Friday, February 04, 2011

BofA Backpeddles On Post-Foreclosure Eviction Threat After Being Hit By Local Media Spotlight

In Stone Mountain, Georgia, WXIA-TV Channel 11 reports:
  • [Homeowner Paulette] Davenport says she got a call from Bank of America saying that the foreclosure was a mistake -- then just a few days another call saying it wasn't an error and the bank had already foreclosed. It wasn't long before the Sheriff showed up. She tried to get some answers.

  • "I have called and spoken to many different people at Bank of America. They all tell me it's too late, 'Call me back in two weeks.' I would spend hours on the phone. They keep transferring me to different places, different numbers, continuously. No help, nothing," Davenport said.

  • What was Paulette Davenport to do? Her 16-year-old son, Travis Davenport, took over and sent the 11Alive Help Desk an e-mail. [...] After 11Alive's Bill Liss contacted Bank of America, the bank withdrew the eviction order. They said that Davenport and her family will stay in the house as the bank sorts through months of paperwork. "I just want to keep my home for me and my family," she said.

  • That's the next goal for 11Alive's Help Desk on behalf of Davenport -- getting Bank of America to rescind the foreclosure once and for all, and modify the loan.(1)

For the story, see Getting an Eviction Lifted for an Army Vet in Foreclosure.

(1) What we apparently have here is the operation of what columnist Joe Nocera referred to in a recent New York Times' story (see Shamed Into Altering a Mortgage) as the Heisenberg Journalism Principle: the process of reporting a story can sometimes affect the behavior of those being reported on (a 'parallel' of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics).