Yes, you heard it right. I compared the mortgage servicing industry to the mob. Loan sharks. Pay up or we’ll break your knees! Well, at least, “pay up or we’ll take your house!”
This is business right? You don’t pay, you lose your home. That’s fair right?
In the old days it was fair for banks to act like mobsters because they had nothing to lose. They used to base their lending on prudent and common sense decisions that were based on credit worthiness and loan to value.
Most people in foreclosure in the past had some equity and it would not cost the servicer or lender an arm and a leg to take the home back if you did not pay your mortgage bill. When they did take it back in foreclosure, they would recoup their costs through the sale of the home.
These days, there is no equity in these homes and it’s no secret that lenders have used non-prudent lending methods to give most of these homeowners their loans. Now, they are taking it in the shorts on almost every foreclosure. Paying out of their own pocket to take back Mr. Jones home isn’t smart business they figured. Well, duh!!!!!
I think these geniuses have finally realized that they are up crap creek without a paddle.
So, what is a mortgage servicer to do? I know! Help people save their homes! Brilliant. And they’ll do it under the guise of the Hope Now Alliance because they are now compassionate consumer advocates and thay have even give their ”collection employees” fancy names like “home retention specialist”, “consumer advocate”. Hell, they even go so far to parade around the country and offer to look at borrowers loan documents and see how we can modify their loan and keep them in their home.
Mock Hope Now meeting:
Do you think they will ever realize that you were the sharks that sold them that toxic loan that is now causing them so much stress and grief? The sharks said, “Nah, people tend to forget the past when you act like you are now their friend. We’ll give them hope now because we are now part of Hope Now!” Hahahahas…… and LOL’s filled the room as the Hope Now Alliance adjourned their landmark meeting and master plan to cure our mortgage woes.
In today’s mortgage and housing circus, that “old way” of collecting mortgage payments does not work.
Mortgage services need to add a layer of good ole “human compassion” in their currently hideous collection and loss mitigation techniques. Human compassion seems to be very tough to learn in this industry. Especially when employees have been trained by Uncle Vinnie from the Bronx on how to collect mortgage payments from dead beat borrowers.
From Reuters – Faith Schwartz, executive director of the Hope Now alliance
Mortgage servicers, who are on the front lines working with troubled homeowners facing foreclosure, are going through a major change in their business model, the executive director of the Hope Now alliance of mortgage lenders and servicers said on Wednesday.
While some have complained about slow progress to modify loans and provide workouts that keep borrowers in their homes, one of the difficulties for servicers comes from the need to build a different skill set, said Faith Schwartz, who heads the Hope Now homeowner support service put together last October.
OK, what the hell is this. What “skill-set” is needed? Compassion? An open ear? Common sense?
Maybe that should be in their help wanted ads and they should stop hiring Vinnie’s nephew from Brooklyn to answer the phone when homeowners try and call you to workout their toxic loans
I don’t know if these mortgage servicers are hiring animals that are not capable of this built in human trait or what? Come on. This is not a skill set Ms. Schwartz! Stop giving these mortgage servicers excuses for their incompetence and abusive , mob-like collection techniques!
The U.S. Treasury-backed Hope Now alliance was created in October to bring together mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and counselors to help subprime borrowers modify their loans, including freezing some rates at their initial, “teaser” levels.
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People need to learn how to deal with lenders. When you are underwater on your house..i.e. bought home for 500K and worth 400K. …let the lender know the TRUE value of your home and let them know you will be sending in the keys unless they reduce the principal.
Unfortunately “just like a short sale” the lenders will not listen to anybody until they are delinquent on mortgage payment usually at the 1 x 90 stage. “thats one 90 day late for you novices.”
I hope the cosumer starts playing hardball with these slimy lenders. Don’t tell me about the consumer being irresponsible and need to pay blah blah blah…the BANKS RAN A PONZI SCHEME PERIOD. IF YOU BOUGHT YOUR HOME WHY WOULD IT EVER GO DOWN LIKE THIS? IT WOULDN”. HOUSING GOES DOWN SIGNIFICANLTY WHEN ECONOMIES, CERTAIN INDUSTRIES SUCH AS AUTO HAVE MAJOR DOWNTURNS. THE US HOUSING MARKET IS GOING DOWN DUE TO A PONZI SCHEME.
BOTTOM LINE…PEOPLE NEED TO TREAT A HOUSE UNDERWATER LIKE A BUSINESS DECISION AND WALK PERIOD. ISN”T THAT WHAT BANKS AND LARGE CORPS DUE?
