100 Stories of What Wall Street Broke

My parents owned a condo, and I also own one.  My father became very sick, and he had to be placed in a Nursing Home.  My mom was alone in her place, so we decided to merge and could not move with each other.

I sold my mom’s condo first, and put $125000.00 on a small one family home.  We moved in the house, and I put my condo on the market.  The home was $213000.00, and my condo was appraised at $125000.00.  It was August 2007, and the housing market crashed.  I could not sell my condo, so DITECH and GMAC took it. 

My mom became very sick, and I was forced to place her in a Nursing Home.  I could no longer afford to pay the mortgage on my income only, and my mom’s social security went to the home for her care.  The house was now worth $100000.00 a year later, and technically I paid for it in full.  My parents passed away, and I asked for a modification.  I have been fighting with the bank for almost seven years now, and the value of the home is rising again.

I wrote to all my elected officials, and got no assistance.

I got no modification, and the bank will not even allow me to do a short sale.  The house is now in foreclosure, and there is a second sale date for August 2014.  The bank had sold the home to an investor, and I did not even know about it.  The investor came to my door, and it took me a few minutes to the door.  He told me if you did not answer the door I was going to change the locks, and move your belongings out.

BANK OF AMERICA will not give even give me cash for key, and I have one month to move out.

I have no money to move out, and the bank drove me deeper into poverty.   

The story has more details, but this is the bottom line and the bank robbed me. 

This bank is ruthless, heartless, and does not care about people, just profits.  I almost lost my home to foreclosure, (twice), a divorced mother of two, who was so incredibly scared of being homeless. 

This bank put me through all the hoops and the ringer, I just hope I never have to face them again.  I am still not making enough to live comfortably, but who is.  I am trying my best to pay my mortgage, but, having a Countrywide mortgage at 8.5% interest, it is not easy.  They never offered me relief in my “modified” agreement.  It is just what I owe, spread over 40 years instead of 30. 

I was duped into believing I could actually pay this loan back.  What a fool I was.  If I can say just one thing to make the Justice Dept. go after this bank, I will be doing a great service to our society.  They, and other banks like Bank of America are too big, and need to be scared into doing the right thing, just like they scared me into giving them my paycheck every week.   

Our nightmare involves Bank of America and Countrywide. 

We inquired about refinancing in order to reduce out house payment and were given the, “Let your payment lapse for a few months and then you will qualify for mortgage modification” lie, and at this point the nightmare began. 

For a year we followed BOA representatives repeated directions to the letter and time and time again we were denied the results we were promised.  We were told to jump through one loop only to be told after the fact, “I don’t know who told you to do that!  Do this.”  When we did that we were told the same thing, over and over again. It all came to a head at the beginning of December 2010 when my husband was told that unless he came up with $22,000 we would lose our home. 

We did come up with the money but BOA refused to take the money.  We talked to Fannie Mae, whom tried to help us and could not understand what was going on, various representatives of BOA, whom did not understand what was going on and finally BOA’s own Attorney who was most helpful and totally confused by what BOA was doing.  He had a memo on his desk that we had to pay the $22,000 by a certain date (this was a week before due date) and made calls for over an hour trying to figure out why they would not take our money.  He finally called us back asking if we ‘had gold’ on our property!  He said he had never seen anything like this in his life and asked that we please not repeat what he was getting ready to tell us because he had a family he had to support and could not lose his job.  He said we were being screwed ROYALLY and he could figure out how to help us.  He suggested that we get a lawyer “yesterday” and take them to court.  He also found out that in spite of the fact that we had been told, among many other lies, that if we came up with this $22,000 we could save our home BOA had bought our house at the courthouse in a public auction over a month before without ever notifying us it was going to be auctioned! 

This has been a nightmare we have had to survive for the last 4 years.  It totally broke us financially, emotionally and mentally, trying over and over again to do what they told us to do and we still barely survive yet BOA lives on!  I wait for the day when they crumble!  Yes I am bitter!  My husband and I had worked very hard on our home.  We bought a small farm with a small house on it.  Over the years we had improved it as we could afford and “Mattie’s Farm” had become a respite for friends and family.  A place where those we loved could escape, relax and rejuvenate.  When our large family needed a place to gather for a reunion, The Farm was where they came. It was our home and all we were trying to do was reorganize our finances, reduce our house payment if possible.  What ended up happening is that  a greedy, uncaring, evil and criminal corporation not only took our house they took our home, we lost all the money we had trying to save it,  robbed us of our sense of security, came very close to destroying our marriage and they emotional damage done will never be undone. 

Same story as so many Americans: Big banks busted up our economy, killed businesses, took peoples houses, and got a big bail out. Me? I lost my job, my home, and guess what? Now Bank of America gets to sue me! Oh how I’d love to fight it but, it’ll cost me more than $200 just to file an answer with the court. If I can’t file an answer, then the court automatically rules against me and Bank of America gets to take whatever I might have left.

Nope, no justice here I’m afraid.

