Fitch Ratings gave Option One Mortgage Corp.’s residential loan servicer ratings yesterday a big thumbs down, citing several factors including the uncertain deal to sell the company to Cerberus Capital Management and the their daddy, H&R Block.
I’m sure out sourcing their loss mitigation efforts to India is what they mean by “offshore”. “Hi this is Adam from India and your lifes and homes is in my hands. How can I screw up your day sir?
“Fitch recently completed its operational review, which confirmed that Option One continues to be a capable servicer of subprime mortgages with an experienced management team, accomplished loan administration procedures, and solid internal control environment. Since Fitch’s prior review, Option One’s servicing manager departed and was replaced by the former servicing manager, who ran the servicing operation for a number of years. The company continues to make reductions to its current servicing staffing levels through attrition and leveraging offshore and domestic vendors.
Option One continues to outsource back office functions to its offshore vendors and captive sites in an effort to further reduce costs. The company also outsourced several customer contact functions, including portions of loss mitigation and collection efforts.
However, management recently determined that several of these customer facing functions, specifically loss mitigation are best handled by domestic associates who are more familiar with the current market conditions and issues surrounding loss mitigation, foreclosures and bankruptcies. As a result, the majority of loss mitigation and late stage collections are performed onshore in one of Option One’s site.
Historically, Option One’s special servicer rating was based on its ability to service its own defaulted loans. However, the company recently expanded its special servicing capabilities to service defaulted loans for other companies.”
And of course the simple way that builders keep up their sales prices is to offer much much more “free” upgrades. When a few of the So Cal builders were giving away $50,000 cars with each purchase, they had to stop when some potential appraisal issues and lending practices were brought into question… as you can imagine a 100% finance on a house that comes with a car is really a financing of a car too… that is unless the appraiser took the value of the car into account and deducted it from the house price.
- Paul
This is why our country is in deep, deep trouble. One stupid move after the other. When are these lenders going to learn and when is government going to stop this bullshit. They sure weren’t hiring people in India to originate those loans and now they want them fixing them. BARF!
Don’t give then any ideas. PLEASE!
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We are just beginning the process to have our loan modified as due to ARM, our payments nearly doubled. Option One is soooo frustrating for the reasons stated above, the phone run around and the Indian gentleman that I finally get has no desire to work with me. But, hey the good news is that when I make my call tomorrow, I’ll get a different Indian gentleman who can not help me but might have a bettergrasp on the English language. IS THIS REAL? I FEEL LIKE I’M ON CANDID CAM
It’s not about speaking English, it’s a basic understanding of what the words mean. My family is bilingual and let me tell you, some words just don’t translate well. I can imagine that those outsourced workers have no concept of what someone in the states facing losing their home is dealing with.
Plus, look at what this article says, these corporations are making reeeeal Americans outta these Indians:
“Call centers and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who make much more than their contemporaries in most other professions.
They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys.
The outsourcing industry has come under fire because the sedentary lifestyle of its employees combined with often stressful working conditions makes them more vulnerable to heart disease, digestive problems and weight gain than others. Some complain of psychological distress.
Most call center jobs involve responding to phone calls through the night from customers in the United States and Europe — some of whom can be angry and rude. It is monotonous and there is little meaningful personal interaction among co-workers. That can also be true of other jobs such as software writing and back-office work.
Loneliness can also take a toll.
“There is no social life,” said Vats, who worked at night and either slept or watched television during the day. “You are not meeting new people.” ~http://www.bnd.com/business/story/212669.html
I can not begin to tellyou the frustration I have dealing with option one, I am current on my loan and would like to keep it that way I started trying to refinance last summer as my ARM is due to reset in August 2008, Option one is unwilling to work with my family “they state because we have not been late we can afford the $1200 a month increase. I continue to try and work with them asking about the Presidents preservation plan, they state due to my investor code I don’t qualify, our home is worth $100K less tahn what we owe, if option one refuses to work with us and increses our mortgage amount they will end up having to auction our home for 1/2 of what we are willing to pay them, yet their in India so what do they care
I’ve experienced nothing but frustration with this organization. I worked out a repayment plan but because my bank had a hold on a check I deposited I was 18 hours late in being able to make the down payment. They refused to honor the repayment and demanded an additional $3300.00 then said they would not give me a 12 month repayment as they had been willing to do 18 hours earlier – they would only give me 6 months which meant an extra $823.00 per month on my payment from what they had previously offered me. The supervisor REFUSED to let me speak to anyone in the USA. I’m ready for protests; class actions and trade embargoes! Honest hard-working citizens of this country are being reduced to beggars and made to feel sub-human.
I think Option-One is scamming people to lose there homes. I lived in my home for over 23 years I had a financial situation and I became behind on my mortgage payments, I send a check to the mortgage company and they send it back, I tried to work with them and all I got was frustrated. I have over 50 names from calling Option One over and over. I could not understand half of the people that I spoke to. I tried to speak to a supervisor which seemed to be impossible. I later found out that I was speaking to them from India. It seemed as if all of there reps were speaking from a script. It was the same garbage speech over and over. I tried to do a Loss Mitigation and faxed them everything they requested from me. I would call them a few days later and no one seemed to know where my paperwork had gone. I would fax it again and this went on for several months, I would call back and they would tell me that my application was incomplete. That I would have to fax it again. All of this started in April of 2007 by now I was getting letters from their Attorneys that my home was going into foreclosure. I tried to fight it and I even went to court to just be turned away because the judge had a full day and could not hear our issue. I spent a lot of time, money and effort to save my home.I could not tell you how many times I hung up on them because they were rude and unwilling to help me. I was very desperate and came across a phone number of someone that said they could help me,That was a bunch of bull,so here I am renting a house I can barely afford, my house has a for sale sign on it with a foreclosure sign on top for all of my neighbors to see. I lost everything, I was forsed out of my home along with my husband and three children.I have tried my hardest to save my home. Option One would not budge, they did not care, they were not willing to help me at all.