Bank of America Mortgages Consumer Reviews - Page 3

PO BOX 5170, SIMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA -- To whom it may concern, This letter is in response to Bank of America's most recent reply to my ongoing dispute over a 6 month rolling late payment that appears on my credit report for my mortgage payment for account. I do not dispute that I missed a payment in February. I believe the payment to have been sent, but never received. Unfortunately for me, I can produce no documentation to verify this.

I was NEVER contacted via mail or phone by Bank of America when this occurred. (How an institution of Bank of America's size cannot contact a customer when there is a “problem” with a payment is beyond me. Every other bank and financial institution in the country seems to be able to do so.) I continued to make payments believing there was no problem, having no reason to think so.

In July I was notified by phone that a payment had been missed in February. I promptly made a second payment to get “caught up”. I was still in the process of a divorce and was very diligent about protecting my credit score as I knew I was facing buying my ex-wife out of the house and would need to refinance the house in my name alone.

For almost 3 years I made all my payments on time, despite the stress and expense of the divorce. I missed one payment, but by the time I was notified about it, the situation had created a series 6 late payments which were reported to the credit bureaus and VERY negatively affected my credit. I have repeatedly asked Bank of America to address this situation to no avail.

At worst, Bank of America is remiss in not notifying me of a problem regarding my account. Their poor customer service and questionable inaction has caused me significant financial harm. I am finding it impossible to refinance my house (which I have been ordered by the court to do) because of 6 months rolling late payments that was cause by ONE payment not received. At best this is all a misunderstanding that could easily be resolved by Bank of America if they had any decency or sense of customer service.

I have filed a dispute with all three credit bureaus - Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. I have also filed a complaint with The Commissioner of Financial Regulation for the State of Maryland. Bank of America claims they have “thoroughly investigated” the situation and stand by their negative reporting on my credit history.

In light of the negative media coverage of their lending practices, one would think they would be open to resolving this situation amicably. However, judging from the tone of the customer service people I have dealt with on the phone and by mail, this is not the case. I am exploring every available means to have this ongoing dispute addressed and rectified. Any assistance you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your attention and consideration in this matter. Please feel free to contact me by mail or telephone.

Let me start by telling you a little bit about myself. My name is ** and I reside in Corona, California. It is here I live with my 16 year old daughter and my loving wife of 19 years. I am 39 years of age. I am a full time employee of 8 years at a company in Irvine where we manufacture precision investment tooling for primarily Aerospace and Medical components. My job title is: Tooling Engineer.

Sixteen years ago when my daughter was born, my wife and I made a decision that it would be better for her to stay home and raise our daughter and I would be the one who brought home the money. We made many sacrifices throughout the years to make that happen. It was and still is a very good investment. Because of our decision my daughter is now a spiritual, responsible straight "A" student with strong morals & focused goals. As parents who continue to survive so many odds against us, we could not be more proud of those choices that we have made.

Years ago I remember standing on my balcony at an apartment we rented in Huntington Harbor and with tears in my eyes telling myself that one day I'm going to buy a home for my family. This will be a home we can call our own. A piece of the American dream. Myself coming from a broken family and constantly moving from place to place I never had that security that so many people had growing up. I was dedicated to not allowing that to happen to my family.

For several years we rented a small beach cottage home in Huntington beach just a mile from downtown. At the time my place of employment was only two miles away. This house was just next door to my In-laws whom I adored. We were very fortunate to have lived right next door to family for so many years. It was there my wife's mother ** (our neighbor) passed away due to complications from Cancer. Not too long after ** passed we were served a notice that the places were being sold and we had 90 days to move out. This news came very hard to both us and **'s husband. It was at this time in our lives that we decided to purchase a home.

A dear friend who at the time was a real estate agent quickly set the gears in motion. As with most home buyers we looked at a few places in surrounding areas but nothing caught our eye price wise. Knowing that time was of the essence heavy prayers set into place. Our real estate agent found a place in Corona. We got into the car and headed east. With only MLS pictures in our head we pulled up to the property and instantly fell in love. We were proud first time home owners within only a couple weeks of being served the papers at the place in Huntington Beach. It was meant to happen. The power of prayer!

