Angela called in extremely stressed and overwhelmed by debt and life circumstances. What started as a financial conversation quickly became much more. She shared her history, including prior bankruptcy, ongoing health struggles, chemotherapy, and recent hardships like medical issues and her refrigerator failing. It was clear she needed support not just financially, but emotionally as well. At that point, the calls waiting in the queue no longer mattered, this member needed help.
We talked through her full situation in depth and explored payment options together, running multiple loan projections to see what could realistically fit her current circumstances. I was upfront with her about her high debt-to-income ratio and the possibility of denial. I submitted the application to confirm, prepared her not to stress if it came back declined, and shared that I still had other options to try. As expected, the application was denied. I kept working through different scenarios, including paying off and closing lines, but her DTI was still too high and the loan was denied again after trying to rework it.
We discussed her husband, who has strong income but poor credit, and I was able to speak with him directly at work, gather proof of income, and add him to the application. After further review, the loan was approved! I immediately texted her to let her know the outcome and she shared that this was the best news she’d heard in a long time!
