The Banks Show No Mercy

The Banks Show No Mercy: 10 Foreclosure Horror Stories That Will Blow Your Mind

NOTE: Read the complete article at this website:

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-banks-show-no-mercy-10-foreclosure-horror-stories-that-will-blow-your-mind

By Michael Snyder

During the last housing crash, the big banks begged the federal government for help and they received it, but when average Americans ask the big banks for help most of the time the banks show no mercy whatsoever.  If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, the big banks have shown that they are willing to be absolutely ruthless.  They will change locks in the middle of the night, they will toss disabled veterans and families with children out into the street in the middle of winter, and sometimes once the foreclosure process has begun they will not even allow someone to come forward and offer to pay off the loan if they think that they can make more money by selling the home.  

The big banks will often string homeowners along for months or even years with loan modification promises, only to drop the hammer on them at the most inopportune time.  Over the past several years there has been case after case where mortgage documents have “disappeared”, where big banks have “manufactured” missing documents out of thin air and there have even been cases where big banks have tried to foreclose on homes that do not even have a mortgage.  Once in a while, the big banks get a small slap on the wrist, but nobody ever really gets into much trouble for any of this.  In fact, the big banks just continue to gain even more market share and even more power.  Hopefully when some of these foreclosure horror stories start to become publicized more widely we will start to see some real changes in the marketplace.

The following are 10 foreclosure horror stories that will blow your mind…

#1 If you get behind on your mortgage, your family might be tossed into the street at gunpoint in the middle of the night…

This week, Christine Frazer and her family were thrown out of the Atlanta home they’d lived in for 18 years, at gunpoint in the dead of night.

They were not set upon by robbers, but by the Dekalb County Sheriff’s department, which evicted the family at the request of Investors One Corporation. As  Steven Rosenfeld reported for AlterNet, it was the fourth company to buy the family’s mortgage in eight months.

#2 Time after time we have seen authorities show absolutely no mercy when conducting these evictions…

It was bad enough when 62-year-old disabled veteran Ramsey Harris was evicted from a foreclosed house on Jamaica Lane where the former owner had been letting him live.

Then it started to rain as all his worldly possessions sat in a heap by the side of the road and Harris noticed some of his valuables were missing.

“It was just ugly,” Harris said Friday. “I was just broken-hearted. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I ended up standing, watching all my life’s work go down the tubes.”

#3 Sometimes financial institutions will promise you a loan modification for many months and then turn around and foreclose on you anyway…

When the economy crashed and his business slowed down, Wells Fargo offered to modify Steve Bailey’s loan to lower his payments. After making a series of trial payments, Wells Fargo notified Steve that his modification was on the way.

A few days later he received a letter stating that his modification had been denied. The Wells Fargo representative he spoke with reassured him that they had made a mistake and that he should keep making the payments, which he did for seven months.

Steve then started to receive foreclosure notices. Again, the bank representative assured him that the notices had been sent in error.

Then Steve checked his credit. Wells Fargo had reported him delinquent on his mortgage for the last six months. The reduced payments that Steve had agreed to pay for the previous months had been put into a separate trust by Wells Fargo, and they had not gone towards his mortgage.

Steve took the case to court but lost despite mountains of evidence in his favor. He lost his home and his business.

#4 Other homeowners have found themselves trapped in loan modification hell for years…

I am self-employed, have been all my life and have owned a home for 30 years. When I started my Loan Modification process in August of 09 I WAS NOT behind on any payments. I sent full documentation, over 150 pages, with the things they needed to verify my income. I am now 2 payments behind and I am getting nowhere. They keep flipping me between Loss Mitigation and Imminent Default, back and fourth month end month out. I made a habit of calling every week, then every two weeks just to be sure all was moving forward. From the middle of November I was told my file was with the underwriter and it would only be 30-60 days. I began automatically updating my income verification, verification that I still resided at the property and an updated 4506-T every month. In the middle of April a rep finally told me I was not in the loan modification process. In fact, that I had been denied on March 2. Keep in mind, I’m talking to these people every 2 weeks. She did a financial interview and sent me a new packet so that I could start all over, resubmitting all the documentation yet again. She told me she was my Account Manager. I completed the packet, called with a question (2 weeks later – over a week to receive the packet and another few days to complete it and gather all my documents again) and learned that my “Account Manager” was on maternity leave and I now didn’t have an account manager. Also, I was told that I had received the incorrect packet…it was the old version rather than the updated version. She asked me to fax four or five pieces of information in the hopes it would, quote, “jump start my file back into the process” and said she we send me another packet. That was mid April. Here we sit, 2-1/2 months later, I have still not received anything in writing about my rejection. And, though I’ve now had people tell me on three separate occasions that I would receive a new packet, it has yet to show up on my door step. I asked several times why my application was denied and the answer I finally got last week was that it was because I was DELIQUENT in my payments. Call me crazy but I thought that was the whole point??!! I almost hired a third party but am so hesitant to take that step. Every time I get on the phone with them it takes an hour out of my day and I am usually so upset I find it difficult to work, so I just don’t call. I’m going to sit back and regroup and decide what I need to do next." (snip) ...