Rudy, a reader of the site forwarded me this information to share with you regarding their recent attempts to get their mortgage modified through HAMP.
Rudy Says
Dear Steve:
Who will bail us out while our government can bail out hundreds of billion dollars to big banks and other financial institutions because they are just “too big to fail”? (total of trillion dollars now which raise our debts ceiling to the roof, causing economic crisis and tens of million jobs plus life investments lost? – AND aren’t those bailouts OUR hard-earned money they give away?!). Please allow me to share my personal story how I went bankrupt, jobless with ruined credit rating which in the past reached over 800 on FICO scores.
This is my miserable story that is possibly familiar to untold million others. In summary, it starts with being MISLED and MISINFORMED by my mortgage lender to default (to otherwise perfect payments history) when tried to apply for HAMP (Home Assistance Mortgage Program taunted by Obama in 2009 after his newly appointment as President), which leads to red mark on my credit score, charged off credit card debts, and ending up with my bankruptcy filing. I fight my lender to return the junk fees they charged me when I reinstated my mortgage account to no avail. Then I report this case to the Attorney General Kamala Harris Office (who promises to crack down on mortgage screw ups) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) that examines national banks – these too prove to be going nowhere. To them, it is a “he said-she said” case, so they only advise is to find my own lawyer: come on, BE REAL, sure I cannot afford to pay attorney’s fees, besides which counsel wants to represent me pro bono against the Goliath for a refund amount of less than $3,000 junk fees?
I do not want to prolong my frustration here, I attach my last letter and the OCC reply to give you a glimpse of my case. Please share with your audience, and encourage them to voice their stories too – hopefully if enough little and poor people like me do this, then our authorities may listen and take remedy actions. I lost my trust in our politicians’ promises to protect defenseless citizen, instead they side with big fellows who screw their own risky, unaccountable and irresponsible businesses, get helped and then get much richer in the end. Truly disgusting and no justice there! (MUST SEE reference: the astonishing 2010 Oscar-winning “Inside Job” narrated by Matt Damon available in CDs and Netflix).
Thank you very much for making our stories heard!
Letter to the OCC
July 15, 2011
Comptroller of the Currency
Administrator of National Banks
Customer Assistance Group
FAX: (713) 336-4301
Re: Case # – CITIBANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Dear Sir/Madam:
Today I received your response back telling me that you are responsive to my complaint and if I wish to pursue the issue you suggest me to consult with legal counsel. To say the least I am greatly disappointed with your resolve, and in my opinion you show little care or concern to me and chose to side with the Goliath, i.e. Citibank, my lender.
Please pardon me to be logical here: EVEN SAY I am right and Citibank is the guilty party here, what lawyer wants to assist me pro bono (because I am poor in cash right now to afford legal defense) for a meager $2,709.38 amount of dispute? I try to understand that the OCC is somewhat limited in “authority in acting as a trier of fact or adjudicator of civil disputes”, but cannot accept the fact that little people like me are in fact being left alone to defend ourselves against the greedy, money-thirst creditors the OCC oversees.
At the heart of my issue with Citibank (alias CitiMortgage and its Loan Mitigation Representatives) WAS that they repeatedly MISINFORMED and MISLED me to believe their way of PRE-QUALIFYING for HAMP application, i.e. specifically the reps convinced me to PURPOSEDLY DEFAULTING my (at that time by the end of 2009 still) good standing mortgage account so that they could have a reason to approve my HAMP. The fact is: I defaulted from January through March 2010 ON PURPOSE (though I had the money all the time sitting in my bank checking account but held it) on their misleading suggestion to default, and then resumed payments back on March 2010 (which was construed as “late” by Citi and credited it for April 2010 – so I had 2 double payments on April 2010) – and I have since then paying back regularly my monthly mortgages until today. Citi blatantly lie to you in their response on my case.
Please look at my mortgage history payments; we had been in good standing ever since we bought our house, NEVER defaulted on our monthly mortgage payments! Before 2010, I and my wife had excellent FICO scores, 800+, and trusted with many quality credit cards. Think of it logically here, there is NO single reason for us to ruin our long-years efforts of building excellent credit history by DEFAULTING our mortgage payments – this COULD ONLY HAPPEN BECAUSE I WAS MISLED by Citi reps to default in order to get pre-qualified on my HAMP application. In fact, after my mortgage defaults, I reaped many calamities and misfortunes as its direct result: our house almost got auctioned off publicly by October 12, 2010 (which forced me to pay those outrageous junk fees on top of default payments), all my credit cards suddenly demanded their balance due payments (which forced me to file for bankruptcy protection in December 2010), ruin completely our Credit Scores (which won’t allow me to get new loans or credits), put great pressures and stress in my family (causing family breakup almost 2 years now), and I can go on & on.
So my premise is quite simple. Because I was misled IN THE FIRST PLACE by Citi to default my mortgage, THEN Citi should pay me back what they owe from me, $2,709.38, the amount of their junk fees while reinstating my mortgage account. I could charge Citi ten fold times or more of this amount for all the sufferings and efforts I endure so far, but I am not greedy and thus I do not demand it. Please help me.
Sincerely,
[Reader of getoutofdebt.org]
The OCC Responds
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This is the same expereince as zillions of others and in fact is one of the many examples of consumer fraud the Arizona Attorney General has filed a lawsuit for against Bank of America for the same actions. Many other AG’s and class actions are filed against the major banks since they make lots of money foreclosing instead of modifying with the huge losses mostly paid by taxpayers (via GSO’s who guaranteed most 1st mortgages.)
Four Congressional hearings have confirmed all this but since HAMP was under TARP and not a law there is no practical way to enforce. So banks ignore the directives of Treasury and do what they can to deny, delay and foreclose as many as they can since the taxpayers in most cases take the loss and the bank servicers make their huge profits.
Read the AZ AG’s lawsuit and you will be amazed
http://www.azag.gov/press_releases/dec/2010/Press%20Release%20-%20Bank%20of%20America.html
If you go to the lawsuit link itself and about half way into it, you will be amazed at the lengths of fraud Bank of America does.
Also in another class action lawsuit, BofA former call center worker says workers receive bonuses for collecting more than was due under the modification deals.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-07-05-banks-loan-modifications_n.htm
All the major banks are doing the same and other State’s AG’s have filed lawsuits against the major banks.