I hope You are not one of their employees. I have some personal experience with G.F and Have heard many stories bout, How they are taking advantage of being So called” close to shariah compliant”.
May Allah Protect us all from Hell fire.

I am really surprising to hear about Guidance which is hard to believe because I finance twice with them and had excellent experience. also I know lots of friends who financed with Guidance and never heard anything bad and all are happy customer and always recommend others to finance with Guidance.
May All Guide us!

guidance only gives 30 days (this is even though they are clearly in need of clients/accounts).

when the appraisal ($450) was done of the house, the appraiser pointed out a small leaking problem in basement, and the underwriter (insurer for guidance) wanted us to fix it, and the agent told us we had to get an estimate on how much to fix the leak, and then they would hold 1.5 times the amount of the estimate from the refinance cash-out (because there is equity in the property, its worth $350,000, we owe $180,000, so equity amount = $350k – $180k = $170,000. guidance allows cash out up to $30,000. (by the way, they already tried to lay me off at ibm, but one account i supported fought to keep me on, so first round we won, but there’s a second round coming, thats why i need the cash out in case i become unemployed).

there was a huge snowstorm end of dec (worst in seattle in 40 yrs) that ended 1st week of jan, and after that there was flooding. we could NOT get any contractor to come out to give an estimate under end of 1st week of jan. then we found one honest contractor who came out and did some initial testing work, but after that he rescheduled twice because he had customers with flooding problem he had to fix.

meanwhile, guidance agent told me on 1/7 that rate will expire on jan 13 unless we extend, and i said ok we have to extend, and he replied he will help me extend for a “negligible fee”. on 1/7 also, i specifically asked him (this is all in writing/email), when is the deadline to complete the repairs, and he replied (in writing) : “no deadline. you do your due diligence, and i’ll do mine”.

we finally sent him estimate on 1/27. we scheduled with the contractor to do the repair in 2 stages, but he is a one-man service, so he couldn’t schedule the work right away.

then, on 1/29, agent emailed to say, rate will expire on feb 13, and if we don’t complete the repairs by 2/13, it will cost more to extend. in that email, he told me that he had charged us a “discounted” fee of $667.50 to extend the rate from jan 13 to feb 13, and that it would cost us more to extend from feb 13 to mar 13 (in the event the work could not be completed by feb 13). the scale of fees was $512 for 5 days extension, $717 for 10 days extension, $922 for 15 days, and $1,127 for 30 days!!!

i understand that islam does not limit “profit”, but not only are the fees OUTRAGEOUS, and other lenders have confirmed to me that they dont charge such fees, they give you 60 days for the rate, then after that something like $500 for 30 days extension.

i flipped out then. i disputed with the guidance agent : first, he NEVER told us work had to be completed by feb 13, i have numerous emails from him asking for estimate only, and never once did he say work had to be completed by feb 13 (or i would have rushed the contractor or found another one); second he said he would extend to fe 13 at “negligible” fee, and i dont consider $667.50 to be “negligible”. he also never communicated with us the fee amount, to ask for our agreement since it’s so high, and i reminded him quran says to enter into contract in writing with witnesses.

i have filed a complaint with the area Better Business Bureau. i cannot have compassion on them, because they never had compassion on me. i even contacted the CEO kal elsayed once, and asked why cant he post the “profit” rates on their website like other lenders post their “interest” rates on their website. his reply was : not in the budget. i know for a fact it is NOT a big deal to calculate your “profit” rate daily and then post on website. you just need one dedicated person to do that.

they just dont want to do it, and once as a test, i emailed this agent (who is in VA) to ask for the rate that day, and emailed the seattle agent for same info, and both came back with different rates! its like these muslim grocery stores, they dont post price of their halal meat, and this actually happened to me, they would give one price to one person, another price to another person, and sadly, they are always favoring their “brother” friends.

oh, and i forgot to mention that this agent lied to my roommate. he told her we should refinance now because they may pull out of state of WA in mar because they say the operating costs are too high (btw, guidance is one of 2 lenders that showed profit in 2008). later, when she asked him again, he said he never told her that, and she was like, “a’uudzubillah”, and then he quickly changed his position, and said “i only told you that because you’re a special customer”. his speech is like a used car salesman.

since he lied once, we stopped communicating with him with phone, we insisted all communication to be in writing.

may allah guide them!

This sounds like pretty normal finance company stuff to me. I had almost the exact same experience when purchasing our home. They lie and mislead and mislead and lie to get your business. It’s a dirty business, at this point I’ve stopped expecting Muslims to behave differently from anyone else regardless of their words.