I know someone whose mortgage loan is serviced by Bank of America and guaranteed by Fannie Mae.
For months and months, she has been going through various processes and jumping through all sorts of repetitive pointless hoops to try to get a loan modification or at least a temporary forbearance. More on the process in a moment, but I want to lead with this piece because it is so amazingly disgusting to me:
Today, Bank of America offered this mortgage holder a piece of deception so blatant that ... I don't even have words to describe it.
They offered her what they deceptively name a "three month forbearance" on the loan. The Bank of America agent explained to her, on the phone, what this thing they call a "forbearance" actually entails. Here are the details of this "offer":
- If she chooses to accept this "offer", they will send her account to collections immediately upon the account being past due - meaning, not paid DURING what they call forbearance - and she will then be hassled by debt collectors during the three months that she is in what Bank of American claims is a "forbearance."
- The money she does not pay for her mortgage during this time of supposed "forbearance" will be considered due during the three months of the forbearance AND will officially come even more due in a lump sum (somehow this is possible) at the end of the three months, along with various late fees.
- If she does not pay all the money from the three month "forbearance" plus late fees back immediately at the end of those three months (during which they will have already sent her account to collections anyway), plus pay her mortgage from there on out, they will initiate foreclosure proceedings right away.
This disgusting faux offer was delivered verbally, via telephone, today, by a Bank of America employee. This employee outlined the details above and wanted a decision immediately. The mortgage holder said she wanted to think about it, the employee told her she has 24 hours to let them know if she accepts the "offer" or not - which they want her to do verbally by phone. She has received nothing in writing.
I am at a loss here.
More below the fold.
The "offer" applies as of August 1, but they didn't bother to contact her about it. She has been pro-active in contacting them during this time period. Since August 1 she has tried to contact them in writing and they have not replied. Since August 1 she has tried to contact them by phone but was told she should wait a few days for them to contact her. They did not. She finally got someone on the phone today and this is what happened.
The problem with this mortgage could have been solved months ago with one simple step: convert a 15-year loan to a 30-year loan. That simple step would have allowed my friend to pay her mortgage payments on time for the foreseeable future regardless of whether she has an income from any other source. The reason for this is that she has a boarder whose contribution would cover both the mortgage - if it was converted to a 30-year term - and other expenses associated with the property.
But she does not have a job and has not been collecting unemployment. Without an income from elsewhere and without collecting unemployment, she is not "eligible" to be considered for a loan modification or any government program.
So she has to go through all this crap and end up with this pile of steaming disgusting deception from the Bank of America.
She is now pretty viciously blaming herself for being stupid about how she has dealt with owning the place and being unemployed. I just listened to her go from venting fury at the corruption of the system, to turning that fury squarely on herself and describing herself as stupid for making the life decisions she has made during the past three years. She says she had the obligation and should have moved differently to meet it and is looking at what is wrong in herself that she did not.
I'm at a loss here. I have no illusions of this mortgage system being fair or just or right in any way. I am somewhat shocked at the sheer blatant-ness of Bank of American's deception here - the explicitness of this lie where they name something that is not an actual forbearance as a forbearance, for some purpose I don't know specifically but that that no doubt benefits the bank in some way to do. She knows this too but for some reason it didn't stay front and center and the fury got turned on herself.
I don't know what to do in the face of all of this. I don't know how to process/understand this completely blatant shameless lie from Bank of America. I don't know how to move as I watch as her fury gets turned inward on herself, and real truths about what she might have done differently get all intertwined with something else that comes in with the corruption of the system overall.
I would welcome any advice, resource suggestions, perspectives, or anything else that could help here. This is just so so ugly, and I am at such a loss here I can't even tell you.
I'll be following the comments and am also open to responses via Kosmail if anyone wants to go that way.