WalkerPad

I am livid.

Apparently back in June Wells Fargo decided to DENY are home loan modification request for the making homes affordable program. This was after going to great pains to repeatable and constantly claim the process would take a minimum of 90-120 days mind you.

You would ‘Think’ that such a salient detail would be, you know, mentioned directly to use the customer. But no, Wells Fargo in no way communicated the denial to us. What they did do is shunt us off to some crappy moratorium scam, without really communicating it. This is where you stop payments for a few months then Wells Fargo comes knocking for 10K in back fee’s and interest. This was done with not only without my express approval but also with my direct refusal when they tried to offer me that program over the phone last time I called for a status update in June.

Fortuity they did such a bad job of you know communicating stuff to us that I just went right ahead and kept sending in my normal payments. So it looks like I can get out of the program I never agreed to in the first place (ARGH!).

Now though I have to start the modification application process over again, and of course are numbers are worse now then before so I guess there is no way we can approved now by Wells Fargo. They claim that they are going to finally send me the numbers they used to make their calculated refusal… but the thing is are two largest debts are our first and second if Wells Fargo would make a reasonable generous modification to our first we would actually NOT be going into the read (by our own numbers). Somehow I doubt that the info they are going to send me will state what they wanted to change the numbers to though.
Also I can’t restart the process until they take me out of the program they (illegally?) shunted me into.

This whole process has clearly been designed to cause people to throw up their hands and and just let foreclosure start, Wells Fargo has clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in acutely keeping people in their homes through modification.

I’m going to call a couple advocacy groups and see if I can get some assistance on making WF be accountable and, well Honest because so far they have been nothing but utterly disingenuous.

The consumerist has a couple more reports up from people getting ignored by the banks like WF (just like us) and all the delightful and ongoing ‘mistakes’ that seem to happen… gotta wonder at what mistakes become a pattern of… well anyway. The commits where mostly pretty depressing, much of hte same. One person said they heard/read that only %6 of eligible folks have been getting any modifications.
Anyway going to try the loan counselor number they featured on Monday and see if it helps.
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/consumerist/full/~3/11iggxM5mZU/what-do-i-do-when-my-lender-isnt-playing-fair-with-loan-modification

So after much pushing the bolder up hill Wells Fargo finally admitted our paper work exists (3 months later) and we are good for review for the modification program.
Except not really, it seems they decided to wast two weeks by sending us a snail mail letter requesting some more documentation.

Now that nature of this documentation of kind makes me chuckle given that they (wells fargo) owns the loan and had all this type of documentation prior to agreeing to lend us the money in the fist place.

1. Listing Agreement (as the buyer, why would I have that, the seller owns the listing agreement. Sure hope that is the paper work for some reason)
2. signed purchase contract/Est. closing statement (ugh ok, but you guys have that stuff)
3. Buyer’s Pre-qualification letter (seriously? why isn’t that sort of water under the bridge)

I’m honestly not sure hot to interpret 2 and 3 or why they could possible matter now, other then they are stall, random noise to slow the process, or a fishing expedition for some reason to deny the process. I mean really, who keeps copy’s of of pre-qual letter laying around for years… Luckly I think I have it stuffed in Gmail.

And of course it must be “returned within ten days or the request is considered canceled”.

*sigh* I think I would be a lot lest resentful if they would make even the vaguest effort to be a little more direct and transparent. I guess fast would be good too, the whole 90-120 process time still just screams how broken this process is.

I spoke with wells fargo yet again. The final will acknowledge that they have my paper work and the process can start. Never mind the first time they took my information was beginning of march. Now here is the fun part, the process takes 90-120 days. You can’t even call to get a status update for a month and half, which just will verify if your paperwork has been assigned to a processor.

So lets see, people teetering on default, being current a requirement of the Obama plan, have to eak it out for another 3-6 months and keep current. That sounds like a plan for success, and one that can deliver speedy and reliable relief…. NOT.

Now they will offer a forbearance program (quite cheerfully) but a few sharp questions later shows that if you take that your application for modification gets put into a separate status grouping and pretty much is at the bottom of the pile because you are already considered to to be getting relief. In reality what they do is half your current payment but then you have a huge balloon payment 7 months later. You then are expected to have come up with the full current and all back forbearance withholding.

So I tried to invoke the escalation process but I’m about has hopeful as the front line support guy doing the paper work, who basically said he had never heard of that helping or even being acknowledged.

My mind continues to boggle at how this program seems to be designed for failure.

