by Beks
My home loan was previously serviced by Countrywide. Bank of America took over our mortgage servicing quite some time ago but we haven’t been classified as official Bank of America customers yet and Countrywide isn’t around anymore. We’ve been in limbo for over a year now.
When I call Bank of America, they never know where to transfer me and my call is often magically ‘dropped’. We never received paper statements and our online statements have been a nightmare. Other than a statement of monthly payments, no other information was made available. I had no idea if or when our property taxes or mortgage insurance where paid and I could never find our principal balance. I called to ask why our mortgage payment jumped $150 a month and the best answer they ever offered was ‘I don’t know. Taxes maybe?’
Bank of America finally listed my full account information online this month.
Holy. Cow.
First, we were not notified that the cost of our homeowners insurance jumped by 50%. Call me crazy, but that’s kinda something I’d like to know.
Second, the extra money we’ve been paying on our principal balance the past two and half years has been offset by a reduction of our monthly payment.
This is hard to explain, but it’s sneaky by Bank of America none the less. We pay $20 extra per month on our second mortgage through Wells Fargo. They apply the $20 toward our principal balance but keep our payment the same. Since our principle balance is reduced and our payments are the same, our $20 is stretched to around $50-$75. Our $20 a month to Wells Fargo has paid off around $3,000 of mortgage debt instead of $720.
Bank of America has taken the $20 we designated toward principal and reduced our balance by exactly $20. Then, since our principal balance is reduced, they reduce our monthly payment. Unlike our loan with Wells Fargo, Bank of America has made it so we aren’t shaving any time off the life of our loan and we’re saving no money. Very Sneaky.
Realistically, I should have pushed harder for the information from Bank of America and demanded an explanation of the $150 hike. I assumed it was all from the recent property tax hikes, and most of it was, but I could have saved money by knowing there were other reasons behind the higher monthly payment. And, I would have liked to transfer the $20 I’m spending for no benefit at Bank of America and switched it to our Wells Fargo account.
I assumed my mortgage was the one payment I didn’t have to monitor closely – but I was really, really wrong.
Thank you Bank of America for making me your babysitter.
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
What a nightmare. They’re my bank, too! I think I’ll have a closer look at what they’ve been up to.
Our former financial advisor calls them The Devil Bank. They are very sneaky and hard to deal with.
I didn’t quite follow your explanation of the Wells Fargo extra $20 stretching to $50 (is that because it shaves about $30 in interest in the long run???).
As for your home owners ins….that info should have come from the ins company. They should have sent you notification that the rates were increasing. I would take that up with them.
Maybe I have lower expectations for my banks than I should but I’ve always expected BoA to interpret all possible actions in their own best interest. That is why I’ve done my best to keep on top of everything and retain control of all amounts paid.
So far, they haven’t been to bad. The only annoying thing they used to do was send me a new payment book every month when I over-paid my interest only mortgage. Since I over-paid, the next month’s amount due was less than before. So they would send me a brand new payment book every single month.
They recently resold my mortgage to themselves (a different division) and it has caused fewer headaches than I expected.
Oh no! We have Countrywide now Bank of America too. I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t getting statements, but I always go online to pay anyway. I did have a little more trouble once the site changed…but now I am worried and will definitely look at my account closer.
Oh wow! We have Bank of America, formally Countrywide, as well. Our payments went up by about 10% and it turned out to be insurance as well. The property taxes have not changed in a couple years. In short, we price shopped around and bought a homeowners policy with a lot more coverage and about 25% less premium.
RE: BofA applying extra $…you need to check the loan terms/document to see if this is what was agreed upon contractually. If it isn’t, you need to appeal to BofA to have the payments reposted properly. You should also contact the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal regulator for B of A. You should contact the Ombudsman’s consumer assistance group and file a complaint (HelpWithMyBank.gov or 1-800-613-6743). Good luck.
Huh? Why would BoA reduce the mortgage payment? That doesn’t make any sense to me if it was a straight up, 30 year fixed. I would double-check the loan agreement and see what the terms are.
On the plus side, at least they are applying the extra money to principle instead of interest or future payments. It may not have shortened to term, but it did decrease your payment. Once you straighten out how you want them to apply your payments, at least you can have more prepaid since your monthly payment is lower.
This is assuming I’m following what happened correctly…
Beks, I can’t and never do trust the banks, because I realize they are just like any other business. They need my money.
John DeFlumeri Jr
I was also a Countrywide person who was swallowed up by BofA. They really are horrible.
B of A sucks. If I was you, as soon as your husband had employment again, I would switch lenders. Horrid bank.
