Bank of America refuses to recognize loan modification
March 19, 2010 by admin · 20 Comments
Chris McGill, WAVE-TV
Jason and Melissa Mattingly are finding out that mortgage modifications can become nightmares. Two years ago they fell behind on a couple of mortgage payments and received a mortgage modification through their lender, Countrywide Homes. Shortly thereafter, Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America and the Mattingly’s had to file the paperwork again – but now Bank of America is taking steps to foreclose on the home.
“We’ve never gotten anything like this, we’ve made our payments, they’ve accepted (them),” said Melissa Mattingly. “So I just don’t see how they can foreclose on us if we’ve honored our payments every month.”
The Mattingly’s receive up to a dozen phone calls a day from Bank of America saying they are only making ‘partial’ payments on their home mortgage. When Melissa or Jason bring up the home mortgage modification they sent in, bank representatives say there’s no reference to a modification in their computer records. The bank admits they’re receiving the Mattingly’s payments, but refuses to recognize the modification.
Ben Carter with the Legal Aid Society of Louisville says banks “claiming that they’ve never received it is unfortunately not uncommon.”
Carter says that institutions like Bank of America have become so big and their systems so overwhelmed, they can’t keep track of their own offers, paperwork or payments.
“Unfortunately, the way this ends for most people is they get a foreclosure complaint and they have to get an attorney to help them sort it out or get a housing counselor to help them sort it out,” Carter said.
Read more here: http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=12143115
I’m currently going through the same thing. I called BOA back in october and explained my financial situation and they said I qualified for a loan modification. They told me my mortgage payment would be reduced by about $500.00. They took the first payment from me and told me to send in my check stubs and W2, and they would send me the new docs.
I waited, and waited and never received anything from them so I called to find out what happened. They told me they had no record of the phone conversation to modify my loan. I said how could that be you already accepted my first payment. Then they switched it up and told me the original agreement was to put me on a three month trial period. They refused to honor or even acknowledge the original agreement and put me on a temporary trial payment. They told me they would mail the docs for my trial payment but never received anything at all.
Now I’m making the trial payment and at the same time I’m getting foreclosure letters. So I call BOA and ask them why am I getting threatening foreclosure letters when I’m making the trial payment. And I also ask them about the trial docs they never sent. I never got an answer every single rep I talked to played dumb. They told me the foreclosure letters would stop since I was on a trial.
While I’m making my trial payments my mortgage statements are saying that I’m only making partial payments and now I’m backed up by like $5,000 on my mortgage. So I call BOA again and ask them why am I five grand in the hole when you put me on a trial payment. The BOA rep tells me that even though I’m on a trial period my FULL mortgage payment is still due. Now I’m really pissed off and confused. None of this was ever explained to me. To my understanding if I’m on a trial payment then my mortgage is whatever that trial payment is not payment in FULL.
Now it’s about March and I still hadn’t received not one document. So after multiple unsuccessful phone conversations with BOA I decide to go to a local branch to ask for help. A very nice tenacious BOA associate has been helping me. I sat with her the first day and she was on the phone for two hours talking to different people from BOA home loans trying to get to the bottom of things. She has documented records of them even claiming it was their fault for mishandling my case. But they fed her just as much BULL as they’ve been feeding me.
She called me yesterday and told me they said they finally sent the documents. I asked her which documents she was referring to. She told me the original docs they were suppose to send from the very first conversation I had with them about modifying my loan. So I’m all happy thinking finally my loan is going to be modified. My joy would turn to grief when I received the documents today.
The documents I received was not for a loan modification but for a three month trial period which I already completed. They sent me a long list of paperwork to fill out to see if I qualify for a three month trial period.
Hello BOA is anybody home? You just put me on a three month trial period and now you slap me in the face with this. The bottom line is BOA stands for BEND OVER AMERICA!!! This bank is nothing but a bunch of gangsters. They got all of that money in a bail-out and instead of helping people out they continue to give their top executives millions in bonuses. When I get back on my feet I will never do business with BOA again.
Eric,
Call me at 888-737-6344. I’m the owner of this site and I may be able to help you.
Steve
If it walks like a piggy, talks like a piggy, by golly it’s a PIGGY!
