Royal United Mortgage, LLC Treated to lies and deceit with this "LendingTree Outstanding Partner" whilst they wreck my FICO score. Indianapolis Indiana

I was recently paired with Royal United Mortgage after filling in a rate request with LendingTree. Within minutes, I'd gotten ~7 calls from Royal United Mortgage and ended up speaking with a representative by the name of Justin. Justin got some basic information from me, and asked if it was acceptable to do a "soft-pull" credit report from TransUnion so that he could provide me with some approximate rates to see if we would do business together. I restated to Justin that these would be "soft-pull" inquires and was assured that they were only "soft-pull" inquiries. A short while later, I received alerts from Credit Karma that there were inquiries that had been made against my credit profile that were "hard-pull" inquiries.

I immediately contacted LendingTree and demanded an explanation. They stated that the only pulls they perform are soft-pulls. I spoke with two different representatives at LendingTree that stated the same fact. I asked them to terminate any request that I had with them and to rescind any requests that I had to any third parties. Following this conversation with LendingTree, I replied to an email sent by Justin demanding an explanation. This email and another follow-up email went unanswered.

Royal United Mortgage company tried calling twice July 22, and twice on July 23. The second time they called on July 23, I was available to answer and spoke with a woman named Courtney. She asked if I was any closer to making a decision of choosing them for my refinancing need. I explained my trepidation regarding the overall circumstances, and she was understanding. During the course of the discussion, she indicated that "everyone here knows it's a hard-pull inquiry" - which is extremely different than I was led to believe. I was deliberately lied to in the interview process, and then dusted when I asked for an explanation. This is an extremely unacceptable situation. I was told that they would withdraw the inquiry and that I would be removed from their call lists. I was assured of the same thing by LendingTree.

On August 8, I got another call from Caitlyn at Royal United Mortage wanting to know why I hadn't gotten a loan with them.

They have yet to rescind the inquiry, and after saying that they would on multiple occasions, the most they've done is send me the email address for the third-party company that they use for credit inquiries. They are basically saying that I have to file a dispute for their credit pull. They DID NOT have my explicit permission to pull my credit report, and yet they did anyway. To date, my FICO score is down about 23 points.

Beware using any company like LendingTree and their equivalents. They make a LOT of money selling your hot leads to these shady third-party companies. Had I known how I was going to be treated by Royal United Mortgage, I would NEVER have gone to LendingTree's website. I was deliberately lied to up front, and have gotten nothing but the run-around from their support. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in Indianapolis, IN (where they are headquartered) on July 23, 2014, and as of August 8, 2014 it has gone unanswered.

Stay as far away from this company as you can.