Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Brian Moynihan, Today Is Your Lucky Day!

Just saw this news story this morning, courtesy of the Associated Press, about how Bank of America's creative accounting makes it look like they made a profit in the 3rd quarter of this year of 5.9 BILLION DOLLARS. It correctly claims
"Chief Executive Brian Moynihan is under pressure to prove that he is turning around the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank, which has been besieged by mortgage losses and lawsuits."
Well, Brian Moynihan, you little leprechaun, today is your lucky day. I have an idea that could achieve that for you!

Mr. Moynihan - why don't you give me a call. I'll tell you all about my great idea to restore my faith in the (now) 2nd biggest bank in the U.S. It involves making the decision to do the right thing and restore the mortgage of just one little old lady. It involves doing the right thing and taking responsibility for two years of screw ups, foot dragging, misguided, mis-informed and downright rude employees, incomplete investigations, and bad communication skills.
This idea involves a revolutionary concept - instead of trying to increase profits for investors in BofA stock, how about cutting checks to the REAL investors in your bank? People like 70 year old Margaret Hintz, who's into your corporation for $58,000, but doesn't have a cent to her name, nor any equity in the house she's called home for years, thanks to your shitty business management skills?
I propose calling it even. In exchange for my faith being restored, you, Brian Moynihan, put back all the money that was defrauded from Margaret Hintz that your bank failed to investigate when it was reported several years ago. Then, I'd like you to write your own bank a check for every payment that would've been due on the mortgage of Margaret Hintz since the moment you began to illegally foreclose on her home after allowing all her money to be stolen through fraud, failing to properly investigate it, denying that she had disability insurance when she was hospitalized on life support, and continue to make those payments until the moment you finally reinstate her mortgage. We've been waiting for a year and a half since Fannie Mae slapped your bad little hands and put the mortgage back into your hands for reinstatement. 
It's not like you don't have the money, right? You made a 3rd quarter profit this year of 5.9 Billion, right? You're charging $5/month for clients to use their debit cards now, riiiiight?
I think accepting some personal responsibility for the horrific mistreatment of a little old lady's finances would be a great way to show the country that you are actually serious about turning around your bank to gain the trust of America once again.
Just start with this one old lady, and you might just change my mind.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Ellen hits the nail on the head

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. I need say no more about BofA's customer service.

Hilarious Message from Bank of America - The Ellen DeGeneres Show

By the way, if anyone's counting, I have still not ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever heard from Ken Scifo, or Diego Tolentino, 'negotiators' I was told would contact me to discuss reinstating my mother-in-law's mortgage two months ago, despite my actual complaints to the Office of the President that no one had contacted me.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Call a doctor for Brian Moynihan!


Someone, call a doctor. Get an ambulance for BofA CEO Brian Moynihan and get him some medical attention immediately! I think there may be something wrong with the poor man, because out of his mouth this morning (according to CNNMoney.com), came this delusional gem of a quote:

"We have the best bank in the world, we do 

a great job for our customers."

This said as Moynihan defends his bank's decision to start charging customers a monthly fee to use their debit cards. I wonder if they'll start charging their customers $5 a month for debit cards illegally generated by identity thieves who steal customer's checking account information and make their own cards to drain BofA accounts dry? Sounds like something they'd do.

Here's a link to the entire article where Moynihan explains that Bank of America has a right to make a profit. Moynihan, let's just say it as it should be said: Let the customer beware. Bank of America will find a way to profit off of its customers, no matter what it takes, at the great expense of its customers. 

I like the comments of one reader, who's response to the article was this: "MR. BIG BUCKS, CEO, ...Bank OF America...you use the money I put in my account for FREE, I get no interest, ...then you sell my money to someone else for a fee, you get a bail out with my money and NOW you are going to charge me 
$5.00 a month for me to get MY money out. These bad business practice are going to close you DOWN!"

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Bank of America battens down the hatches

As the first big storm of the season pounds the Pacific Northwest, it looks like Bank of America is starting to batten down the hatches. Well, truth be told, they started doing this a few months ago. Apparently Bank of America has been posting guards at some of their banks (good idea, because you've got a lot of pissed off customers) and barricaded the doors in some cases, to stop customers from making withdrawals.


So let me get this straight....you want 29 million people to entrust you with their money, and then you want to stop them when they attempt to retrieve what is rightfully theirs?

Seriously, other than the fact that Bank of America has been physically stopping people from taking their money back out of the bank, WHY is anybody doing business at all with this corporation anymore?

Thanks to Janice for bringing the YouTube footage to my attention, and to SHTFPlan.com for bringing it to her attention.

Bank of America Finally Admits Failure

Bank of America has finally decided to shut down its mortgage lending division, according to today's news item in the L.A. Times. SHOCKING. NOT.

But let me get this straight....Bank of America 'acquired' Countrywide a few years back. Tried to run it, couldn't get its act together. Decides to sell it. Nobody was buying (Another SHOCKER). So what happens next?

For other people, that's about the time they'd get foreclosed upon by Bank of America. But lucky BofA, they just get to shut it down and claim they're working on reassigning* all their employees. 