Am running 30 days late each month on my fixed rate mortgage since November. In January my lender sent one very nasty aggressive guy to collect the late payment. He tried a lot of outright intimidation tactics but I rebuffed him and stood my ground. Then in February they had a different person who told me since I was paying a full payment each month that they had only reported one 30 day late payment to the credt agencies, plus they even forgave the costly late fee this month. So I do think they are making an adequate effort, in my case at least. But it almost appears as if they were ordered to start busting balls at about New Years, then decided to back off and try the softer approach after the ball busting did not work.
My neighborhood is almost all subprime and we are all still in or homes. Unlike speculators and second home buyers, these homes are all we have, so we will be fighting hard on the economic front to keep them. I don’t think the central banklng school of wealth-exchangers was expecting that as they still try to blame their runaway gambling addictions on ’subprime’. Amongst those of us who actually do some sort of productive work for a living, the central bankers and their obviously self-supporting money printing have become a joke and laughingstock.
As to survival tactics, among the usual strategies, many around here have even gone so far as to rent their yards out to people living in RVs. Hence the neighborhood has become very crowded, and zoning and code violations are rampant. At same time, new homes paradoxically stand empty all over town. But one just around the corner did sell recently for a solid price and all of the rentals around here are now full finally so it looks like things may be firming up, around here at least.
Biggest problem right now is not the mortgage but making today’s money. The job market is very weak and moneymaking opportunities for those who hustle are few and far between these days.
The bank I work for was greatly affected by Katrina, both in our loan footprint, and also in our actual infrastructure. We were forced to start the modifications then. We also have no sub-prime loans in our portfolio, though we service many sub-primes for third-party investors.
Now, I have no love for my bank. I’ve seen the people there do some pretty shitty things, though, I expect, no shittier than any other massive financial institution. I will say, though, that I am proud of our handling of this crisis. Primed by the Katrina foreclosures, we began work-outs on other loans in crisis very early on. I would say that we are a year or more ahead of other banks in our treatment of mortgagors in need.
As pointed out in the article, we don’t want these properties back, so we are making every effort to keep people in their homes. Strong-arm tactics are absolutely unheard of in my collections department. I have on 2 occasions when foreclosure was simply unavoidable, had borrowers THANK me for our kind treatment and helping the borrower keep his or her dignity.
Banks that aren’t following in our footsteps are playing the game the old way. I expect that we will still be standing when the rubble clears. At this point, there is nothing to be lost in sensible workouts for the good of borrower and bank. It is worth calling your institution just as soon as you foresee a problem. I think that as time goes on, more banks will be seeing it our way.
I am one of those dead beats in a subprime loan and also upside down on the loan the minute we signed the papers. First of all we tried to talk to someone at Wells Fargo and we were unable to get anyone to return our calls and on one occasion I called three times in one day and ask the same question and got three different responses.
I am not a quiter but I thre my hands up and said I can’t handle this anymore and I took all my documents to an attorney and he tried to work things out for us and was also unsuccessful and handed the mess back to us only because he said Wells Fargo was not willing to work with anybody at that time and suggested we contact a bankrupsy attorney. Tthere was nothing in this for the first attorney and he didn’t suggest a specific attorney. When the second attorney looked at things he also tried to work things out with Wells Fargo on our behalf but was also unsuccessful. We ended up filing bankrupsy and it has ended up costing Wells Fargo dearly and not even to mention the wear and tear on our health.
What I am trying to say is that each case is different and should be treated individually with respect. If Wells Fargo would have just assigned one individual to our file and worked with us I think they would have found that the loan was the fault of the loan officer. appraisal company and underwriter.
The articles that you read about this is only the tip of iceburg I think is right and unless the lenders become more realistic and look at how people were put into these loans and that people who they have hired to represent the company will lie to get into a loan and find an appraiser that will make numbers right and an underwriter that will over look things to meet quotas and then you are turned over to a Vinnie.
