed to be. I paid for the appraisal, and it was scheduled and completed very quickly.

Once the appraisal was done, it was reviewed by Prudential and they wouldn't accept it. They asked me to contact the appraiser directly and ask him to 'revise' his appraisal. I did, and he did. They still did not accept the appraisal and asked me to have him revise it again. Their issue was that the three comparables gross adjustments were greater than 15%. The appraiser felt that his appraisal was correct, and would no longer revise it.

At this point, Prudential informed me that in order to proceed, I would need to have another appraisal done, and I would have to pay for it again. I of course refused, and told them that I would go with another lender unless they paid for the new appraisal. I was told that upper management would be contacted, and they would see what they could do. This is when things started taking much longer, and Prudential's responsiveness went to a snails pace. Also, as I found out later, this process actually caused the original loan application to be denied, and a new application then began. This would later come back to bite me in the butt. (later I discovered a few of the original terms & fees changed because this was actually a new loan request, but that wasn't disclosed to me until the final couple of days. More on that later).

I was finally told that Prudential would pay for the new appraisal. I agreed to move forward working with them. Now, scheduling the new appraisal kept getting delayed. Then my broker told me that they wouldn't outright pay for the appraisal, and instead wanted the AMC to pay for it. They finally compromised and said that the results of the appraisal would determine who would pay. If the new appraisal dollar amount was greater than 15% compared to the first appraisal, then the AMC would agree that the first appraisal was bad and would pay it themselves. If it was less than 15%, then Prudential agreed to pay. Well, Prudential wound up paying.

This process took weeks, and I had to call both my broker and his supervisor dozens of times to get to this point. Un-returned phone calls, and ignored emails began infuriating me. I finally placed a call to Prudential's Chief Operating Officer. I think I only got him directly because the operator transferred me to his secretary, and I told her I was supposed to have been transferred to the COO. When she transferred me, he answered thinking it was his secretary calling him! Lol.

Once I explained many of my concerns & issues directly to him, things finally started moving again.

All this time, looming rate hike rumors were threatening my awesome rate they 'promised' me. Since nothing is actually guaranteed until the day of closing the refi.

We then moved forward with scheduling the closing date, which had it's own issues. It had to be rescheduled and we also discovered that now, in order to opt out of escrowing, I would have to pay a 'fee'. I opted to escrow, even though I didn't want to, in order to avoid paying this.

I finally got to close on my mortgage, and thought everything was finally done. Now the rest of Prudential's banking team got to show me how bad they are.

First, you can't pay your mortgage from Prudential's website. You either have to mail in a check, or you have to set up an electronic funds transfer from your bank. Since I didn't want them to be able to claim that they 'didn't receive my check', I set up EFT from my bank. I sent my first payment in on December 29th. My due date was January 1st, but they give you up to the 14th of the month before it's considered late.

A week went by, and the Prudential website showed no payment received. I called the bank and spoke to a teller who assured me that they received it and would update the website soon. Another week went by, with no change. I called, and spoke to someone who said they never received it. I had to contact my bank, and get a transfer receipt number. Once I gave that to Prudential, they 'found' my payment and said it had been rejected due to a wrong account number. I asked what was wrong with the account number, and she told me that it was correct and the computer system incorrectly rejected it.

Finally, they applied my payment, a day or two before being considered late. Good thing I was keeping up on making them do their job.

I made the next payment, and it went ok. Then for my next payment, I logged into Prudential's website to check on my 3rd payment and the website said I didn't have an account. I finally got someone who told me that my account was sold to another bank and I should send payments to them. I was never notified by mail or by any other method. Now the website wouldn't even show me my payment history.

At least now i'm with a much bigger bank, and they seem to have their act together.

STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM PRUDENTIAL AS YOU CAN.