{"id":5561,"date":"2010-12-23T13:21:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T19:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=5561"},"modified":"2011-08-19T21:28:07","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T02:28:07","slug":"how-to-screw-up-a-mortgage-modification-bank-of-america-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/how-to-screw-up-a-mortgage-modification-bank-of-america-style\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Screw Up a Mortgage Modification, Bank of America Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t often feel a lot of pity for people who get themselves into debt that they can’t pay off. I was raised in a frugal family. You only buy what you can afford. You save money for emergencies. And no matter what, you pay what you owe.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to have no sympathy for those who got themselves deep into credit card debt because they’re irresponsible. (No, it’s not the credit card company’s fault for extending you the credit. It’s your fault for using it.) I don’t feel bad for people who bought houses they couldn’t afford, hoping that down the road they’d have enough equity to refinance and keep their payments “affordable.” That’s just dumb.<\/p>\n

I do, however, feel bad for people who have sudden illnesses or job losses, have generally been responsible with their finances, and then find themselves unable to pay the mortgage.<\/p>\n

I have no idea the story behind this mortgage modification<\/a>, but it doesn’t matter why it was needed. What matters is that the consumer appears to have done everything right. She did all the paperwork, paid exactly as she was told to, kept making phone calls to ensure that everything was in order… and then one day Bank of America says they’re foreclosing because she’s supposedly behind.<\/p>\n

Assuming this woman is telling the truth, she did exactly what she was supposed to. Bank of America’s systems failed, and she is now paying the price. Her credit is ruined. There is a credible threat of foreclosure. And all because Bank of America screwed up and will not take responsibility.<\/p>\n

I know that mistakes happen. But Bank of America needs to step up, admit their mistake, and make this right<\/strong>. The consumer should not have to guess whether the BOA person on the phone is telling the truth or lying. The consumer should not have to figure out if the BOA person is just plain wrong. What is the consumer supposed to do if she keeps getting a different story every time she calls?<\/p>\n

This woman had an approved mortgage modification. She paid the new payment. Heck, she even paid more<\/strong> each month. Bank of America failed to complete the process on their end, and it appears the consumer had\u00a0 zero blame in that. She got her paperwork in on time. She kept calling to make sure everything was okay. And she was told that it was. Bank of America screwed up and the consumer is being penalized because of it. Shame on you, Bank of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t often feel a lot of pity for people who get themselves into debt that they can’t pay off. I was raised in a frugal family. You only buy what you can afford. You save money for emergencies. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[1029,1030],"class_list":["post-5561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraud-news-stories","tag-bank-of-america","tag-mortgage-modification"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-1rH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}