So...what does this mean for Margaret Hintz? What does this mean for her house, which remains in limbo? Now that Bank of America is shutting down its mortgage lending division, does that mean it's now a ghost...stuck in the gooey protoplasm between life and the hereafter...it's not in foreclosure, but there's no reinstatement of the mortgage. Does it just sit there, in limbo, for the rest of eternity?

*(A warning to Dionne, DeMond, Terrence, Linda, Allen, Rachel, Kimberly, Jennifer, Chris and all the other dozens of people I've registered phonecalls with at Bank of America over the past year and a half in my persistent effort to help you clean up your act and do the right thing in regards to the way completely bungled up the finances and housing situation of one little old lady in Coos Bay, Oregon..... do you really think he's going to find you another job in the company? Do you really think people have any faith left in the company that gives you your paycheck every month? Do you really even want to work for this institution any longer? Well, I hope your mortgage is all paid up.)

Has the Karma Slug finally paid Bank of America a visit?

Things are going at a sluggish pace this week over at Bank of America. Something (they won't say what) is bungling up their website. The full story is here, but basically, things are running vewy vewy vewwwwwwy slowly. Hmm.
That doesn't sound much different from my experience with Bank of America over the past year and a half.
For example, I'm still waiting for an employee at BofA to return my phone calls from last November.  Really, why do today what you can put until...say....next year?

Like I said, BofA isn't saying why their website is going along at a snail's pace, but I'd like to attribute it to karma. You know, what goes around...

It also might have something to do with the fact that the biggest bank in the United States just announced that they're planning to start charging some of their customers (not all of 'em, just the ones that don't have a crapload of money in their bank) $5 a month just to use their debit card.

In my fantasy world, an internet flash mob is occurring, as 29 million Bank of America customers have just joined together in solidarity, all shutting down their accounts and taking their money somewhere else. To a different bank that feels the best way to serve their customers is to serve them, not take advantage of them.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America's consumer online banking service was slow for a fifth day Tuesday. And the bank still isn't saying what the problem is.
The bank has said many times since Friday that it resolved the problem. But visitors to its home page on Tuesday saw an error message saying the site is "running slowly" and customers might experience delays or have difficulty accessing parts of it.
The message encourages customers to try again at "a non-peak time" or to visit an ATM or one of nearly 6,000 branches to get into their accounts.
Bank of America Corp., based in Charlotte, N.C., is the largest U.S. bank by deposits and has 29 million online customers.
Spokeswoman Tara Burke said the website problems are not the result of hacking. She declined to "break out the root cause" for the problems but said the bank was continuing to "assess the situation."
She did not say when the site would be fully restored.
This isn't the first time Bank of America's site has experienced problems. Customer also had problems accessing their accounts in January and March of this year. In both instances, the bank said at the time that the problems were the result of routine system upgrades.
The company announced Thursday that it would start charging customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. Several major banks have introduced new or higher fees for checking account customers in the past year. The industry says the changes are needed because of a new regulation that limits the fees they can collect from merchants whenever customers swipe their debit cards.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Play Ball!


Tonight, the Dirty Dozen co-ed softball team takes on Bank of America. I really hope we win. It's a local team, so the actions of the giant Bank of America corporation probably shouldn't be any reflection on them. However, if I'm wrong and the local BofA is anything like the people I've been dealing with for the past year and a half, they just won't show up at all tonight and we'll win by forfeit. Now if only not showing up on the corporate level would mean a forfeit in the foreclosure world, all of Margaret's troubles would be over.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Finally, Brian Moynihan got my memo.


From the story on All Things Considered today, I'm guessing Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan finally read my blog. I told ya'all (and him) right here last October that Bank of America was too big for its britches, with its 100,000+ employees, that there seems to be no such thing as interdepartmental communication, and that I felt he needed to start cleaning house instead of working on his golf game.
Here we are, almost a year later, and he's finally figured it out. Maybe he read the results of the customer service satisfaction survey I received from them last year.
Hey Brian, I'm still waiting for your office to let someone know that it's okay to take my call so that Margaret's mortgage can be reinstated. Several weeks ago I received a letter from your office (from Sandi Womack) telling me to call a negotiator by the name of Ken Scifo. Ms. Womack gave me a 'direct' line and extension to call. I followed her instructions, but that number? Not direct. That extension? They refused to pass me through until the President's office said it was ok. They called you to make sure it was alright; you never answered. Nobody ever answered. They finally decided to get in touch with Mr. Scifo and let him know I was on the horn. He never answered. They  left a message for him asking him to call me since ya'all won't let me call him, but nobody's called me back. It's been about a month.
Ya'all must play golf a lot.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Only 8.5 Billion?


