Ha.

Apparently motherhood makes you totally delusional.

Debra Poindexter (yup, that’s what she said her name was), called to sell me a B of A insurance policy for my home appliances. Sure, she didn’t have a huge chance considering all the appliances in my home are about 20 years old, but the fact that she was selling for B of A killed any chance at all.

Midway through her pitch, I interrupted and said, ‘B of A holds my home mortgage. Considering the horrid level of customer service I’ve had for the past 4 years, there’s a better chance of… well… there’s a better chance of pretty much everything happening before I bought a policy from you folks. Don’t take it personally, but you work for a miserable company.’

Silence.

‘But have a wonderful day. I really wish you personally the best. We won’t go into what I wish for B of A’ I said.

Then she hung up on me.

What?!? I was being nice!

I am not an idiot and I don’t have 40 hours each week to gather paperwork for them to lose.

About a week ago, the calls stopped. They stopped leaving messages. They stopped requesting any information. It didn’t make sense. Why did they give up so suddenly? Did they finally get the hint?

Today, I received a letter from the Bank of New York Mellon…

The new owner of my home loan.

Sadly, I know absolutely nothing about the Bank of New York Mellon. What do I know? That I am no longer a B of A customer.

It’s hard to do cartwheels at 29 weeks pregnant but…

I’m going to give it a try.

No, I’m not going to get my hopes up and no, I’m not going to spend hours chasing paperwork they will lose over and over, but I guess we’ll see what happens?

Weird.

My sister and I sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub chatting away while enjoying the skyline views across downtown. I’m not sure how it happened, but the subject of Bank of America was brought up. My sister recently financed a car through them and of course, I ‘kindly’ told her she was an idiot to finance through them. I ‘may’ have also said I’d rather die than owe “those life sucking *%@&#%’s an ounce of my future earnings.”

My sister, who knows about my 18 month long fight with B of A, smiled an evil smile and egged me on. “Why don’t you stop paying them?”

“And further my relationship with the devil?!?! I’m not going to sink as low as those scum suckers!” I raged on.

She grinned, knowing I’d explode into a 30 minute ‘show’.

In the middle of my tirade, I happened to notice someone taking an interest in my ‘I hate B of A’ speech. Rather than shut my mouth, I ranted for a few minutes longer to my sister and we moved on to more interesting topics like gastritis, carrot cake, and cancer.

My sister excused herself to use the restroom and the person who was showing an odd interest in my tirade came up to me and said, ‘Hi, my name is Wade. That’s my wife Karen. I’ve known James for 20 years. And I work for Bank of America… in the mortgage division.’

I responded, ‘Hi, my name is Rebekah. That’s my husband Chris. James is my brother. And I enjoy putting my foot in my mouth.’

Wade is a laid back guy, but it’s a little hard to rebound from my claim that all B of A employees are ‘horrific scum suckers.’ He tried to explain that B of A is doing the best they can do and losing client forms is a common occurrence. He encouraged me to keep trying and wished me a good night.

Losing forms is common? Keep trying?

So. Sorry to my brother. Sorry to Wade – a non-scum sucker.

But I still hate Bank of America.

“I’m staring at an exact copy of the information I sent. The 2009 taxes were in there.” I replied.

“Well mam, I can only tell you what I see” he said annoyed. “Also, the paycheck stubs you submitted were from September. That’s too old.”

“That’s because I submitted the application in SEPTEMBER. They were current when I sent them” I said angrily.

“No underwriter will accept old stubs and missing tax information. You’re going to have to resubmit everything” he said coolly.

“Spend hours collecting and packaging information only to have you lose it and have to retry in three months?” I asked.

“Looks that way doesn’t it” he responded.

I get it.

I finally get it.

I understand why people get so fed up, they walk away. I get why they rip apart their homes when they leave. I get why our neighbor set his house on fire when he was forced to leave. I get why there is so much anger.

We started this process a year and a half ago and I’m still sitting firmly on square one.

I have to admit, I picked up the phone immediately after slamming it down on Bank of America and dialed our bank. I was planning on closing our mortgage checking account to simply get the attention of this awful, awful bank. Miss a payment? Or two? Or ten? Yeah, maybe they’d actually get a hint that this fight has just begun and now I’m willing to play dirty.