I too had my mortgage thru Countrywide and now BoA. I’ve been adding to my monthly payment and have noticed that the additional funds are applied to the principle. I never really notice is the monthly payment was reduced. But thanks for sharing your experience, I will certainly pay MORE attention to the statements and the payment amounts now.
You can always check your property taxes online at the Treasurer-Tax Collector website. It will show whether or not your taxes have been paid on time. Did you get a copy of your property tax bill in the mail? Even if you have an impound account, you should have gotten one, and it will, of course, show any change. Our property taxes went up by $200.00 this year, due to bonds being passed in our town, and in the county.
You could also have checked with your homeowner’s insurance company to see about that fee hike. We always got a statement from our insurance company, despite having an impound account.
Hi There, please read my latest post on why the public LOVES the Bank of America after their $19 billion capital raising last week.
Are you sure you don’t love BOA too? 🙂
BofA bought our local bank a few years ago, but after the bailouts, when they were using OUR taxpayer money to fund 3rd party anti worker organizations, we closed all our accounts and moved back to a local bank. Which is a serious sacrifice as BofA has a branch half a mile away and the other is considerably more than an easy bike ride away. I happily make the extra effort, though.
Our mortgage was also with a local bank, but because of a deal struck with our employer that helped us buy it, it was non-conforming, and so never got sold. Couldn’t be happier about that, I tell you.
I’m impressed with your efforts to keep abreast of them. Gives me a headache just reading your post. And give them hell with the state boards that oversee them, if not also your attorney’s general office. We’ve had great luck with ours kicking butt on our behalf.
I know nothing about mortgages, but could you transfer yours to a credit union?
Same deal here… Countrywide to BOA. Here’s my note to their customer service manager this week (%#@!$)
“On 2 Dec my credit union informed that they accidentally paid my mortgage after I canceled the transition, and that I had to contact BOA to have the charge reversed. Your phone system was down all day on Dec 2nd as was your online chat. My email was not treated with a response. When I did get through to customer service on Dec 3rd, I was told that computers were down in Payment Research and that I should call back that afternoon. I asked for a direct extension and was told that I had to got through the regular customer service line (which takes 2:30 minutes every time I call BEFORE I’m placed on hold). My call in the afternoon took three times to connect, and when I finally reached someone, they said to call back tomorrow. I called back today three times and was told to call on Monday. THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE FOR A MAJOR BANK! I will badmouth BOA to everyone I know until the day that I close my accounts.”
I am in the same boat, formerly countrywide now BofA. I have not received one paper statement since the buy out, I have asked for one every month. Each month the Countrywide website, which is now a BofA website changes slightly and in deceptive ways. Good luck getting a response from technical support, like they’ll put anything in writing. Finally last month they wanted me to verify my checking account in order to pay online, I was using a BofA Debit Card to pay the mortgage on time every month, it was going to take two days for a bank to verify it’s own account. I have never been late with one payment.
When the buyout occurred, I received a glossy marketing letter stating that “Nothing will change with the way that I manage my mortgage account”. Now it seems like BofA is repeatedly going out of their way to screw it up so that I have to pay late. I am one step away from filing complaints with every over site entity possible.
My ultimate fear is that once I do verify my account with them they will take the payment out whenever they damn well please. Since BofA has been nothing but misleading from the very start, why would I trust them? I am considering switching my checking and savings to a credit union. Until then I now have to go to a BofA location to pay my mortgage.
Complete FAIL!
I would recommend you check elsewhere for insurance – typically banks give you MUCH higher rates, as it isn’t really their core business. Shop around online and you’ll probably drop by several hundred dollars. Good luck!
I wish I had more control over who serviced my loan. I had a similarly horrible experience with HSBC when they took over my loan. They double paid my taxes, jacked up my payment to cover the escrow shortage they created, couldn’t get my payment due date right, sent me late notices and made harassing debt collection calls to my wife every month even though it was paid on time *by automatic withdrawal on their side* every month, lost a check when I sent one which took months to find, etc. Their customer no-service was ridiculous, every time I called they had another thing that *I* had to do to fix their screwups, and the story kept changing every time I talked to them. I recently refinanced and was happier about being rid of HSBC than I was about the lower interest rate. Unfortunately my new loan is being sold to a servicer as we speak, and I was told that B of A is a likely candidate. Oh joy.
The problem is we all assume banks are a business which deals in general banking functions such as checking and savings accounts, a variety of loans, money transfers, etc.
The fact is that banks don’t actually function as banks, they function as institutions that provide all those listed services but get their money by tricking their customers into paying more than they should through fees and other hidden mechanisms (like the extra payment’s not be allocated properly like for Beks).