BofA and it’s CEO Brian Moynihan reminds me of that song by John Lennon and George Harrison titled “Piggies” I invite you to listen to this song on youtube and see if it appropriately fits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdKlpBOvs0&feature=related
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their ties with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
Wright vs. Bank of America Lawsuit at: unitedlawgroup.com
When I filed my lawsuit against Bank of America, myself and United Law Group thought of the many others out there in the same situation. It was then that we decided to educate the public on what these piggy banks are doing, as well as unite us all together as one voice. Please help me turn this David vs. Goliath modification process, into a Goliath vs. Goliath.
Please stand with me and United Law Group and send an email to Bank of America that states that we will no longer tolerate their potentially illegal, fraudulent, irregular and abusive business methods.
Divided we might have fell America, but united we must stand!
Please send your email directly to Bank of America and include the following:
1. Your name
2. Your complaint concerning your experience with Bank of America.
3. Please end your email “I support John Wright vs. BofA Lawsuit!”
4. Please send a copy of your email to johns-wright@hotmail.com
5. Please send your email to both BofA link below and the CEO email
BofA Linked Email:
https://www3.bankofamerica.com/contact/?lob=general&contact_returnto=&state=VA
CEO Brian Moynihan:
brian.t.moynihan@bankofamerica.com
Update:
On 04/23/10 Patricia from Bank of America called me. She said she could not speak to me because I am in litigation with BofA. Apparently, she is a CEO and really high up there. You should call her and ask her about your modifications and say “I support the John Wright Vs. Bank of America Lawsuit.” The number she called from was: 818-713-2886.
The Yahoo address above stopped working for the article on my story. You may use this link to read about it:
Lawsuit Posted http://www.unitedlawgroup.com or:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3766544.htm
My email: Johns-wright@hotmail.com
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
Same story here. You can read the whole exhausting chronology on Shame the Banks or beingmiddleclass.com. Got a “loan mod” document from CW, and they accepted payments. After three months of not receiving statements reflecting the new payment numbers, I started writing and calling. Got yelled at by some rep over the phone who said there never was a loan mod. NB: I HAVE the document!!! Got foreclosure papers. Escalated to OOP’s Barbara Desoer. Was assigned a negotiator and started a new application. Eighteen months into this crap, I was informed yesterday that my new loan mod application was just denied. I can’t believe this stuff is legal unless by legal you mean “having enough money to drown the other person.”
Need help or alwyer. I have been making payments on my loan modification w/BOA since Dec 09. Now I find out they never stopped the foreclosure process. BOA is trying to say my modification was temporary even know it doesn’t state that anywhere on it just that it’s for 360 months. Now they want me to resign a new modofication with all these additional foreclosure fees added that should have stopped 6 months agao. Does anyone know a reputable lawyer in NJ that can help me ?
Lisa email me with your contact info at steve@bankinghorrorstories.com. or call me at 888-737-6344
Steve
Hi Eric, Linda, Lisa & John
I am also going through this madness with bank of america. I was approved for a loan modification July of last year. I have been waiting for the loan modification docs to arrive by fed ex. It’s now June 2010!!! I went to the Illinois Attorney General for help and they said Bank of america needed to update my info. I called Bank of america and said my case was denied and I have to apply for a modification again. They also said I was late 12 payments. I am losing my mind!!! I can’t sleep…all I think about is how this bank is ripping me apart. What do you guys recommend I do. Who should I turn for help?
Jose- Chicago, IL.
