Saturday, October 06, 2012

BofA Continues Relentless Attack On Homeowners w/ Baseless F'closure Threats Triggered By Sloppy Recordkeeping; Another Victim Ends Up With Empty Apologies After Media Intervention

In Portland, Oregon, KGW-TV Channel 8 reports:
  • Four months after Bank of America admitted making mistakes in threatening to foreclose on a Portland woman’s home, the bank is back at it again. “It’s a slap in the face,” that homeowner, Polly Brown, told Unit 8. “It looks like to me they're just a bureaucratic mess and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, it’s just a mess.”

    In April, Unit 8 helped Brown get an apology and correction to her credit scores from Bank of America. She thought her mortgage mess had ended, until she got a recent letter from the bank.
    That’s when she contacted Unit 8 for help again.
***
  • After she [initially] called Unit 8 in April, we contacted the Oregon Attorney General. Bank of America eventually apologized for making mistakes, and promised to correct inaccurate information they had sent to credit bureaus.

    Those actions satisfied Brown. She told Unit 8, “I got results when you [Unit 8] and the Attorney General got involved. I got results. Bank of America cleaned up my credit and corrected their accounting mistakes.”

    She thought her troubles were over. Then, in September, she got a certified letter from Bank of America warning her that her payments were past due. The letter stated, “It is important that we receive full payment as soon as possible so you can avoid foreclosure on your home.”

    Bank of America’s letter continued, “According to our records, your home loan payments of $.00, which includes any late charges or applicable fees, for the month(s) of July 2012 through September 2012, are past due.”

    So I owe zero dollars,” said Brown. “It’s almost laughable but then I checked my credit report,” Brown said the credit bureau Equifax shows that in July, Bank of America reported she had a past due payment of $1,694.00. “I’m angry,” said Brown. “I paid those [mortgage payments]. How can B of A say that?

    Brown again contacted Unit 8, and we took the new information to the Oregon Attorney General. “Unfortunately, we still see a lot of mistakes still happening, ”Assistant Attorney General Simon Whang told us.
***
  • From what I can see, it looks like they're in violation of this term of the [$25 billion settlement] agreement, yes,” Whang said to Unit 8. “Here you have an erroneous situation where she actually did make the payment, but a false statement went to the credit reporting bureaus.”

    In a written statement to KGW, Bank of America spokesperson Jumana Bauwens wrote, “We apologize to Ms. Brown for the error in applying her payments to her mortgage. The situation is already being addressed to ensure all payments and credit reporting are reflected properly. Ms. Brown now has a permanent modification on her mortgage.”

    Brown said for all her trouble she got her mortgage modified by less than a hundred dollars a month.