Sneaky, sneaky! If you pay extra toward your principle you should write a separate check and note principle only on it. I heard that it one of my financial classes. You should try iyt and see if it works : ) Good luck!
I hate Bank of America as much as I hate Charter cable. They committed fraud against me and I reported them to the Better Business Bureau. They finally refunded the money they stole from me after reporting them to the BBB. See, they have a division known as BanC of America (C instead of a K) but it is a totally separate company. I thought I was taking advantage of a special offer by funding my BanC of America account with $25,000 (so that a bunch of fees would be waived) but the rule actually was that I had to fund a BanK of America account to get the special offer in a BanC of America account. So, so pathetic and deceptive.
Yikes! I had Countrywide mortgages on both my old and current homes but refi’d the current home to a local bank about 1.5 years ago, right around the time that BOA bought Countrywide. I guess I was even smarter than I thought I was at the time!
The current mortgage holder is a local bank, highly rated by Bankrate. They don’t sell their mortgages and they don’t take out escrow money for insurance and taxes. They don’t even HAVE an escrow department. Their philosphy is that if you are old enough and responsible enough to pay your mortgage, you should be old enough and responsible enough to also pay your insurance and taxes. My insurnace is paid through an automatic monthly deduction and the taxes are due (and paid) twice a year.
Beks, I think you responded to comments about refinancing in an earlier post by saying that you are underwate on your mortgage. I’m really sorry about that, but when you get into a better situation, you really might want to try a local community bank.
I was surprised to learn there were so many people in our same boat. I’m hoping they make some changes and fix the very obvious broken system but I’m not holding my breath. Unfortunately we’re stuck since we’re upside-down but as soon as things change, we’ll leave Bank of America forever. I’ll never get another loan through them.
BOA has become thieves. They charged 105.00 in overdraft fees for 3 overdrafts totaling 12.00. When I called to ask for credit due to the fact I have about 5 other personal accounts and several business accounts in good standing over the last 14 years (this was my daughters and I account she is in college) I got a rude supervisor who said “why should the bank take responsibility” I said they shouldnt but to charge 105.00 is theft and immoral. I would agree to one but not three fees. The last two overdrafts were due to the first overdraft. And it was for a 12.00 overdraft!! After this I look at my business acount and see I am charged a late fee on a credit card for 49.00. The payment date was 12/13. I made the payment 12/3. Hummm..after looking closely I see I mistakenly shorted the payment by .22 cents. My mistake…it cost me 49.00. A few months ago i get a overdraft charge for 35.00. I have overdraft protection so I thought this was strange. After looking over the account I realize I was never overdrawn. I call and after about 30 minutes I get a rep who goes over it with me. She also admits I wasn’t overdrawn so I dont know what the hell happened there. Needless to say I am closing all my accounts, I hope everyone does and they can just shut down. Believe it or not I worked for BOA for about 6 years. Its been 5 years since I quit. When I was there customer satisfaction and using your common sense was valued. Never would you charge someone 49.00 becuase there payment was .22 cents short, especially when they had never been late before. This is really BAD for BOA. Watch your accounts closely cause they will steal from you.
I was a countrywide mortgage customer that had his account switched to BofA. Within the first month of the website swap they took two monthly automatic withdrawls instead of one because the old system was still running but couldn’t be changed on the BofA site. At least I got an email warning me of the second deposit. You have to understand, this is December and I am tight on cash and BofA continues to lie to me that it will be deposited back into my account in 48hrs, then 7 days later they say 24hrs – of course this is on Friday and they really mean it may be there next Tuesday and if not Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe after Christmas due to the Holidays, etc. Anyway, next week I start bouncing bills that are automatically withdrawn from my account so I’ve resorted to using my credit card and borrowing money from that to cover everything that would have been paid for by the second mortgage payment. Anyway, I have given up just like they want and have just considered the second deposit as an early January payment. I will never get my time back that I spent on the phone, faxing bank statements, sitting on hold, writing emails, etc. In January I will be switching my mortgage to a different bank, but I will always remember how BofA screwed me over Christmas 2009. The fax number for their complaint department is 1-805-520-5019. I’m sure that no one reads them, that is why it is a fax number. Just like they never called me like they said they would to verify my bank statement faxes and my emails never got a response either. Thanks for having this site. Now I can move on. You really should sell tshirts because I would buy one.
I paid off my loan to Countrywide 2 years ago. I did NOT have my insurance with Countrywide. All of a sudden- last week- Bank of America is telling me that I owe $4,086.00 in past due insurance premiums to THEM! Their letter said that “previous letters to you have been unanswered.” We NEVER received any PREVIOUS LETTERS about our insurance! They are also claiming that my loan balance is the amount that I paid for the property several years ago! I always paid Countrywide on time and I paid them off to as ZERO Balance BEFORE Bank of America bought Countrywide.