My story is very similar to many of the others. My wife was paying the mortgage but missed a payment in June 2009. Then She missed another in September. I was unaware that she had missed these two payments and she told me she had planned on catching them up, not realizing that since it was two payments behind BOA had already started foreclosure procedures. It seems like they don’t have the systems or manpower to process remods but they can get started on these foreclosures the very first day after that 2nd payment is missed. I guess that brings in the foreclosure fees and thats free money to them. BOA never sent me a letter or notified me which is required by law in IL. Of course they say they tried to get a hold of me although it seems like it would be easy as I had the same phone number and address as i did the day I closed on the house. I was just calling to check on an escrow issue when they told me they had started foreclosure without me knowing. They also said they had been rejecting my payments so I should have seen those returned and of course since my bank is also BOA and i paid my mortgage electronically I still cant understand why they were never returned until about 30 phone calls later because nobody could seem to figure out where they went. I too had called them 5 to 10 times per day everyday to try to straighten this out, but every time I called I was given a different answer, I was hung up on, I was talked down to, and told it was all my fault that this happened. I agree and take responsibility for being late on the payments. I set up a repayment plan 4 separate times and each time i’d call to check on it they told me that the last person did not know what they were doing and it would be rejected. I finally set one up for $4800 up front and $2700 a month. I sent the $4800 and they accepted it then for two months I sent $2700. My normal payment is $1300. On top of that they were not taking out my escrow correctly and that raised the payment another $500 a month. Since this new payment was double my original and I would have trouble sustaining a $2700 payment on a $150,000 house I applied for a re-modification and have received the same run around with the paper work missing then when i called they told me that it was not the paperwork that the letter said it was actually something completely different but the generic form just says you are missing your 1040, and check stubs but i was missing my home owners association fees documents. I cleared that up over the phone and 2 days later begin receiving auto-dialer calls non stop and when i answered it would put me on hold too long while I was at work so as soon as I could i answered the call. They had denied the re-modification. I was not surprised, I was pretty sure it was just some scam to appease the government regulators anyways. I was told I I was about $500 short on my monthly income, which was not a big deal since i did not add my wives in the original one since the first rep i spoke with didn’t know what they were doing and said it does not matter. I also was told that they have a sale date which I am not sure if i need to be concerned or not since the market is flooded. And they really seem to be pushing the short sale, I assume that somehow they figured out a way to make profit from short sales. One more thing they said was that they can not accept a payment which is odd because everything I have seen says to make them and the last trial period I had to make a specific trial payment so I am not sure what to think of them telling me not to pay. At this point I am still waiting for my next rejection. I am not exaggerating when i say I have called there at least 50 times and i am yet to get the same answer twice. What They are doing is criminal. I am filing a complaint on the Attorney General of IL’s web site today, but I have very little faith in our elected officials or big businesses.
I hate hearing stories of homeowners getting scammed and screwed by there bank and 3rd party loan modification companies. Homeowners feel like they have no-one to turn to about foreclosure and with 1 out 2 homes behind on the mortgage right night that is just ridiculous. If your lender is not doing something for you I would defiantly recommend going with a 3rd party company. Just be sure to make sure they are a reputable company by going to the bbb.org, checking out there website and asking to see success stories. Also make sure they have been in business for while.
Now of course I work for a loan mod company and that is my advise.
Our loan started bad and just got worse, we did a statement of income since i just graduated from college and started my new job. We closed on Aug 15th and our first payment was Sept 1st and was to include our HOA payment, it wasn’t until 6 months later (At this time it was sold to CountryWide) that we found out it did not include our HOA (lender dropped it from the loan as they faxed the paperwork during closing). We had a choice of saving our home and paying the back HOA payments + fees and loose the house or staying current on the mortgage, we chose to save our house which put us 2 months behind. For 3 years we tried to either get caught up in the mortgage or work with the lender to either defer a payment or work something out and were always told that they had to look out for their investors.
Now our mortgage is owned by B of A, called and was accepted into the loan modification program in Jan 2009. Completed all the paperwork and sent them everything that they wanted and was sent the trial docs in Oct 2009. Upon reading the docs, my payment was to be ruduced by $90.00 for the trial period and that a late payment would disqualify me for the loan modification program, called and asked how this would affect my credit (would it benifit since i would be paying the modified loan on time in full) and was told that this would reflect only a partial payment and once the trial period ended I would need to pay the unpaid balance in X days or face foreclosure. I told the rep that I was no longer interested and would be paying my regular payment since $90 did not benifit me enough to financualy do anything. Instead I paid $100/mth more to try and get caught up.
In Jan 2010, I took a $95/paycheck net income reduction due to higher insurcance premiums and taxes. This in turn forced me to take money away from other bills. At the end of May, we received a letter from B of A stating that our loan modification was denied and that needed to pay everything we were behind in full or we should consider a short sale. Since our home is typically on the market for about 30-45 days and selling for 28K to 30K and more than we owed we decided it was time to sell. We stopped paying the mortgage and proceeded to prep our house for the market and listed at the end of June.
July 22nd, we received a FedEx letter from B of A with an approved loan modification loan lowering interest by 2.4% and refinancing 30 years and for $900 more than we bought the house for originally since they are including the payments we have not paid up to Oct of 2010 plus escrow to the same time period. The loan modification paperwork says our first payment would be due Oct 1st but a little footnote on page 2 says we must submit the Oct payment in the form of a cashiers check or money order with the signed paperwork by Aug 2nd.
