United Pacific Mortgage Expiration of locked mortgage rate, morgage company blames federal goverment Lake Forest California

We decided to refinance in May and went with United Pacific Mortgage company in Lake Forest, CA as it has high BBB rating.

5/7/09 Mortgage rate locked at 4.75% without point or escrow for $410k.
5/8/09 Lender waived $695 processing fee to match another broker's offer.
5/13/09 3rd party appraisal promised to call
5/14/09 Direct Mortgage (3rd party handles the appraisal due to new federal government procedure according to lender) repeatedly charging customer's credit card and caused credit card lock down. Appraisal loft handles the appraisal for Direct mortgage. Harbor Appraisal got order from Appraisal loft and made appoinment with the client. Appraisal alliance got order from Appraisal loft as well. Appraisal loft claims the order with Harbor Appraisal is cancelled, the latter knows nothing about it.
5/15/09 Lender was very apologetic. VP ensured customers that he would personally see to the matter and this is not the way they do business.
5/20/09 Home appraisal done by Appraisal appliance.
6/1/09 Lender confirmed the appraisal, waiting for report.
6/2/09 Appraisal loft contacted customer, claiming they can't locate the appraiser, thus setting up yet another appraisal by a different company on 6/3.
6/2/09 Lender apologizes for the home appraisal mess, confirming waiving the appraisal fee and promising report by 6/5 and the file will be closed asap.
6/8/09 Lender confirms receiving appraisal report. Lender also confirms relocking the 4.75% so customer has nothing to worry about.
6/08/09 customer requests appraisal report and never received it.
6/17/09 Customer inquires status of refinance, lender says Because of the appraisal issue the rate lock expired and your loan is ready to close immediately. We have been watching the rates the last couple of days and they are on there way back down. We are close to were we started and hopefully by the end of the week they will be back were we started the loan or better and we can close. underwriting is forwarding you the appraisal first thing in the morning.
6/29/09 Customer inquires once again, lender says I am sorry for this. The appraisal system that was put into place my the Federal Government really messed up a lot of loans. Yes, we are waiting for rates to drop back down. Today we are at 4.8% at a 1.5 point cost. If it makes since to you to close on this loan we can get docs out this week.

So, we are ripped off with the loss of locked 4.75% rate, and the mere answer from United Pacific is federal goverment? This is just not right.

Echo
Portland, Oregon
U.S.A.