I paid my loan off long before they purchased Countrywide. I should not even be receiving mail -or threats- from Bank of America.
If I cant clear this up in the next few weeks- I am calling my lawyer too!
We should all get a Class Action Lawsuit together!
BOA paid our not late property taxes
We to were country wide and now BoA … I just got a letter that they paid our property taxes, but no notice sent to us before this telling us they would pay our taxes if we didn’t pay them. Because we were delinquent. WE ARE not delinquent. We always paid are property taxes in Feb, when we were with Country wide, and the were not late. BOA says now we have to repay them the 946.00, and now escrow the taxes, since we failed to pay them on time. March 31st is the last day to pay your taxes. If you pay in November you get the best discount, each month after that goes up, until march when the full tax amount is due. How Can they say we are late, just because we choose to wait until after the holidays to pay them.. We are the one that is having to pay the extra $25.00 for waiting, and not getting the discount.. BOA also stated that this is a part of our loan agreement.. If so then how come Country wide didn’t do it (for last 5 yrs)… They are the company our loan originated from. CAN BoA change the terms at their will… I surely did not choose them… Anyone else have this problem?????
over the past 3 days I have been receiving computer generated voicemails on my phone from BOA specific to my mortgage which was originally under Countrywide. I called them back and after much confusion was able to determine that the call was in regards to my account being short by $166.11 to cover the impound account. I told them that I would forward the shortfall to them but also asked that they give me the new monthly installment for my mortgage so this doesn’t happen next year. He referred to me another 800 phone number. I called them and they said that my mortgage payment will go up $200 a month because of home owners insurance and property taxes. I informed them that I had not received any written communication from them stating such and that I wanted to receive in writing a letter from BOA stating the new monthly mortgage amount along with an explanation why the raise. She stated that they had sent me a notice last January, which the had not and that they would not send another but I could go online for the explanation. So I hung up and went online. I was unable to access my account after over 5 attempts. This bank is evil and their oversight of my mortgage now represents my time in hell. The question is….HOW DO WE STOP THIS OBVIOUS ABUSE?
I am FURIOUS to say the very least with BofA! I was GUARANTEED 5 times (2 emails, 3 phone calls) that my 2009 property taxes would be paid by 12/31. I always have it done every year so I can claim them on my tax returns. They didn’t pay it. I called and the response I got was that they didn’t know why. “Its not your fault” they told me…no duh! They apologized though. How nice….an apology isn’t going to get me my refund I am always counting on! There’s nothing they can do about it, and they don’t know why it happened. I waited another 15 minutes on hold and never got a supervisor to speak with. I’m so upset. If I could refinance to another bank I would. I am however stuck due to the fact my house and HELOC loan are more than what I could sell my house for. NIGHTMARES!!!
Jennifer, I and many other folks that have to deal with these incompetent fools feel exactly the same way. There is a term in the real estate industry that BOA is very guilty of. That term is “predatory practices”. It is illegal for BOA to do this but they have absolutely no real oversight. Hence our predicament.
I received by Dec 2009 statement for the 01/01/01 payment and our mortgage payment went up $331.37. We called the customer service and were informed it was a impound shortage. Turns out Bank of America made a mistake. I am going to write to Bof A corporate and HUD to complain. I was told by the last customer service clerk that if I did not agree to the changes he was not going to fix it. Impound accounts are set by federal regulations. Call HUD to complain and follow up in writing to protect your rights.
I hope by now you had this straightened out. We recently had a similar problem the fake “impound shortage” hike (there was NEVER a shortage they just wanted more cushion than we already had). I finally called BOA and told them I wanted to just remove escrow if they were going to play these games, miraculously they relented and even refunded our overage.
BofA totaly screwed up my mortgage and now im showing hits on my credit report which is really bad. I have 961 credit rating and now its 800 because they started showing my payments as being late. Anyone know how to make sure this gets fixed? What are the right terms to say and threaten? Is there a public utilities complaint system that can fix this?