This just in, courtesy of the Associated Press and National Public Radio:

Bank of America and its Countrywide unit will pay $8.5 billion to settle claims that the lenders sold poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market collapsed.
The Charlotte, N.C., bank says the settlement with 22 investors is subject to court approval and covers 530 trusts with original principal balance of $424 billion.
As a result of the settlement, Bank of America put its second-quarter loss at $8.6 billion to $9.1 billion. Excluding the settlement and other charges, the bank expects to post a quarterly loss of $3.2 billion to $3.7 billion.
Shares of Bank of America Corp. jumped 4 percent before the market opened, with investors happy that the bank can put very big uncertainty behind it.

All I have to say about this is.....unfortunately, while this court decision means Bank of America is being forced to be held accountable for some of their gross negligences, they're still not being held accountable to THEIR CLIENTS. They're only being held accountable at this point to the big spenders (like Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae) who backed the loans. 

By the way, according to NPR, 8.5 billion is about equal to the amount of the profit Bank of America would've otherwise pocketed this year. Poor, poor Bank of America. Sure hope you can still make your mortgage payments this year.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Does Bank of America N.A. stand for Bank of America - NOT ACCOUNTABLE?

Before I tell you what happened after I sat down and wrote a letter to the Oregon Attorney General's office, let me tell you what happened on Thursday and Friday, just to give you a snippet of how the crap gets flung around when somebody screws up a foreclosure in a major way.
Thank goodness I keep notes.
1. Real estate agent Patti Denton showed up a 2nd time, this time trying to convince Margaret's brother to quit paying his meager rent of $300 (which covers about half of the mortgage payment) to Margaret, and instead sign a rental agreement with Fannie Mae, and start paying them, still convinced that Fannie Mae owned the home. So Fannie Mae owns the mortgage?
2. Right about this time, Bank of America generated a letter informing Margaret that from now on, they'd like her to make her mortgage payments out to Bank of America N.A. instead of B.A.C. servicing. So Bank of America owns the mortgage?
3. Then, Bank of America sent me an email filled with factual errors that led them to believe Fannie Mae has the home, and that Margaret's only course of action was to follow the instructions on how to either move out or begin renting her home from Fannie Mae. So Fannie Mae owns the mortgage?!
I corrected the errors...so many of them...and sent the email back, urging BofA to dig a little deeper, actually investigate the issue instead of barely glancing at the notes and making some pretty big, bold statements based on very little actual information, and then get back to me.
4. Fannie Mae generated a letter on Friday, "Pleased" to let me know that the title is still in Fannie Mae's name, and therefore they own it. OK, so you all seem pretty convinced that Fannie Mae owns this mortgage.
5. Finally, on that same day, Friday, I received another email back from Bank of America finally admitting that yes indeedy, they do own it, and they will work in earnest to get a reinstatement quote to me on Monday. So Bank of America owns the mortgage?!?!?!
Could you people just sit down together, hash this out and then get back to us?

Friday, June 10, 2011

A Little Behind The Times

A real estate agent from Prudential-Seaboard Realty showed up at my mother-in-law's home the other day, with a "Know Your Options" notice that she taped onto the door and then high tailed it outta there. A Know Your Options notice is when Fannie Mae has foreclosed on a home, and decides its time to capitalize on their move. So they hire what is called an Asset Management company, which in turn subcontracts out to an unfortunate real estate agent like Patti Denton in Coos Bay, Oregon to do their dirty work.
Now I don't blame poor Patti. She's probably in a situation where she can't sell a house to save her life in this awful market, but if you can capitalize in kicking people out of their homes, cleaning up the mess, changing the locks and selling it for Fannie Mae, well...at least you can eat.
Well, I do blame Patti a little bit. But it's only because she's a faithful servant, carrying out her ill-informed marching orders from what she claims to be Fannie Mae.
So Patti came to the home...and then of course the shit hit the fan.
Because Fannie Mae doesn't own this property.
If you're a follower of this blog, then you may remember that last August, Fannie Mae investigated the improper foreclosure on my mother-in-law's home, deemed that it was huge bungle on Bank of America's part, and approved a recision of the foreclosure. They gave it back to Bank of America, and closed it out of their system.
Then for two months I worked with Bank of America to try to get them to reinstate the mortgage, so that my mother-in-law could start giving them money every month again.
In November, right after BofA halted foreclosures nationally, they quit returning my phone calls. I waited patiently for another 7 months. During that time we received no calls, no correspondence, no nuthin' from nobody. Until Patti showed up on Monday, June 6, 2011.
She had a document prepared one year ago showing that the home was in the hands of Fannie Mae. I told her she was behind the times, and had old, outdated info. She told me to prove it. I told her Bank of America refused, because in their opinion, the actual customer is considered 'a third party' and they don't have to share that information.
I called Fannie Mae, asking for proof. They said they'd open another investigation. They told me that their system showed the home had been transferred back to Bank of America. So where did this real estate agent really get her marching orders from? In our initial conversation, the real estate agent had given me a phone number for her supposed supervisor, and a name: Jeffrey Aiken. She said he was an attorney. I called the number, it was disconnected. The man I spoke to at Fannie Mae said I really needed to get in touch with the Oregon Attorney General's office.
And that's when things got really interesting, real quick-like.
Hey, I gotta go take a call from the Attorney General's Chief of Staff.