by Beks
I called B of A again today to check the status on our application for the Making Home Affordable program. After being transferred 7 times, I was finally transferred to someone who knew what they were talking about (VERY few and VERY far between). He looked through my application and told me my 2009 tax information was not in my file.
“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.
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.
Don’t give up. Send in the newer paystubs and refax your 2009 tax return. The Treasury rules that run the program are ever changing and very rigid. Don’t be a baby just because you did not get your way. Everything is not all about you.
That sucks. I think you should contact your local news stations. I know they keep doing stories about this, but the problem never seems to go away. Eventually they’re going to have to get it.
That’s so sad but thats exactly what has happened to me. I submitted my paperwork and they said they’d take a look at it but then when I call they say all the information is “old”…because it was current when I sent it in. I was told to keep submitting new pay checks and information and I asked why this is required and how can I guarantee that even if I do, the information will be put in my file for review? They said they can’t guarantee that. So, I’ve made the difficult decision to walk away. They’re unwilling to work with me so what am I supposed to do?
My husband and I started this over 1 1/2 years ago. It became the biggest source of my high blood pressure. Everytime I sent something only parts of it would make it to my file. I started paying extra for a delivery signature. Not that it mattered but I did get some satisfaction when I told them “you signed for it on such and such a date”. I then demanded accountability on where my personal information had gone since I knew they received it but yet it was not in my file.
Every month I would call and tell them to mark my file that I was sending in new pay stubs with signature delivery confirmation so “they could watch for it”. Finally after 4 months of doing this I received a Fed Ex packet with my new contracts to sign.
It was almost 7 months until it was finally approved. It has been a year since we “closed” on the new paperwork. I too can see why people get so frustrated. They really don’t want to help but are being forced to by the government, otherwise they would be just as happy to forclose on you home.
I spend days crying, making myself sick over our situation. Hubby lost his job of 18 years, our first child just started college and I had just finally found full time work. We thought hubby would find something right away, never happened. The making home affordable program or selling was our only option. The downside was we could not qualify for another mortgage with out hubby’s income. Catch 22 for sure.
I wish you all the best. Oh I forgot to add, the company hubby worked for, for the last 18 yrs was BOA. He was a former employee and we still were treated like the dirt on the bootom of their shoes.
I agree with Money Beagle – kick up the heat.
Call the news, call your congressman/woman, call B of A and escalate the call to this jerks boss, call, call, call. Send the new paperwork and then call everyday to check on it – if you can get the direct phone number for someone who knows what is going on and make their life miserable too until you get results.
I completely agree you shouldn’t have to do all this extra work to get results, but something about a squeaky wheel.
I like Mary Taylor’s approach. Send your info certified so you have proof that they received it. Then, when they loose it, make a big stink about how they have lost information with your personal contact info on it. Go to the press. BofA will take notice. No company wants bad publicity, especially if it involves misuse of documents containing the private personal info of customers.
I appreciate that you dont want to just walk away because of who you are, but it is easier to think about this as a contract issue and not a moral one. You both entered into a contract with repercussions if one of you renegged on the deal. If you are fine with those repercussions (credit score, etc) and it is detrimental for you to stay…walk away from it.
It is not an easy decision but as your post points out, it isnt like you’re trying to screw the bank over. They’re dragging their heels because it is not financially beneficial for them to rewrite your mortgage as they want the higher payments from you for as long as you’re willing to pay them.
When it comes to complaints, I’ve always gotten much better responses by filing complaints with a regulatory agency than trying to contact the media (which is already saturated with mortgage meltdown stories), especially if you can cite a specific rule they are breaking.
In fact, just THREATENING the culprit has been more effective than actually filing the complaint.
When I had trouble with a mortgage (not this trouble, another issue) after several months of argument/incompetence I finally emailed the mortgage company and said “If you do not correct this within XXX days I will contact [REGULATORY AGENCY] and file a complaint regarding your violation of [REGULATION YYY] so they can intervene to resolve our dispute.
I got a call the same day from a supervisor saying it was resolved (in my favor) and, surprisingly, the next statement did show that it was indeed fixed and all penalties were removed. This has also worked for me with an incompetent auto repair facility.
So if I were you, I’d start researching the program in question’s requirements, and what agency enforces them.
I don’t really have any advice except to say that I fully advocate combining many of the above strategies and becoming the biggest pain in the ass in the Western Hemisphere. Seriously. Be all that you can be.
As much as I dislike B of A, I think it is all or almost all banks who are like this. We have two Countrywide CDs (now B of A) that are maturing on 2/10. Once those mature, we will never deal with B of A again. I’m even going to move our safe deposit box as I don’t want to give them any money.
I agree that emotionally, I would want to escalate it and make them look bad. In my head, I would have to decide if it was worth the time.
If you decide to try again, you might want to wait until your 2010 tax return is done as I bet they will ask for that since it will take them so long to actually pick up your papers and review them.
Can you refinance with another bank or are you upside down on the mortgage/house value so you HAVE to deal with B of A? Regardless of who has your current mortgage, I would close my account with them after all of this. It all sounds very unprofessional and they can do whatever they want because there is no way to absolutely prove what you mail them. Even if you do get delivery confirmation.
I think Veronica’s comment was awful! The statistics show that the majority of people who send in their paperwork never get approved. B of A is not set up to handle these kinds of problems and they are incompetent. Placing the blame on the homeowners who are paying their bills and doing everything that is asked of them is ridiculous!