My family owned a small home in the remote foothills of California, which my husband and I bought when our son was a year old. It was our first home, we both had good jobs, and we were able to put 20% down when we purchased, avoiding the need for mortgage insurance. With a sale price of $330,000 (CRAZY market!), that meant that we started off putting more than $66,000 down! With those payments, insurance, and taxes, we were paying nearly $2000 per month. The local bank we originally worked with ended up selling our mortgage to Wells Fargo.

In the ensuing 4.5 years, we never, ever missed a payment. We were picture-perfect home owners, as far as Wells Fargo went. Our mortgage payment was ALWAYS our first financial priority. We never took vacations, we had only a single car, we went without cable or eating at restaurants or gym memberships… all the nice little things that can really add up. 

At about 4.5 years in, my husband’s job was threatened and I ended up with my hours cut dramatically without notice. We had just had our second child, and we were struggling. We started the process to get a loan restructuring through the Making Home Affordable program, doing everything we were asked to. I kept meticulous notes about every interaction, whether by mail or phone. We escalated whenever possible, including to the Vice President level, and even got a lawyer involved. Still, we were stalled at every point. I’m no longer sure how many times we were told that our paperwork was “lost.”

A year after the start, my husband and I both lost our jobs at the same time and were forced to move to Oregon for work. We even tried to short-sell our home, but Wells Fargo refused to wait and just foreclosed on us. We lost all the money we had saved for more than a decade and all the payments we had made over the course of 5 years in one day.

Three years later, we were mailed a “settlement” check for about $800. By my estimate, they took nearly $156,000 from us without honestly giving us a chance to figure out how to not lose the house. $800 Doesn’t even begin to cover it, let alone the long-term impact that the foreclosure has had on our credit. 

In the late Summer of 2007, my husband put his house up for sale and we bought our house one month before our wedding.   We put more than 20% down which allowed us to reduce our payments to an amount that was affordable for us. We were thrilled when we received an offer on his previous residence for a very good price.  Everything looked so promising as we began our new life together. The following Spring of 2008, the buyer informed us that his financing fell apart and would be unable to purchase the property.  Thus, began our journey of carrying two mortgages for more than 6 years.

In the Fall of 2009, my husband Bill was laid off from his job.  Although I received a Master’s Degree a few years earlier, I had been unable to find full time employment and often relied on cobbling several part time jobs together to make ends meet.  I finally took a full time job in 2008 answering phones that paid about $10.00 per hour just to receive benefits.  By late 2009, we knew that the situation was unsustainable so we contacted Bank of America to find out what we could do.  They offered us a loan modification that would require more than $14k in closing costs.  We asked about the new “Making Home Affordable” program for a modification of our 6.875% interest rate.  They responded “you don’t make enough to qualify” for that program (interesting considering that we were current on the mortgage and we were asking for a reduction in our interest rate).  Early in 2010, after sending out dozens of applications and resumes each week, Bill took a job more than 100 miles away so that we could qualify for the Making Home Affordable program.  We informed Bank of America of our change in status and they assured us that they would send us the application paperwork which we should receive sometime in the next 45 days.  While we waited, we continued to make our mortgage payments, on time and in full. I called Bank of America periodically to check the status of the paperwork they said we would receive.  Each call last about 3 hours during which time I was bounced from department to department.  Each Customer Service Representative told me a different tale.  Finally, those 45 days came and went.  When no paperwork arrived, I called Bank of America and, after a couple of hours of being shuffled from person-to-person and department-to-department, I was told that it was actually 45 business days and that it should arrive within the next couple of weeks.  During that same call, the Customer Service Representative told me that we would only qualify for the program if we missed a payment and that we should do so to ensure our eligibility in the Making Home Affordable Loan Modification Program.  

We refused that suggestion and continued to make our payments in full and on time.  They began sending us foreclosure notices.  We continued to pay in full.  When 45 business days came and I called Bank of America the response to my question about the application paperwork was that it would be another 30 business days.  I knew that there was a game going on and we decided to attempt to take them on.  We wrote a Letter of Complaint and sent it to eight different offices - both State and Federal.  Ten days later we received a letter back from the Office of the NYS Attorney General stating that they had forwarded our complaint to Bank of America.  At 5:30 pm on a Friday evening we received a phone call from the Personal Assistant to the CEO of Bank of America asking us what they could do to restore our confidence in BofA.  They offered us a deal which we asked them to send in writing.  Somehow, they couldn’t provide us with paperwork we requested in 75 business days, but they managed to get us their offer the next day via FedEx.  The offer was like nothing I have ever seen.  It consisted of just four pages and had absolutely NO terms.  We are not attorneys but we knew something was very wrong.  We contacted an attorney we knew who offered to review the documents.  He informed us that, if we had signed those papers the bank sent “they could have done anything” to us - including taken our house.  