About 20 seconds into listening to a particularly bad rendition of a Yanni song, I hung up.

Who am I kidding? As much as I dislike them and wish ill on them as a company, I refuse to change who I am. They may be the biggest group of underhanded dirty liars, but I’m not.

Thank you Bank of America for making me miserable. Thank you for reminding me that I can’t stand being under your thumb. Thank you for inspiring me to be debt free including the mortgage because every minute with you in my life is too long.

I mailed the ‘Oops we’re sorry, you actually do qualify for the program and we lied to you for ten months’ paperwork they requested back in September. You may have to sit down for this shocking bit of information…

They haven’t replied.

I called them this afternoon. After five transfers, I was finally connected to the ‘Status Queue Home Retention’ line. He said, ‘It’s been more than 60 days. I’m not sure why you haven’t been assigned a staff member yet.’

I wanted to ask, ‘Maybe it’s because I haven’t called before now and you guys never get moving until someone complains?’

He ‘forwarded my application to his supervisor’ (if you believe that, I’ve got ocean front property in Arizona to sell you) and asked me to call back in a few weeks for another status update.

Funny, this is exactly the same process I went through last October. I’ll hold on until January and then make an attempt to try out the HARP program recommended by a kind reader.

Isn’t the definition of insanity – someone who repeatedly does the same thing and expects a different result?

*Beep* Rebekah, this is Bank of America calling about the HAMP program…
*Beep* Hi, this is Bank of America. We’re calling about the paperwork…
*Beep* Rebekah, please return our call at 877…

If Bank of America were an ex-boyfriend, I’d have a restraining order by now.

On Saturday, after the third phone call, I finally picked up.

“Hello Rebekah. This is Carol from Bank of America. I’d like to walk you through the application package we mailed to you last week. Have you had a chance to complete it and mail it to us?”

‘Carol’ kept me on the phone for nearly 30 minutes explaining what I had to do to get approved for the program. I find it incredibly odd that two years after my first application, they are ‘coming to my rescue’.

Did they come to my rescue when I lost my job? Did they help when I had to take a job making more than 30% less? How about when my husband lost his job and our mortgage payment was 115% of our income?

Not a peep.

The came to ‘save’ me now…two years later. Two years of not one late payment despite everything.

To add insult to injury, I received another copy of the package yesterday as a ‘back-up copy’ in case the first copy didn’t get to me.

I don’t understand why B of A is suddenly taking an interest in me – and only after I got my head above water.

I didn’t think it was possible to lose more respect for Bank of America.

Turns out…

It is.

Is Bank of America saving me? Or am I saving them?

I thanked him for his time and started to fill out the mile high stack of paperwork. I made a mistake, tried to use a white out pen, and it exploded all over my hands, my clothes, and my desk.

Despite rushing to the sink to clean my hands, my fingers stuck together in the white goopy mess. I wasn’t able to disconnect my middle fingers until my husband came home from school and used some industrial strength glue remover to wash the mess.

If this is a sign of things to come, it’s going to be a very long weekend of paperwork.

Thank you for your request on 10/15/2009 to discuss home loan assistance under the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program. During our earlier discussions about options for home loan assistance, we told you that you were not eligible for the HAMP modification program. However, upon further review of your account, you may be eligible for the HAMP modification program.

Excuse me?

I fought with you for two years (I originally applied in 2008) and NOW you Fed-Ex me an application with a Fed-Ex return envelope saying, ‘Oops, we goofed?’

Sounds like someone got audited.

I will be calling Bank of America tonight to get to the bottom of this.

We were rejected for the Making Home Affordable Program through Bank of America.

Our application was ‘lost’ and we were asked to reapply. We applied with the exact same numbers we used 6 months ago but this time, we were denied. The program requires homeowners to spend 37% or more of their gross income on their mortgage to qualify and does not include the second mortgage in calculating the percentage. The monthly payment for our first mortgage is 36% of our gross income. I was disappointed with how close we were until the Bank of America representative (a supervisor) told me that even if we were at 37%, we would have been turned down anyway. She said that Bank of America isn’t likely to approve homeowners for the Making Home Affordable Program unless they are closer to 40-45%.