We made a great sacrifice which changed our lives in many ways. Work wasn't 5 minutes away anymore. My daughter's school wasn't just down the block. ** was 26 miles away not just next door. It was a tough transition but for the better. Through hard work and dedication I was able to make that dream come true for my family. We moved in on July 10th 2004. In the years we have lived here we have spent tens of thousands of dollars on home improvements. All of these improvements were paid for with my earnings. I believe it is the cutest house on in the neighborhood.

Like so many people did when the equity in their home was substantial they took out seconds and bought cars and boats then when the housing market turned they were stuck with huge debt forcing them into foreclosure. In the years living here I have never re-financed even when the market was high. We took on a mortgage we could afford based on my income at the time.

Now, the bad news. I don't want to bore you with all the details however if all the details are required by "you" the reader I would be more than happy to provide you with that information. Reminder: All of my testimony from this point on is truthful backed by receipts, documents, dates, times and names of people my wife and I have spoken with.

May 2009. Work slowed down and I fell behind on my mortgage payment by 2 months. Mind you from July of 2004 through February of 2009 we never made one mortgage payment late. Being behind we immediately called Bank of America (BOFA) and explained to them our situation.

We were told. "We had to be 3 months behind in order to qualify for the Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP)". After we had lapsed into 3 months delinquency I was asked by BOFA to fax them a long list of documents i. e.: 3 months bank statements, 6 months payroll, tax returns, expense breakdown, letter of hardship and so on. Later we were told by BOFA that "We qualified for HAMP" and that our file is currently under review. Note: We were never mailed a HAMP Packet.

Two months after faxing BOFA all the documents they requested, we never heard back from them. At this time I was 5 months delinquent. I was receiving foreclosure notices in the mail and one even posted on my door, documents from Recon Trust were showing up in my mailbox and strangers were showing up taking pictures of my home. Perhaps BOFA had their fax machines hooked directly to the shredder. My wife and I were sick from stress and with BOFA not at all working with us, we had no choice but to hire a company to help us out of our situation.

July 2009. I did some research and decided to hire Pacific Loan Solutions (PLS) owned and operated by Jeffrey Torrez and Wassam (Sam) Ismail out of Riverside. The attorney on staff was ** LLC. I went to their location for a free consultation and they said they specialized in loan modifications, I qualified based on my criteria and they said they would be able to help me with a loan modification. I paid the company $5407.00 to do the work (1.5% of the total amount of the loan to be modified). Strange I thought but desperate. Over the course of several weeks I emailed and faxed them all the information they requested.

Months and months and Trustee sale date postponement after Trustee sale date postponement went by and nothing was happening. I was getting further and further behind on payments. BOFA would not even accept payments at this time until I came up with the full arrears.

Months later after hiring PLS I got a one page form letter from BOFA stating ***MODIFICATIONS ARE NOT AN OPTION*** that our loan was non modifiable because that the investor (Wells Fargo) will not allow it. Did Pacific Loan Solutions know this and not tell me to scam me out of my money? The answer is yes. The company had an "A" rating with the BBB when I hired them and now an "F" rating. PLS shut their doors and Jeffrey, Sam and ** disappeared. Once again we were at a complete loss with seemingly nowhere to turn.

July 2010. After several attempts trying to explain to BOFA our situation they still were falling back on the excuse that Wells Fargo does not allow modifications, I was forced to hire another attorney. Through the state bar web site we found a reputable firm, Keefe Roberts & Associates. After a consultation Keefe was convinced that BOFA was up to something strange. We paid Keefe Roberts $2000.00, in which every dime they earned only to have BOFA send a letter to them stating that my loan was non modifiable and it wasn't an option because the investor Wells Fargo doesn't allow modifications.

Keefe Roberts was even confused. Keefe and I started talking about different options, i. e.: (Lawsuit against BOFA) not an option as it would cost me ($10,000.00) or more, Restraining order against the Trustee sale ($2500.00), Chapter 13 ($4000.00) or Short sale, ($1500.00) or of course walk away. Don't get me wrong, Keefe Roberts is a good fair attorney but why is BOFA making me go through this nightmare? You would think BOFA would like to start getting payments from me?