The American dream was a death sentence for my husband and myself and some of these lenders are getting what they deserve and it is going to weed the good guys from the bad guys and it has been an expensive lesson for banking institutions, borrowers and employees.
we are in the process of loan modification with litton loan, the house is set to foreclose actually sell on mar 4, 08. we have been approved for a loan modification, just waiting on final papers from the attorneys, it is just very scary, because litton has not contacted the attorneys that have our house up for sale. they are telling us not to worry, they have to wait until a few days before it is to sell before they can call them and put the sell on hold. has anyone ever heard of anything like this? thank you
i need to know if you are going to help me with my loan on my house i am getting very worried about it i have been doing everything i can to keep making my paments i even got rid of my newer car so i would not have the car pament so i could keep paying my house pament because its more important my house payment keeps going up every six months all i am asking for is to give me a rate and pament i can afford so i can keep our house its all my eleven yearold son and myself has and i worked very hard to get it and i have been working very hard to keep it ihave got rid of alot to keep it so far please help us so we can keep our house if it keeps going up another time or so i dont know what i am going to do ineed to keep it and i know you all need me to keep paying so please help me so we all can win please i dont know what else to say just please help thank you darryl reed feb 24 2008
i really need help and fast. i am a married woman whose husband is very sick and i can’t tell him we are in trouble with our mortgage. i also take care of 29 abused animals. we are working on a retirement budget. many things have affected this bad situation we are in. many of my animals got very sick from a dorment virus one of the strays brought in. i get them checked immidiately for illness before i mix them with the others, but this was dorment and did not show up for several months. i have already paid a few thousand dollars to the vet, but still owe 7,000.00. i have been doing this for over 33 years and have been told previously by the loan people to just kill my animals and save the money. this has become our life and we have sacfificed to do this. also no one knows this and i can’t tell the loan company this, but in august of 2006 i was prescribed the drug Reqip made by GlaxoSmithKline for restless leg syndrome and the drug had not warning about sideaffects. well almost immediately i began to have uncontrolable urges to gamble and i spent house money on this. in december of 2006 i found out from a radio show that Mayo Clinic found that a serious side affect for some people from Requip is uncontrolable urges to gamble and also breast tumors. (i had 22 breast tumors removed in Feb. 2007 after never having any previous problems.) i contacted Sir Chris Gent in England. He is the Ceo for the drug company he just pushed me off to some lawyer in Triangle Park NC. after much to do they sent me a large booklet where is clearly stated that the gambling problem and breast tumors do occur in some people taking their drung requip. they got 5 years of my medical records that showed that i had never had these problems prior to taking Requip, but they refuse to do anything to settle for my hellish problems. this drug has literally destroyed my life and has brought me to the brink of suicide many times. it has also put me in this terrible financial situation. i found out that the FDA forced GlaxoSmithKline to put these warnings on the packaging in August of 2007, but i started taking it in August of 2006.
i feel that my situation is so hopeless.
GMAC is our mortgage carrier with the VA to back it up. the VA went and made arrangements with GMAC to put us back on a plan to make up a payment. originally our payment was 610.00 then the plan went to an outragous amount of 1,034.00 i couldn’t make the large payment after a few, so now they want us to pay 788.00 for over a year to make up for the missed payments and i just got this notice on 2/2208 and have to have the first payment to them by 2/27/o8. i am beside myself as this is to high. i have to pay the vet 700.00 a month and we both take a total of 22 prescriptions together. that is not counting all the other expenses. i really don’t have any extra cash around because of the bills. i told the va that i wanted a modification to a 40 years mortgage from the current 30, but this is what i got. she told me not to deal with people like you. i need help fast. we could permanently make a payment of around 550.00 and not get in trouble again. i also had to take out 8 payday loans to try to keep the house running while the gambling went on. i was hoping to put those down as debt and pay them off with money consolidated in the new mortgage. is their any hope. i have not a single person to turn to not even my husband and i don’t know just what i should do. the deadline of 2/27/08 is so close and i didn’t know about this until 1/23/08.
you must leave a very detailed message as i am usually taking care of either my husband or an animal. my husband can’t hear the phone and never answers it. i just dropped my long distance carrier to save money so i can’t get out on my phone unless it is a toll free number. i could pay you the $1,500.00 if we were to get the above stated modification or in payments. i had been praying that the drug company would come through with a settlement and i have that on my mind also. my e=mail is (removed by Moe to protect you against the predators). thank you in advance for any help. i don’t have a website, just an old computer.
PLEASE DO NOT PLACE YOUR PERSONAL INFO IN THESE COMMENTS. PREDATORS WILL PREY ON YOU. THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP SABINE – MOE
Anyone who needs help needs to post a message on the Loansafe forum, the link is right on the top, on the left hand side.
