Refinancing

I'M ON THE PHONE WITH A VOICE, a youngish sounding male voice, monotonous, boring, and either bored or non human. To find out, I make a few remarks to which any response would seem to require creative thought, beyond the capacity of any artificial intelligence with which I am familiar. The voice passes the test, then tells me that now is absolutely the best possible time to apply for a home refinance, because interest rates have never been lower, but will soon begin to go up, and I should act now, before its too late. It seems to me that interest rates are always the lowest they have ever been, and always on the verge of beginning an upward trajectory. I try to remember when this has not been the case, but can't. Its all my fault, for even thinking about refinancing my house, for even thinking about responding to my mortgage lender's offer, and calling this number. Its tempting, because if I do refinance, my monthly payments will be significantly lower, low enough that I need never work again to pay for the basics, plus, the new interest rate, no matter what it is, will be lower than the exorbitant rate I have been paying for years. The only drawback is that I will be making payments much further into the future than I will be if I simply stay the course, and bite the bullet, with my high interest rate and high payments. I listen patiently, then its my turn to talk. I explain that I have a 30 year mortgage, and though I have been making payments for only a little over thirteen years, I have paid in principle an amount equal to twenty years of payments, so that, any refi I consider must be very attractive, attractive enough to lure me away from my current well ahead of schedule situation. The young dude does not give me a definitive answer, so I decide to end the conversation. I have applied for a refi three times in the past, with always the same results. They encourage to apply, give me a ton of paperwork, ask me a million questions on the pone and on paper, then, late in the process, inform me that I do not qualify, either because my annual income is too low, or I have not been employed by the same employer long enough or my house lacks resale value, or whatever. No matter how convincingly I explain that I am retired, have substantial savings and assets, and work part time only for fun, they insist that, sorry, we have rules we must follow. That, after all their effort to tempt me to apply for a refi. They bait and switch me. No matter whether you refinance or not, nor how many times you do, by the time you pay off your mortgage, you will have bought your house twice, maybe three times. The financial service corporations make a killing on mortgages, like they do on everything else, and if all mortgage holders who are not wealthy actually paid attention, there would be massive public support for strong government regulation of every aspect of the financial services industry. Most of the major banks and lenders have been convicted of fraud several times. I don't think I will ever refinance, or even think about it again.