My wife and I decided that we want to save our home and a chapter 13 seemed to be the best way out of this mess so we took that course. I put Keefe on the shelf and went after Zachary in hopes to get my money back so I could pay Keefe for the chapter 13 fees.

August 2010. A friend of mine and I found where ** (former PLS attorney) was practicing and confronted him in a public arena demanding my money back. He refused to refund me stating he simply did not have it, and an argument ensued. Police were even called. Finally ** offered to provide me the services for a Chapter 13 and court representation free of charge. I scheduled an appointment with him and the contract was agreed upon.

The contract stated that ** would perform the services required for a chapter 13 free of charge. I contacted Springboard and paid the $45.00 fee to complete the online certificate course for pre-petition counseling for chapter 13. I wrote him a check for the amount of $274.00 for a chapter 13 court filing fee. Relieved I waited patiently to hear back from him.

Well that's just great now I have to call Keefe Roberts and tell him, "you know **, that guy who stole fifty four hundred bucks from me, well now he's going to represent us in court." After notifying Keefe about what had happened I had a sense of relief that ** would make good on his promise and maybe things were starting to look up for us. Rightfully so Keefe probably thought we were nuts, however I had no choice and I did not have $4000.00 to pay Keefe for a chapter 13.

A couple of weeks went by and I had not heard back from ** so I decided to leave work early and go down to his office in Riverside. The secretary of the building told me she had not seen or heard from him for a couple of weeks and a lot of people were coming in asking the same question. Weak in the knees and a stomach ache I went home and later on found out he was disbarred. Evil forces are working against us once again. Soon after, the court dismissed the case because of non activity. Thanks ** oh and thanks BOFA!

Now without an attorney to represent me in court and the lack of knowledge and paperwork it took to represent myself in court and the fact that 95% of all chapter 13 cases that are self represented are denied by the courts I turned back to Keefe Roberts. I wrote another check to Keefe for the amount of $2000.00 in which he continued to try to get BOFA to modify our loan to no avail. At this time Keefe Roberts wanted to continue on with a chapter 13 but without BOFA Working with us by modifying my loan and adding my arrears to the back of the loan it seems to heavy of a burden for me.

Keep in mind by this time I am $9726.00 plus numerous days off work trying to get BOFA to modify my loan when all BOFA needed to do was help me out with my mortgage back in May of 2009. $9726.00 is 6 months of my mortgage payments to BOFA!

Why didn't BOFA tell me that modifications were NOT an option up front. Instead they lead me on for months and months allowing me to believe something was happening when actually nothing was happening. If I would have known up front that modifications on my loan were NOT an option (which I don't believe this as being true) then I could have taken a different course which would have landed me in a much better situation now.

A simple one page form letter from BOFA stating modifications are not an option is simply not enough information for me or my attorney for that matter. I thought that BOFA by law was supposed to work with the buyer by modifying their loan (if necessary) providing they have income. Wait according to BOFA you don't even need to have an income for them to work with you. Sure my hours got cut for a while but I never lost my job!

I went on (**) and here's what they say. "If you're having trouble paying your mortgage, the following home loan assistance programs were created to help homeowners stay in their homes and make their payments more affordable. Let's work together to find a home loan assistance solution that's right for you." Option 1: Refinance. Option 2: Home Affordable Refinance. Option 3: Home Affordable Unemployment Program? Option 4: Home Affordable Modification. Option 5: FHA Home Affordable Modification. Option 6: Home Affordable Second Lien Modification. Option 7: Forbearance. Option 8: Home equity Assistance. Option 9: Reverse Mortgage.

My wife and I even spoke with a HUD counselor who said she would take our information and give it to BOFA and that she would get back with us. We never heard from that lady again. Of course this is an abridged version and I left out many small details, but in a nutshell you get the idea. Over the course of the last 18 months of hell starting back in February, 2009 I have learned a lot about a lot of things that most people should never have to know in their lifetime. I understand that it was I who fell behind on my mortgage payments back in February of last year but I never thought it would come to this.

Furthermore I thought that's what the HAMP program was all about, Making Home Affordable Program? I am a hard working middle class American who does not rely on free government handouts to get from day to day like some people do. It was my understanding the Federal Government bailed out BOFA and set up laws forcing BOFA to use the money to help folks like myself.

