The thousand-dollar e-mail

We recently started the process of refinancing our house, due to the drop in interest rates since we took out our current loan. As part of that process, I obtained some quotes from different lenders. One lender came back offering a lot more in "lender credits" (money they'd pay toward the loan) than their nearest competitor. So we went with them.

Unfortunately, when they pulled our credit score, it came back a bit lower than anticipated. Nothing catastrophic, but it did make them drop the level of the lender credit by a thousand dollars. With this new knowledge (including my current credit score), I decided it would make sense to inquire at the other lender, too, and find out the lay of the land.

First, though, I decided to make lender #1 aware of this fact. I sent them a simple e-mail message saying that the more accurate quote was quite a bit lower, and I would therefore be asking for other quotes.

Within minutes, I had a phone call: it was my representative from lender #1, who informed me that he had spoken to his manager, and they would be willing to extend me the original quote (as if I'd had the higher credit score) if I stayed with them.

I accepted; it's not every day you can make a thousand dollars with an e-mail.