When I called the 1-880 number included on the first page of the loan document (which says only to sign and send in the paperwork by Aug 2nd) to verify the first payment, I was told that I read it wrong and that the money am to send is good faith money. My first payment would still be due Oct 1st, when I read the loan document to the rep to verify what it says, they said I would need to talk to the person handling the loan. I asked to be transfered to that person and was told that they could not receive outside calls. I verified my contact information and am still waiting for a reply.
It just seems like they have no clue as to what they are doing and what they want. If they don’t know, how am I supposed to?
Call me at 888-737-6344, I’m the owner of the site and I’ll see what I can do.
Steve Dibert
I think I am in the same boat. I will try to make this short. Over the summer we fell behind and missed a couple of payments, we knew this would happen ahead of time and began with Bank of America to apply for a loan modification. We sent in all documents and in Sept we received a forclosure notice of Oct 5 2010. Two or three days later we received a letter saying we were accepted into the trial period for the loan modification program. We have made our first payment which was certified check from our bank and due on Oct 1. We have called and no one can confirm our payment was received! We were also told to request our forclosure date be moved back to give us time to get approved for the loan mod. We have been requesting everyday for two weeks and still have a date of Oct 5. We have been given every answer under the sun depending on who we talk to, the one answer that sounds positive is that as long as we are making our payments for the loan mod on time they “can’t foreclose on us”. Why can’t we get that in writing? If that is the case then why is that no one will confirm our foreclosure date has been moved back to give us time? We have an appointment with an attorney to do chpt 13. we really don’t want to do that especially since we are “approved” for the loan modification.. I am open to any advice there is. In the mean time we have been in touch with AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING FOUNDATION but from my internet searches this seems it could be a scam….
Hi just thought i would tell you something.. This is twice now i?ve landed on your blog in the last 3 weeks looking for completely unrelated things. Great Info! Keep up the good work.
I can see that you are an expert at your field! I am starting a website soon, and your information will be very useful for me.. Thanks for all your help and wishing you all the success in your business.
Man, talk about a wonderful submit! I?ve stumbled across your weblog a few times within the previous, but I typically forgot to bookmark it. But not again! Thanks for posting the way in which you do, I truly enjoy seeing an individual who in fact has a viewpoint and isn?t truly just bringing back up crap like almost all other writers right now. Keep it up!
This is my first time I have visited your site. I found a lot of interesting information in your blog. From the tons of comments on your posts, I guess I am not the only one! keep up the impressive work.
Hi,
I have a similar horror story. First Franklin approved me for a trial mod, then First Franklin was (apparently) sold to BAC before the first payment was due. I made the first payment of $3640 on time to BAC, then they told me they were refusing to honor FF’s trial mod agreement, and told me to re-apply, and advised me not to make the second trial payment, which is due on 1 December (just 2 days from now.)
So, I think they applied my $3640 to the loan principle, which does me absolutely no good at all as far as keeping my home is concerned – wasted money as far as I can tell.
Having fought for 18 months now, been approved, been denied, and tossed $3640 down a rabbit hole, I now think there’s a possibility that BAC wants me to miss my second trial payment to trick me into defaulting on the trial mod. Should I make the second payment on time to BAC?
I’m tired of doing this alone. Please recommend a Memphis Tennessee housing councilor or lawyer to whom I can hand this morass.
I only have 2 days.
Long story short of my experience with BofA making homes affordable modification.
Was in the process of a loan modification for over a year..BofA screwed up my modification and foreclosed..they reassured me they would recind the foreclosure..a week later they called me that its too late and they could do nothing for me. Received an eviction notice went to court they did not even acknowledge BofA as the previous mortgage company just the mortgage company that bought my house in the foreclosure sale. Justice of the Peace did not want hear anything about BofA he advised me to take it up with them.
I came to conclusion that they are all involved with this scam. Everyone seems to be making something from these foreclosures. The banks, mortgage companies, realtors and attorneys. I hate banks. I will now pay cash for everything. They decieved me by fraudently taking my house. I know now they were never going to help me they had me chasing my tail for over a year. It’s ok. It is payback time.