Hostage Negotiator

I am currently reading Hostage, a novel by Robert Crais. As I was reading last night, I realized that my job has some similarities to a hostage negotiator. Although I never have to diffuse a situation to get the hostages and the perpetrators out of an intense situation, I sometimes feel like resolving issues on mortgage files is a lot the same, and the stress could not be any greater than what I deal with, albeit lives are not at stake in my case.

Yesterday, one of my loan officer's transferred his borrower's phone call to me. The borrower threatened to walk away from the closing (pull the trigger) unless I was willing to give him what he wanted. He claimed he was being charged $750 more in closing costs than what I told him he would have. He proceeded to tell me that I had lied to him and I had to be charging a lot in junk fees.

In reality, he was not overcharged, and his closing costs were very much in line with what he agreed to pay. The $750 overage he was seeing was coming in the form of pre-paid interest. It was not an overage in closing costs. This lucky soul will be skipping two months of mortgage payments because he does not have a payment due until December 1st.

My challenge was to make him see the light and to get him to sign those loan docs and walk away from the closing table happy. The real challenge, however, is to get him to do this without giving in to his demands. I had to make him feel like he got what he wanted without really giving up anything. Hmmmmm, what to do?

Here is a scenario of what NOT to do:

BORROWER: "You lied to me! You said my closing costs would be $750 less than they are. You and the title company have got to be charging me junk fees. What kind of stunt are you trying to pull?"

ME: "Mr. Borrower, you really have to settle down. You're like a rooster that wakes me up in the morning. I have chopped the head off a few roosters in my day, and if you keep doodling, I'm gonna have to come down there with a dull hatchet."

BORROWER: "What did you just say? Are you suggesting that I have feathers?"

ME: "What am I suggesting? Are you nuttier than a fruitcake? Did your mother sprinkle rat poison on your cereal every morning, is this what crippled your brain?"

BORROWER: "What did you say about my mother?"

ME: "I said, you are not my brother from another mother. You are the lifeless scum attached to the grill of my car!"

BORROWER: "You're having a barbecue and I'm not invited?"

ME: "How can you eat at a time like this? UFO's are circling the globe and I've been told the aliens are not friendly. They are coming with a mission to take all of our children's bicycles, melt them down and turn them into toasters. These toasters will be so powerful, they can turn bread into rain clouds."

BORROWER: "If it rains, these documents will get wet and then all of your junk fees will wash away."

ME: "The weatherman is married to an alien. He said all unsigned mortgage papers get stuck to the bottom of your shoe like bubblegum."

BORROWER: "I buy all of my shoes at Payless, but I have no more room in my closet for shoes. What would loan papers on my shoe do for traction? I have Super Duper Tennies that make me run really, really fast."

ME: "You have Super Duper Tennies? Can you jump over barbed wire fences with those shoes?"

BORROWER: "I think I'll go outside and try, but you realize, you can't get blood out of a turnip!"

ME: "I don't lend money to turnips. Sign the papers and nobody gets hurt....unless you can't clear that barbed wire fence."

BORROWER: "This was a great loan. I will sign and call you from my cell phone after I've cleared the fence. Have a great day!"

ME: "It was a pleasure doing business with you."