Please DO NOT POST YOU PERSONAL INFORMATION, SUCH AS YOUR ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, EMAILS, THAT IS VERY UNSAFE ON THE INTERNET!
Why does everyone seem to think that because their home is depreciating in value, that is what the loan should be modified to. So what when the values start to rise again, shouldn’t their loan be remodified to accomodate the influx in value. What do all these people go to Vegas and complain to the pit boss they want their money back when they lose!!! GET REAL PEOPLE! You are the con artists and you are trying to make the economy who does have common sense about financial matters pay for your mistakes.
Good points, homeowners can do most of the loss mitigation on their own. Sometimes the hardest part is dealing with the lender or even getting them to answer the phone and respond to voicemail. That seems pretty ironic since their collections department has no problem calling homeowners all day, but their loan workout department can’t seem to answer the phone or call anyone back. But if the homeowners can not get a call back, then a third party loss mitigation company will probably not have any more success. And the third party companies have far less interest in saving the home.
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Ok…ok. no wi have haerd enough…. The banks are guilty, not the pesron who took the cash and ateit all up! Can’t pay the bank, but it’s not your fault for being a Big PIG!!! It’s the banks, the should have realised that you are blameless, and not liable for your own bad decisions! People have been using ther ehouse like an “ATM” for the last 7 years, now the money has run out…. What did you do with that money from that loan??? p/o credit debt? where did that credit debt come form? and why?
All the banks did was make loans to people, who are now saying they we not mature enough to handle their own finances… But they were mature enough to sign the loan papers and take the money and spend it!!! GROW UP !!!!
B.E.L.
Boy Moe, sounds like you are assisting people in cheating the system. Two wrongs dont make a right. You should really think before you write about ways to swindle and steal.
I can understand that many of you are facing financial difficulties. What many homeowners do not understand is that when you hire a modification company to contact your lender on your behalf is that they are on the phone 2-3 hours a day making sure that all the documents provided are received, and in the process of being underwritten or being reviewed. I don’t disagree with Bob. This website state do not pay anyone to help you do your loan modification, but there are advertisement of attorney to review your paper work, and also this company founder also charges you to review your paperwork. There is no difference. There is a contradiction in the statement on this website. I have been in the mortgage industry for 10 years, and you will always have loan officers who come and go, but understand that because of people who cashed out their equity to buy new cars, take vacation, and over spent. The banks and people like me are suffering for it. You people are grown adults, and should know better! Bank over analyzed on the booming market, but it doesn’t mean you treat your house like a piggy bank and spend all your money and then blame the bank for what you spent your money on! I’m sure at 1 out of 10 had different situation. It’s like giving a drug addict to sell drugs. How could you expect the drug addict to sell his drugs and make a profit. It’s unfortunate that people who are responsible have to suffer for this situation! People with bad credit complain they can’t get even approved for a FHA loan. Do you seriously think the government can help people who are in this boat? Raising the conforming loan limits because people can’t support their monthly income.
If you think an attorney can help you stop your foreclosure, think again. Most attorney have their head up high. What makes you think their fees are reasonable? If you really deep where your like 10 months behind, the best thing to do is contact a bankruptcy attorney and file a chapter 13 right away! If you are working with an attorney on your loan modification, the chances are they will charge you addition fees to fill a chapter 13, if they are specialized in bankruptcy! the court charges their fees,and this is something not disclosed in this website.
Which 3rd party Loss Mitigation Companies are legit?
I have had a very difficult time. After fixing mold in my condo I took the equity and purchased a home three years ago. The realtor forged my escrow docs and we have been in litigation for fraud breech of contract and non disclosure for three years. I was three months behind in mortgage payments due to the cost of legal fees, mold remediation (realtor conspired with inspector she insisted to hire) and was not safe and 40 grand in undisclosed code violations. she was the dual agent for the guy in her office that was the agent seller owner and builder of the home. long story short. I have renters now in the house and live with my family. I can cover the mortgage that way only but am behind. they are calling 20 plus times a day and put it into forclosure it is in CA. I have 450 grand invested in the home which is everything I had. They promised on tape to renegotiate the loan if I made a good faith payment with an extra 40 a month. I did so. no new loan docs. april comes they claim they are on the way. I send another nearly three grand. two weeks ago they call the note saying if I dont cure the 19 grand default (4 grand in fees) that they will foreclose. I asked about the renegotiation and they told me that the rules had changed. they milked me for an extra 6 grand. what do I do? ready to lose it all in CA