I was never offered that opportunity. All I ever wanted was to get back on track and current on my mortgage and to build up that sense of security I had before this nightmare occurred. It seems to me BOFA wants my home because they have no desire to work with me and start receiving payments? I will not give my home to BOFA without a fight.

Well, once again, here we sit with a December 2nd trustee sale date looming over us and again at a complete loss with seemingly nowhere to turn. Do I pay more of my hard earned money to high priced attorneys or would Bank of America rather have it? Thank you for reading this.

4951 SAVARESE CIRCLE, FLORIDA -- On March 24, 2010 we received our Clarity Commitment State from Bank of America for a new loan combining the 1st and 2nd mortgage. They had all the documentation they request signed and delivered to them by March 30, 2010. As months passed by the lock-in rate passed its lock-in date. So, I called and asked them to lower our interest rate once again since they still did not have our loan finished. They came back and said we had to maintain the rate even though it had passed its deadline.

Bank of America was totally unwilling to change the rate. We were told the house had been appraised in April and they had called our 2nd holder for the payoff amount for the loan and had charged my husband's credit card for that service. We also received the Truth and Lending disclosure statement. About 217 days out I get a phone call from a representative of Bank of America, stating that she was taking over and that I now had to have my home re appraised. I was flabbergasted.

These people took $450.00 upfront which I paid on my Bank America Card and it is now 217 days out from it's inception of the loan and now they are telling me that they have to reappraise our home once again. We gave them every document they needed. B of A had our house appraised by their own appraisers which we never received documentation, even though we requested it when they told us they were going to appraise our home.

On April 25, 2010 Chase charged a fee on my husband's credit card for giving B of A the payoff amount for our 2nd mortgage. The appraisal of our home took place on 4-30-2010. Even though we had requested a copy by phone we did not receive a copy or any notification of the properties that were used for comparable sales.

October 4th is when Bank of America wanted to appraise our home once again. I replied to her in person and in writing that I was closing the deal with the Bank of America because they had no intention of giving us a loan, since they were still dragging us along with their lies and deceptive practices of denying us the loan. Yet they still have our $450.00 to initiate this loan process.

On October 12, 2010 a document was written by Notice of Action group that they refuse to give us a Mortgage because the value of our home was insufficient property value as stated for the rejection. Two doors down from our home a house just sold for $600.000.00 and they received every penny. Our home had a swimming pool, beautiful deck and 12,000 acre lot. Whereas the home that just sold in the past two weeks on our street didn't have anything like our home.

So, there is deceptive practices that are taking place within the appraisals of homes in our area. Why should it take 217 days to be told our home did not meet the appraisal. Why would bank of America go forward and tell us our loan has been approved earlier in the process. Something is totally wrong in this scenario and it is called FRAUD and deception on their behalf. I am considering suing bank of America for unprofessional practices with their home loan service department. I have been a member with B of A since 1986 and I am aghast at their professionalism.

Is there an attorney out there who would be interested in representing BOA victims who are being cheated, stolen from and harassed by this bank? In January 2010, I received a letter of intent to accelerate my house payments from Bank of America (our loan was sold to them from TBA in August 2009). They claimed that we were behind in our monthly payments by $2,000. Knowing that we had not missed any payments, I called BOA. The representative did not know why I had received the letter but told me that I must be behind or they would not have sent such a letter.

She advised me to apply for a BOA loan modification. Thrown off guard and upset, I was transferred to the Work Out department and did apply for the loan modification. About 1 week later, we received a letter of intent to foreclose on our property if we didn't pay the amount they claimed we were behind, which interestingly had increased from $2,000 to over $3,000. This was the beginning of our nightmare. Over the next 6 months, we made numerous phone calls, wrote detailed letters listing checks written to BOA showing amounts and dates each check cleared our account.

In this process, we were hung up on, transferred to other departments, placed on hold for 20 minutes or longer and yet no one was ever able to give a reason or provide any proof that we were behind on anything. We continued to receive letters of intent to foreclose almost every month.