Marc (2/1/10 posting) — we were former Countrywide customers whose loan is now with BOA. They have truly screwed us, as well. Our credit score tanked after they reported our 11/09 & 12/09 payments as late. I have documentation that the payments were on time, however, because we NEVER received notice that our loan amount & loan # changed, the payments were slightly less and still going to our Countrywide account. By a statement dated 11/25/09 (first one we ever received!) I did confirm with the call center in India! that the payments were received. That then began a series of calls to “Customer Service H$%LL”. I was assured that our credit would not be affected as we were “working” on correcting the issue. On 1/8/10 I was told that everything was done. I “confirmed” that no report had been made to the credit agencies and oh, guess what –sorry, a report was submitted!!!! I have had no success in dealing with them — I asked for the negative reports to be removed but they sent me a form letter saying they investigated and will not. I have contacted our local news station’s consumer advocacy program — will contact our Attorney General (as suggested above) and an attorney. We will probably not be able to complete the purchase of a second home for our daughter’s use because of this. We are DEVASTATED that we have fallen into this H$%LL called BOA loans!!!! We can’t refinance with another company either as we have no equity, and now, bad credit. . .
Last year Bank of America sent us our yearly statement which said our property taxes had been paid out of escrow.They either made a keypunch error or they just did not pay them.We ended up paying them after numerous phone calls and letters.This year the statement did not say they were paid,but after phoning them they say they will be paid but they do not know when.Why dont they know when? It is very hard to pay them when they are supposed to come out of escrow.
We are former Countrywide customers who are now with Bank of America. I am thoroughly disgusted with them. We escrow our insurance premiums. They failed to pay the $1,358 insurance premium when due and our insurance was canceled. Then they took out a lender’s policy in the amount of $8,500 and said we owed them for the escrow shortfall. Uh… right!
Dawn,
We have the same problem with OUR property taxes!! BOA has added an extra $377.00 to our Mortgage payment!!!! I am furious! We NEVER ok’d them to pay our taxes and I still have a copy of our Countrywide Morg in our filing cabinet!! I’m nnot sure what to do about this!! It’s like they think we’re stupid!!!
Very good advice. A lot of people still don’t realize that by making small, simple changes in their habits, it will affect their financial status in the end.
I had a BofA account (checking) and had overdraft protection. Had a blowout on a borrowed truck, cost me 300 for because there was no jack, no spare. I knew I did not have the funds to cover it in my checking. so that evening I transferred the funds from savings. Noticed I had the -300 pending and some other items before that had posted. And guess what they did the next time I looked at it the items were rearranged to where the 300 posted first in sequence the smaller items were overdrafted at a cost of $35 ea. and my transfer was posted after that. I went in to BofA to ask for an explanation. when I got the I don’t know answer, They offered to recredit 3 of the overdrafts I took it of course. My next transaction was to close the accounts.
BOA services my loan for the past 6 months, They sent me a “annual loan review” showing my tax impound account was $825 short, wanted payment in 30 days and my escrow tax impound payment will increase by $170 a month. They were going to overpay my taxes by $950. BOA Loan Servicing Dept. was clueless when I faxed them my copy of my county tax bill showing a 34% reduction in my taxes due to a recent re-assesment. I have been a homeowner for over 40 years…BOA is the WORST and should be investigated for consumer fraud or just being stupid!
I had some family medical emergencies and missed sporadic mortgage payments. I received some funds in June and asked BOA to apply to the mortgage. They applied part of the monies as mortgage and the rest toward principal. A payment made in July has been completely lost and now BOA won’t accept anymore payments. They considered the loan in foreclosure, but won’t reverse the payments out of principal. Now my payments have been reduced by $20 but they’re threatening to take my home!!! Earlier in the year I was paying additional money to lessen the delinquency. I never designated those funds as principal and BOA returned all the money stating that they are not allowed by law to keep less than a full payment. How can they now keep the money claiming to apply it to principal. I need help dealing with these people–monsters. They keep sending letters saying they want to help keep my home, but everything they do is helping me to lose it.
I just spent an hour on the phone with BOA. My mortgage went up $579.00 a month!! The explanation I got was because my home owner’s insurance increased by $51 annually however my city taxes went down by a few $$’s. They stated that this way we can build more $$ in our escrow?
Help! BOA might as well take our house of 19 years now. $579 increase ain’t happening on our salary!
BOA did the same thing to us. We were country wide customers and once BOA took over our nightmare started. Except things got a lot worse for us. We were advised by the bank to take a route of home loan modification and they screwed us over legally! They locked us with the escrow account and they don’t allow us to pay the tax and insurance ourselves. After I calculated my yearly tax and insurance, I realized they take out over $400 extra every year under reserve account. They said this money comes back to your account if the check we send for your taxes and insurance is paid fully by your escrow account. But I’ve never seen any amount coming back to my account and my statement always shows a shortage for my escrow ballance at the end of the year. I’m trying to change my bank and all I can say is that bank of America is evil, dishonest, and they have no respect for people’s hard work to make the money we make. They just legally steal money. Damn you bank of America