March 2014 by Chris K
I would not recommend the Coldwell Banker Chicopee, MA office to anyone! I recently purchased a condo in Western Massachusetts. The seller’s agent, Melissa St. Germain from Coldwell Banker’s Chicopee, MA office called my agent two days before closing to say that they did not have the deposit check that my realtor dropped off to them two months prior. My agent had a complete photo copy of the entire package that she dropped off, including a copy of the deposit check for $9300. Melissa St. Germain didn’t seem to think this was a big deal. She told my agent to just have me do a stop payment and re-issue the check. Problem is, it takes 3-5 business days to have the money back in your account and our closing was less than 2-days away. I called and spoke with Melissa St. Germain’s manager, Shawn Mitchell and asked him why this wasn’t brought to our attention immediately after my agent dropped off the package. His response was to blame my mortgage company for not contacting them to let them know it wasn’t deposited. He stated repeatedly that they are a multi-million dollar company and if a check came into their office, it would have been processed. So, I asked him if it was standard procedure for a multi-million dollar company to not have the selling agent review the package within a reasonable time (several days) and notify the buyer’s agent of any missing documents. His response was simply, “What do you want me to do about it?” I told him I wanted him to find my check and if he couldn’t help me, I’d contact the corporate office. He just said, “If that’s what you feel you need to do, by all means, go ahead.” I did contact the corporate office and spoke with the Regional VP. After quietly listening to my concerns, his first words were, “We’re going to fix this, let me do some research.” He called me back and even though I knew my only two choices were to give them another $9300 deposit to keep our closing date or postpone closing until the stop payment was processed and the money was back in my account, he at least offered to pay for the teller check fees. He was professional and apologetic and accepted responsibility for Melissa St. Germain’s failure to check the documents two months prior. This was just one of the agent’s failures to perform during our negotiation. I do believe Coldwell Banker is a great company, but I would stay away from the Chicopee, MA office. My impression is that they have a culture of not accepting responsibility when they make a mistake. That is not what I want from my realtor.