Our tax bill came - school and property combined - came in early 2010.  We put more than 20% down at purchase so we did not have to escrow our taxes.  In NYS, we have until May 31 to pay our taxes in full albeit with a small penalty.  Finally, in February, we borrowed the tax money from a family member and sent it in to the tax collector.  Imagine our surprise when we received our check back from the Tax Collector with a note stating that our taxes had already been paid.  The next mortgage statement we received was $800 more per month than what our payments had been.  It turned out that Bank of America had PAID our taxes BEFORE they were late and created an Escrow Account without our knowledge or permission.  That is illegal and they were fined by the NYS Bank Examiner.  The battle continued.  Constant threatening letters.  We remained current and even sold personal belongings until we entered into a legal Forbearance Agreement while the mess got sorted out by the Attorneys.  In that agreement,  the Bank was supposed to refrain from reporting us delinquent to the Credit Bureaus so as not to adversely affect our credit ratings or interest rates.  They broke that agreement and, to this day, we are still suffering from the lasting effects of their actions which jacked up our interest rates to rates that would be considered usury in New York State and they decreased our credit limits in order to make life extra difficult.

 Finally, in September 2010, after being threatened by our attorney, Bank of America gave in and granted us a loan modification.  Somehow, we continued to remain current on both mortgages and all of our debts and even started a successful Home Performance with Energy Star participating contracting company in December 2010.  To this day, our credit is adversely affected which impedes the growth of our company because we do not have access to credit.  Our company has so much potential and yet Wall Street Banks still hold us back from hiring more staff and buying more equipment.  Finally, we are grateful that our resourcefulness paid off and empathize with countless American families who lost their homes due to the lies and manipulation of Bank of America and the other big banks that still wield so much power.  Where is the justice in that?

I called Bank of American in May 2011 to discuss ways to avoid foreclosure.  Although I wasn’t late on my mortgage yet, I could see the writing on the wall.  I am in the real estate business and my husband is in the car business – both were suffering mightily at the time.  I was told I didn’t qualify for home loan assistance because I had refinanced (to lower my payments) in 2009, after the cut off.  I was also told they would not entertain any discussion of a modification until I had been in default for two months.  I went to the help center in Alexandria, VA and the rep there helped me fill out my application.  Some time later it was denied.  I was told to make some improvements and resubmit.   I was told on several occasions in the interim and thereafter that I should not pay my mortgage or I would have to restart the whole process.  I was approved and then the approval was rescinded.  I then asked my Congressman to intervene.  

My application was resubmitted and was approved again only to be rescinded once more.  Finally, in March 2012 I signed the final loan modification documents (I was told BOA was doing me a favor when I was surprised that my monthly payment decreased less than $100).  My loan would become current on July 2012 after I paid my three trial payments on time.  I ended up with $22,000 in past due balances on my mortgage and a $6000 tax bill because I had only 3 months of mortgage interest to deduct.  So for a benefit of $1,200 ($100 less per month), I incurred a $6,000 tax bill.  My loan modification cost me dearly.

Fast forward to February 2013.  I still hadn’t received my final settlement docs.  It turns out that my paperwork was lost because someone had quit.  I had to wait for the documents to be resubmitted AGAIN.  In March 2013, I signed the paperwork but now my credit would only show me current on my mortgage as of October 2012 (instead of the original July 2012) AND I would not receive the mortgage deduction for the interest I paid in all of 2012. Therefore, I could not itemize on my 2012 tax return.  I was told that I would receive the mortgage deduction for 2012 added to the amounts I paid in 2013 but I have no assurances of that in writing.

I was supposed to receive my final loan docs by June 2013 at the latest.  Today is July 19th and I was just told it would be another 30 days.  That means that this entire process will have spanned 26 months.  No one at BOA can help me, my Congressman’s office is unable to make anything happen and I have the worst credit in the world even though I’ve made my mortgage payments on time for the last 15 months.  The $22,000 past due balance still shows on my monthly statement from BOA.  

I have 24 pages of notes summarized every phone call I’ve had with five or six customer relationship managers (they keep reassigning me), my Congressman’s office, and Freddie Mac.  I believe there is something “goofy” with my loan that is causing all of these delays.  Perhaps BOA or Freddie Mac cannot find the original loan documents.  I am beside myself with stress over this.

I had been making my monthly payments when my contractor got behind by 6 weeks paying me for my work. I was late (2) times, but would catch up as soon as I got paid. Then Bank of America sent me a Home Modification Agreement on October 23, 2010.  The due date to have the document back at Bank of America the same date. I sent it back anyway and a few days later received a denial notice.  Then my payments began to skyrocket from $749.00 per month to $2800 per month.  Complaints to the OCC only got me fraudulent letters from BofA stating my payments were not being applied to my account because I was “participating” in a Home Modification Progam.  Of course I could not make the increased payments on my 30 year, fixed loan.  Bank of America fied for foreclosure on June 7, 2011 without any service of process as required by Ilinois law.  Then I discovered the lawyer I had hired was working for BofA.  I am currently fighting BofA pro se.