I asked her if we could refinance and she immediately said no. Not because we are upside-down on our home, but because refinancing requires homeowners to spend less than 33% of their gross income on BOTH mortgages combined.

I have a feeling there are a lot of homeowners stuck in this percentage window.

I’m disappointed to be stuck with a high interest mortgage, but we’re fortunate to be able to ‘afford’ our payment and we aren’t at risk of losing our home. We’re going to hold on, take responsibility for our poor decisions, and move forward.

In October of last year, I was approved for the Making Home Affordable program through Bank of America. I was told I would receive the paperwork in 45 business days or less. Surprise. Surprise. It’s been over 60 business days and I have yet to see any paperwork from my lender (except the multiple pre-approvals for Home Equity Lines of Credit they send each month).

I called last week to check the status and was told to call back the next day. They continued to tell me to call back for 3 days. Late last week, I was told I was no longer qualified for the Making Home Affordable Program. After months of delays, this was disheartening news.

I called again last night to discuss my refinancing options and was told I was still being considered for the Making Home Affordable program and was told to call back in two weeks.

Based on the current progress, I should have this resolved by the time I pay off my home in 30 years.

1 – If you are hoping for a huge change… this is not the answer. Not all changes are permanent and/or large. Some adjustments may last as little as 3 months.

2 – Loan modifications are not quick. If you can’t wait the standard 9 weeks for the review of your file and another 5-9 weeks for paperwork processing, you don’t have enough time and you may want to move forward with other options like a short sale or foreclosure.

3 – Give an accurate listing of all your expenses. Don’t exaggerate but don’t minimize either. Have a good understanding of exactly how much you are paying. Keep this information available for when you call the bank.

4 – You will be rejected if you have recently made large purchases or if your credit score is low. You shouldn’t be making large purchases anyway so I can’t say as if I blame the banks for this stipulation.

5 – If you have a second mortgage with another lender, they will likely require you to get approved for the Making Home Affordable Program on your first loan before they will consider a change to your second mortgage. If you are accepted for the program on your first loan, it’s easy to submit the same paperwork for your second mortgage.

6 – This should not be your only option. It’s worth a try, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this will solve your problems.

7 – If your home is not a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage, this program does not apply to you… BUT some lenders are still willing to modify other types of loans.

8 – This is a voluntary program. No one HAS to help you. Sure it’s good business sense to lessen foreclosures on the banks part, but if you are a problem child, don’t expect any help. Banks don’t want to keep you as a customer anyway. Be kind, courteous, and polite even if you are frustrated.

According to the bank’s calculations, my husband and I qualify. We are now in the first 9 week waiting period while they review our files. We have stellar credit scores and we haven’t made large purchases in a long time. We are good candidates for an interest rate reduction from the over 7% it is currently, down to the market rates of 5-6%.

Do I really think it will really happen?

No. But it’s worth a try.

and applying for the Making Home Affordable program.

Yesterday, I left work early and made THE call. My call started at 5:07 p.m. and ended at 5:57 p.m.

I called the Making Home Affordable number on my Bank of America mortgage website and waited 17 minutes on hold. Someone answered and transferred my call since my mortgage used to be a Countrywide mortgage and they had a separate division.

I’m fairly certain they routed my call around the world because really, what else can explain the 24 minute hold time and the gentleman who sounded like had lunch in Bangladesh. He asked for my name, account number, checked my account, thanked me for paying on time, and told me I would be transferred yet again to a representative. 9 minutes later, a message said, ‘Our office is now closed. Please call back another time.’

I would give you advice on dealing with the Making Home Affordable program but since I didn’t talk to anyone, I will tell you this… you need more than an hour.

Dear Bank of America… I had far better things to do than spend 50 minutes of my life listening to Kenny G. and the recorded reminder that someone will be with me shortly. Obviously you and I have VERY different definitions of ‘shortly’ AND, I had to drink three glasses of Chianti just to keep my ears from bleeding.
Ugh. Kenny G.

I’ll let you know how it goes… if I ever get through.