This sad tale comes courtesy Katie Porter in “The REALLY Sad State of Mortgage Servicing” at Credit Slips:
A customer legally tape-recorded his conversation with his mortgage servicer, one of the nation’s largest financial institutions (and no, it’s not Countrywide!) His attorney shared it with me, and I’m posting some excerpts….
Bob I was wondering what that charge of $650 was for?
CSR [customer service rep]The charge of $665.30…
Bob Yep
CSR It’s for doing (not understandable) expenses.
Bob They told me once before it was for bankruptcy.
CSR (pause) Yes it is.
Bob What exactly does this mean?
CSR Umm…let me get my manager to advise me…I apologize but I have to put you on hold for one second.
. . .
CSR Ok this is the attorneys’ fee
Bob For what?
CSR For the bankruptcy.
Bob What did the attorneys do?
CSR The attorney is the one that filed the bankruptcy for you.
Bob The attorney is the one that filed the bankruptcy for me?
CSR Yes
Bob I don’t understand. I paid my attorney.
CSR You paid your attorney?
Bob I paid my attorney.
CSR Ok. This is actually showing he put a bill on to your account.
Bob Who is he?
CSR Whoever your attorney was that filed your bankruptcy.
Bob My attorney’s a lady, not a he.
CSR Ok.
Bob She didn’t put no charge on my acct., because I paid her.
CSR Ok if I could go ahead and put you on hold for a second, I’m going to go ahead and get my manager?
. . . [manager comes on line]
Shane Hey my name is Shane. I’m the lead on the floor. How are you doing today?
Bob Ok I was wondering what these attorney fees are, you tried to charge me for?
Shane Ok did you pay your attorneys a fee?
Bob Yes
Shane Ok, Well what he is suppose to do…He is actually suppose to send us the money after you sent it to him.
Bob She is suppose to what?
Shane Send us the money, after you send the money to him.
Bob For what?
Shane For the attorney fees.
Bob Why would they send them to you? I paid my attorney.
Shane Yes. The attorney is supposed to send us the money to take care of the fees of the account.
Bob What are the fees for?
Shane For going into bankruptcy and having an attorney.
. . .
Shane Let me just take a look at the account real quick. I’m going to put you on hold, alright?
(Very long wait!)
Shane Ok it took me a little bit to find this in your account. What happens is when anybody goes into bankruptcy…You hire your attorney, we hire our attorney. Then the two attorneys work together for the bankruptcy. You paid your attorney for the fees but when you’re worked with ABN…you didn’t pay ABN for their attorney fees. So that’s where these attorney fees are from.
. . .
Bob Who was your attorney?
Shane I don’t know. It was with ABN’s attorney.
Bob Oh Ok.
Shane So the fees just carried over. They were already on your account…so when we bought you on they just carried over to your account.
Bob Ok, well can you find out who the attorney was?
Shane I don’t know if it’s really important who it is, because things were still charged, no matter what.
Bob I’d like to know the attorney. I’m paying money; I’d like to know what I’m paying for.
Shane That’s what you’re paying for…it’s when you go into bankruptcy. They hire an attorney…say if you were with us at the time. We would hire an attorney…our attorney would talk to your attorney and get the bankruptcy taken care of. So there are going to be fees because we hired an attorney. So the fees for our attorney are going to be on the account. Then you pay your fees to your attorney and it takes care of him…but you didn’t take care of ours. So that’s what happens, you didn’t take care of ABN’s fees.
Bob I’d still like to know what your attorney did.
Shane He worked out the bankruptcy with your attorney.
Bob He worked out the bankruptcy with my attorney?
Shane Yes. Those two are the ones who talked during your bankruptcy to get your account into bankruptcy and everything that happens when you are in a bankruptcy.
Bob And you don’t know who the attorney is?
Shane No.
Bob I’d like to know who it is.
Shane You might be able to talk to your attorney. He might be able to look it up in his records.
Bob Ok…
Shane Ok.
Bob I don’t know. I’d still like to know who the attorney is.
Shane I understand but…
. . .
Bob Oh ok. How can I reach you?
Shane I don’t have a direct extension.
Bob You don’t have a phone number?
Shane No.
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My, my, my!
Someone correct me if I’m completely off base, but doesn’t this whole thing smell like blatant F-R-A-U-D?
I can only imagine a judge listening to this conversation in Court.
I have the feeling the defendant (Mortgage Servicer) could be in for a very nasty and unpleasant grilling.
So what does one expect? The whole charade is about creating money out of nothing but the legal authority to do so, then loaning it out and sitting back collecting interest. Once people get used to easy money gotten without doing any useful work, they get pretty inventive about how to get even more of it that way. IMO the whole ‘industry’ (ahem) is rotten from top to bottom. Realtors are just the most obvious target.
A couple of years ago I was trying to rent an apartment and my credit report was showing a 90 days past due on an apartment I had sold 90 days before the late payment was alleged to have occurred. Luckily I could still locate my closing documents, because Citibank, the culprit, didn’t do squat to fix the problem. I got the same thing, no direct number for the customer service person, “anyone here can help you,” and no correction to my credit report. Bastards.