We recently sold our home and this escrow service was selected for us by our selling agent. Big mistake. The escrow officer was Brianna "Bri" Gottuso who handled the process so poorly and jeopardized our personal information. I will concentrate my review just on the major blunder that occurred during the escrow process.
The biggest problem came when I was instructed to provide my credit card information on a form to cover a fee for releasing a solar lease agreement. I sent this along with other signed documents needed for escrow and title via Fedex to Bri, and she was to forward the finalized forms and other buyer signed forms to a specific contact at the solar company who required both buyer and seller signatures. Instead of sending this securely to the specified contact (via Fedex or encrypted), Bri scanned the form with my credit card data and emailed it to the entire list who had been on a previous email string. This included the solar contact person, both buyer and seller real estate agents, those agent's assistants, buyers, and a general Support email account with the solar leasing agency. That support account is monitored by a third party email support service with dozens of staff, some of which may actually be offshore. In a nutshell, my personal credit card information was distributed to who knows how many without any way of knowing who else had access to that email and my information.
When I brought up this breach of personal information with Bri she was completely dismissive, saying it was only sent to those on the email that are "known and trusted" which is obviously not true. Needless to say I ended up having to cancel the credit card to protect myself from identity theft or unauthorized use of the credit card. I am now having to monitor my credit report since I am not confident that this was the only mishandling of my other confidential information provided throughout the escrow process.
While these were the actions of just one individual I believe it is safe to believe that it is indicative of how this office operates. If buying or selling a home in the Covina, Glendora, or the SGV area and your agent recommends Ticomo Valley, either insist on another escrow service or find another agent who uses someone else. This place should not be trusted with your personal information and may actually be in violation of certain regulations meant to protect consumer personal information. I wish I would have read some of the other reviews first.
Edit: after further consideration I retract my previous thought that my agent played no fault in this experience. Both the agent and the title company were dismissive of my original concerns and held little to no regard for the security of my personal information. All parties involved are accountable for their treatment of this situation. read more