Finally, on June 1st, we received the Fed Ex package with loan modification documents (actually, we received four of these packages, one each day for four days - two packets had a due date of June 7th on the cover letter and the other two packets had a due date of June 12th - what a waste of money to ship the same documents four times!) The interest rate on our modified loan had been lowered by about ½ % which was great, however, $3,200, shown as “delinquent / past due” had been added to the total principal.

I called BOA of course to dispute this delinquent amount but was told that Jennifer **, the person I needed to speak to, was on vacation until June 14th. My documents had a due date of June 12th - so after explaining the situation to the rep, I was transferred to David **, Jennifer's boss. David was the only person during this entire thing who had any power or initiative to pull up my account and review it.

During this conversation, he told me that he could see what I was talking about and could not find any delinquent payments on my account. He said he did not know why the additional $3,200 was being added back to the principal. He asked that I give him a chance to investigate further and to call him back in one week. David did not return my calls the following week after two attempts, but Jennifer finally did. She pulled up my account while I was on the phone with her and said that the $3,200 amount was not showing up anymore - that it had been cleared out.

She went on to say however, that I no longer qualified for the loan modification as one of the criteria for eligibility is that you must be 90 days or more behind in your payment. When I questioned her about the mysterious disappearing/re-appearing $3,200, she explained that during the modification process, some payments made by the customer are not applied to your regular home loan but are instead placed in a separate account.

Apparently, that's the reason the foreclosure department kept sending me letters – it looked to them as if I was not making payments because my money was being placed in another account (without my knowledge). Thank goodness we managed to clear this up (I hope), but there are so many BOA customers who are not getting results and worse, getting scammed and conned into paying money they do not owe. Is there a law against what BOA is doing? Is there a way to stop this from happening?

Bank of America attacks again in a different angle to the unsuspecting home owner. "Beware" of the new way to force home owners to pay BOA more money or break mortgage contracts. Being an average home owner I pay my taxes separate from my mortgage payments. I also pay my insurance separately as well. I receive my property taxes notification in November and as always pay in two installments, 1 in November and the 2nd in April, I have never been delinquent in 14 years - but I do wait until they are due to pay. This way I do not have to take the money from an interest bearing account.

This is standard practice for all Americans even big business, that's just the way it's done. This is where it gets interesting - I just received my mortgage statement it showed a $650.00 increase in my payments. Reading through the mumbo jumbo I turned it over and the previous mortgage payment was not applied. What! I tried calling BOA and got a two-day runaround, how I was going into default, and it was being reported to credit agencies. And they had created an additional escrow account because they paid my taxes and a partial payment on my insurance - no way I had already paid them on time when due.

BOA told me that they had received a tax bill - this was a bold face lie! I called the local tax assessor's office, they explained that I was the person, sent a billing notice and nothing else was sent to anyone anytime! Having the same info I have on my house they punched in the data and did a web search at the county tax collectors web site.

BOA said I owed the complete amount - this was another bold face lie! What they did was tried to jump in ahead of time and pay the 1st one, they missed the date I had already paid the taxes and BOA was refunded the payment they said I owed. Now they jump in ahead of 2nd time due date and paid the second 5 days before I did the tax collector accepts the first payment in that just the way it is.

Now BOA opens up an additional escrow account charges me for that, then they increase all my mortgage payments for taxes and insurance, then they placed my original mortgage payment in limbo in the new escrow account and don't apply it! Report entering into default, don't notify me of any of this until 30 days after the fact! Took my month ahead mortgage payment away applied it as a partial payment to the new escrow account they created for false reasons - want to charge me additional costs and expenses, want me to get the payment back for them until they fix or correct their mistake, all this in five business days or else!

This had to be intent!! For some reason!! 1X time is mistake - twice 2x is with intent!!! Fishy - this smells to high heaven!!! All homeowners beware of this tactic now being used by BOA!!! Does anyone know how this unfair business tactic can be used legally? And how they can get away with it? BOA needs to be stopped in their tracks on this type of tactics.

HUNTINGTON, NEW YORK -- They are very "conservative" but what that simply means is that Bank of America only looks at your income to see if you fit in a parameter. Any additional information, no matter how relevant, is not permitted. They took a long time to process my mortgage. Not worth going to them.

