I was shopping around for a company who could help me renegotiate or help me modify my current home loan. After discussing the situation with several companies, I found Equitas and after talking with the salesman Sal for a number of times and through email, my wife and I started the program.

The promise from the salesman, and everyone we talked with at the company, the process should take 3 months to complete; I was hoping for 6 knowing that nothing ever goes according to plan. I was told that the company would cash the first two payments and then when a acceptable offer was reached, the third payment would be cashed by the company. However, the third check was cashed before anything was agreed upon.

The customer service I received was terrible after the initial sales. The investigator, Kary, I believe, called and did the phone interview. It was brief and not very detailed. They had to reschedule another interview because she failed to do even close to a complete job. At least they did try to fix it.

The interview was supposed to reveal information of the wrongdoings of the bank and loan company and that was to be used a leverage against the bank. Three months into the program, the bank had not even received any documentation; Equitas had not sent anything to them. Supposedly the lawyers for Equitas were reviewing the case, but I was skeptical. I asked them a number of times to send me the report which they finally did, only after I accused them of not doing anything on my behalf.

Then the games started. Equitas was slow to move on anything. I had to redo all my paperwork again because the time window had lapsed. I would call and speak with customer service reps, who could never track down my account manager or her boss. I would leave messages and nothing would happen.

I finally started calling my bank directly. The bank said that the paperwork they finally received had been filled out wrong. So, I called Equitas to work in it. Again, slow to respond.

After 9 months, Equitas came to me and said that they would offer their contractual refund of two of the three payments since this wasn't getting anywhere and I took them up on it. My lawyer said we could probably get them to give the other payment back for breach of contact which there is ample proof that they did, but it's not worth the cost of the fight.

I would not recommend Equitas to anyone who is thinking of any of their services. Absolutely terrible with timing, customer service, and the fact that 9 months into the program, the customer service department would ask every time I called in, "Have you paid us yet?"