Countrywide’s Service Minus
From my email box today, I found out that I have “been specially selected to receive [Service Plus][1]—an exciting new breakthrough in speed and convenience, exclusively for [Countrywide][0] customers.” By “specially selected” they mean that I am one of the only customers so far that has not succumbed to their huge marketing push for this “opportunity”.
“Say good-bye to your paper monthly statements. With [Service Plus][1], you can make payments, manage your account, and learn about special money-saving offers—all online. In fact, this new process offers so much more than the snail-mail approach that we won’t be bothering you with paper statements in your mailbox anymore.” In fact, if you want to sign up to pay online, you have to consent to get *ALL* paperwork about your mortgage online via email.
“Instead, they’ll be conveniently available online, where you can access and/or print them whenever you want. Best of all, [Service Plus][1] is free!” Whereby free, they mean cheaper and more lucrative for them since 1) they don’t have to send out monthly and 2) they can feign ignorance if the statement gets eaten by a junk mail filter or otherwise never makes it to you and you get hit with some late charges.
Only the best for our customers. And they want me to re-finance?
[0]: http://www.countrywide.com/
[1]: https://customers.countrywide.com/sp/