USA, TEXAS -- I want to make this short and sweet. It took at least 4 years of fighting and arguing with BoA, my nerves are shot and I shake every time they call! I have never disliked any entity so much as this place. They have been a constant nightmare for us ever since they took over our loan from First Franklin a few years ago. Transferred to so many people with so many different explanations and outright lies, at least 100 times if not more. I started a new "folder" every 6 months to keep up with all the phone calls and stories they gave me. All this because we needed a modification.

They threatened us so far that I melted all my precious jewelry to send them a payment that I later found out I did not need to do. You see, I was trying to keep up payments as they told me to do, when really we had to be 3 month behind to actually get any help. I was driven to crying, and physical illness with these people. I found from some freak accident I'm sure that our local BoA in Denver could actually help us, and they did. They did all the paperwork with us and made sure all the figures came out right. They filed our mod, and filed it again and again and let me know each time what other papers we needed.

The ridiculous amount of paper and information on our private lives is outrageous and I am sure they did not look at half of it! We finally, just last week on Aug 9th, got a reply in our favor - they approved our mod, except they did not change our terms, they upped our payment over 300 dollars. This is called a modification! We are now with them in this new mod and they act like they did us a big favor!

I will never trust anyone at this company again, ever. As soon as we are able, we will refinance our loan and get away from these dirt bags. So, if you need anything in the way of changing your mortgage, please don't go through the pain that we did. Immediately contact your local branch and tell them what you need, hopefully you will get their help and stay away from these 800 # thieves!

My home was destroyed by fire two months ago. I am a single mom with three kids and all we want is to be in a home again. Insurance check was sent to BofA. Made plans to rebuild. Every time I phone BofA I get a different person who has a different answer to the same questions.

The following is a true example of my frustration and nightmare: BofA provides a list of paperwork they require. I get everything on the list and call them. They say to fax it over which I do. Then I am told I have to wait 24 to 48 hours for them to verify that they received the fax. I call them two days later and they state that they did not receive some of the forms. I resend them and wait another two days. In the vast wasteland called BofA the paperwork disappears. I fax it over a 5th time. Meanwhile two weeks have passed and the builder and modular home company are just waiting for the check from BofA. I phone them again for follow up.

At this time I fax a W-9 form for the 6th time. I am told that when they receive the form it will take 4 days for them to verify the Federal ID number of the company. Then once this is done it will take another 4 to 5 days for them to issue the first disbursement check to the modular home company. Everyone on my end is ready to go but is waiting on BofA.

I could be in my home within 4 weeks. Contractor and modular home company are working in tandem like clockwork. Because of BofA's work processes we will be lucky if we are in the home in 12 weeks. What is wrong with this company. All of this over processing is not only a waste of money but a waste of time. No wonder they are in trouble and laying of 10% of their workforce. Yikes... this may delay the processing of my check for another decade!!! By the way the employees on the phone are very nice but this means nothing when you can't get the service you need.

SIMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA -- I went through mediation with BofA and their law firm, Potestivo to secure a home loan modification. I was granted a trial mod with the Home Retention dept. I completed the trial mod exactly as ordered, but was later denied a permanent modification. I was told by my “Negotiator” (**) that I was $600 short in income per month to qualify. 3 months ago, when I started the mod my income was right on. My financial situation has not changed since the trial was granted. He said that there were “no guarantees,” and that I was told that my “final modification would ‘probably' be the same as my trial – key word probably.”

But, hey, I could begin another “brand new” trial modification with Making Homes Affordable, and pay a trial payment of $1,160.00 instead of the $820 payments that had been agreed to in mediation. $340 MORE per month than my previous trial payments. So let me get this straight - I have to make MORE $ to pay LESS, but if I make LESS $ I have to pay MORE. The Home Retention program is based on your NET income, but the MHA program is based on your GROSS income. A third grader could figure out that this doesn't make any sense.

It is a huge scam. I have been led around like a dog on a leash by this bank. I have faxed them close to 1000 documents over the past 1 1/2 years… duplicates over and over because they claim they don't have them. They are either incompetent or criminal. They are not helping customers with modifications. Just look online at the similar stories from victims of Bank of America. America is not in a conspiracy against Bank of America. The taxpayers that bailed this bank out have enabled the very same corporation that brought this country to its knees to take advantage of the American people yet one more time.