In all deference to the planet money crew they missed a huge piece of the story with how these programs are shaking out.

Wow, so after two weeks of silence. I called WF again to try and find out status and move things forward. I faced them back their worksheet on 5-5–09 only to find out today that ‘oops’ they don’t show the fax in our account and never mind that we have a faxed confirmation, they ‘may have just lost it or something’ cording to the rep. So she gave me a different fax number (cause that is not scary or inconsistent or anything) then supplied a list of places and things that must be signed that is different then what their worksheet form asks for. Just yikes. This process is just so badly handled and unprofessional it boggles the mind at this point. Months I have been trying to get WF to work with us and they keep ‘accidental’ dropping the ball. As friend pointed out once, if the quarter keeps coming up tails it’s probable not random.

Update: fun fun fun, All circuits are busy now please try your call later… so fax us your info but we won’t bother making sure that resource works or scales.

So nobody ever called me last week, just the useless auto message. However today I got somebody on the phone who seemed useful. They took are finical information and claim to be sending us paper work to sign signifying that it’s true etc then that will go to the negotiator (insert bad movie pun here). So something might start to happen, I’m not super optimistic but at least there will be a paper trial now. They also offered us some kind of forbearance program but after 6 months we would owe a 9K balloon payment. Hellow bankruptcy :p.

Well I guess today was a step forward in talking to Wells Fargo. Nobody could tell me anything about what is going on with the home owner stabilization program other then we probable qualify. However I also was not transferred to some unrelated company in Canada like last week. The cherry on top was that they took my information (again) and promised that somebody from Wells Fargo would call me back within 24-48 hours who would be able to tell me all about the program (I’m not sure what that means but looking forward to finding out). So maybe, just maybe this means the ball will nudge forward this week.

EDIT: LOL, I just got a automated prerecorded call from Wells Fargo saying they are announcing the program and to go to their website (which of course it still totally useless and has no way to get a engagement going). I sure hope that was not the call I was promised, but rather a positive sign prelude.

I have to say this constant redirecting people to web site that is never updated and contains no useful information accept for a self assessment and no way to take action or get updates or start a engagement is pretty lame and and very we are big company 1.0 go away. What a wast and a fundamentally failed way to communicate with customers in trouble chomping at the bit to real information.

So I took another stab at Wells Fargo today, 3rd call it’s now been almost two months since the program was launched… I thought they might have at least some basic time lines for customer contact put together by now. After first line agent made a series of excuses for why it was so slow to roll out he mentioned he had a special number he could transfer me too that would be able to help me a bit more.
So he transfers me, turns out the Wells Fargo phone system is having some um interesting problems. They keep transferring all us stressed out home owners to some company (ATA I think he said) in Canada, that has nothing to do with WF or loans or well anything.
The company has been complaining to Wells Fargo for a while now but they don’t seem to interested in fixing the problem (according to the guy at ATA)
Minor technical problem or Wells Fargo just not wanting to deal with this program despite sticking their hand into the TARP treat bag….? It’s probable of course a goof ,but it sure feels like (giving the long rollout and total lack of solid info) a ongoing blow off from them .

So, three weeks back I bit the bullet and called Wells Fargo to get started with the Obama plan for the Loan stabilization act. We quickly sorted out that on face we quality.
Wells Fargo gave me a bit of run around (kept insisting I just needed to look at the website some more) but after pointing out repeatedly that I wanted to actually file paper work to get started they finaly transferred me to somebody (apparently the only person since it was a 40 minute hold) who took my information and sent it off to the mysterious group that handles this program that can not be contacted directly in anyway (hmmm bad sign). Anyway, assurance where made that I would be contacted by them within two weeks.
Three weeks later still no word, not even snail mail. So I contacted Wells Fargo again. More insistence and I just needed to keep looking at (the useless) website. Eventualy after a bunch of holds the front line person came about and said that they still have not released the program nor do they have any date for a release or when customer contacts might start.

Ah, quality project management. Basically having no useful information and no I/O for interested folks on there 10,000 foot view website is pretty annoying. How many people will fail (we won’t, but a lot of folks are worse off then us) to stay current while they get this program up and running? While they, dare I say, stall like crazy?

It’s also scary that the front line folks are suggesting you go talk to the loan modification department. Anyone who changes anything on their current loan could vary easily invalidate their eligibility for the stabilization program. I wonder how accidental that redirect is…

I know big wheels turn slowly but historically with these programs that is just so they can more thoroughly powder the bones they drive over.