I’m sorry Beks! On the bright side, you live in a desirable city where home prices are bound to go up. 🙂
It’s too late for you now since, as I recall, you are upside down on your house and cannot go to another bank, but if anyone is considering a home purchase, I STRONGLY suggest that you try to get mortgage at a local bank that won’t sell it. We have ours with one and it took about 8 days, including receiving and sending documents via U.S. mail to do a mod this past spring. We were going to refi to a lower rate but it was quicker and cheaper to do a mod and the difference in the rate was just .10 percent.
Good luck to everyone who is going through this with BOA or any other bank. Don’t give up!
Your BofA travails are not unique. It is
intentional.
The Sarasota Herald is in year 2 of real investigative journalism on the
Loan Mod issues with BofA:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110131/ARTICLE/301319999/0/SPORTS?p=all&tc=pgall
Yeah, they are all like this. That’s why as much as the gov’t wants to help us out with these programs, they can’t control the banks and their tactics. It almost makes you think that the banks intentionally shuffle their feet so you’ll go away. Either that or they are all completely incompetent.
This kind of thing is not unique to Bank of America either. Wells and Chase are the same way.
Most who are in trouble on their mortgages view this kind of foot dragging by the banks as a good thing. If it takes them three months to even tell you that they are missing documents, or need updates, it also means that any other process or procedure (such as foreclosure) will also take some time.
My suggestion is to send them updates on things like pay stubs or bank statements or any other information they need from you that could go stale every month whether they ask for it or not. Send them your 2010 tax return as soon as it’s done. In other words be even more proactive about the process than you already are.
DO not give up. Call your congressional aids office and your senators office. Locally you have people. Tell them exactly what happened and who you talked to. What was the name of the rude man? Insist that they call the bank. Many federal and State dollars are going into this program. Bank of America should be held accountable. Trust me you get the right congressional aid and things will move.
You’re just finding out NOW that banks are despicable? I figured that out back in 2001 when I was just 1 month late on a mortgage payment. Talk about horrid, horrid people! I vowed right there and then to sell my house and buy another one for cash and never, ever deal with another loan, credit card, mortgage or anything connected to the status of ‘debt’ ever, ever again!
Did Veronica even read the blog post or all of the others posted on this situation? Not sure what Beks is being a baby about, any “normal” human being would find BofA and this situation absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!
I heard today on the Dave Ramsey show that 93% of these applications were denied, and of the ones that were approved, 1 in 5 re-defaulted on their loans.
As a Realtor in Ca. I have seen a lot .. The past 10 months I have been in process with B of A trying to get a reply on a short sale. I’ve had 3 buyers so far as B of A cannot process in a timely manor. My 1st offer was $200,000, which they forced me to counter to $210,000 for no reason .. it was already over the properties current comps. After 2 months this buyer saw the price was too high and walked away.. The 2nd buyer walked away after 3 months of waiting & now we are again over 3 months still waiting on a reply on a 3rd offer .. This time at an offer of $160,000 with 2 other active listing comps at $140,000 & &149,900. Now that this market place has dropped another 20-30% B of A has shot themselves in the foot .. But still cannot figure out how to process this short sale. They have sent this one sale to over 8 Negotiators in as many months … Since Ca. is a non recourse state my client is thinking that going into foreclosure will be faster for her so she can move on & move out of the bay area as she has been trying to do. I strongly hope people look at blogs when thinking of their banking needs & then only consider institutions that worked well for all of us when they choose a bank or investment group & not just choose the bank on the corner. Gov’t, Banks, Mortgage brokers, Realtors, buyers & sellers all share equal blame for this sad situation we are in. If the mortgage industry would have only lent to qualified borrowers .. Home values would have stayed stable & never hit the high levels it hit .. and more borrowers would not be loosing their homes this way .. and these banks would not be processing short sales & foreclosures to this extent. I cannot believe how banks & others want to blame borrowers for this situation that they/we all allowed to happen. AGAIN, THINK ABOUT WHO DESERVES YOUR MONEY & BUSINESS BEFORE YOU GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY BY OPENING A SAVINGS or CHECKING or RETIREMENT ACCOUNT.
I am sorry that you, too, have had to deal with them. I so wish that they had not been granted a bail out. If there is one institution that has shown it deserves to fail, it is B of A. Their customer “service” is horrifying; I’ve gotten the same nasty and flip comments you have. I have blogged a few times about the hell they’ve put me through, and like you, I have felt and understand that anger. I have thought of walking away many, many times, just to inflict pain on them (but it wouldn’t just be them, I know, I know). I’m just going to pay them off as quickly as possible to take as much money as I can out of their hands. Fortunately, only my mortgage is with them and everything else is at the credit union.
I hate Bank of America SO much. They are pretty much dirty and will do anything to mess stuff up for people.
I got triple charged by the USPS’s online postage system – ensuing multiple overdrafts and all that. The USPS postal service told me to contact Bank of America, I did – they temporarily put it back, and I filed my paperwork – only to have them deny it and charge me that all over again. Nevermind their other shady practices! D:
So sorry you had to go through that!
I read a few of your entries about your fight with B of A. I’m glad you wrote about it because I was considering opening a bank account with them, but I think I’ll stay away from B of A.