A late response

I told you last night Bank of America didn't get back to us by news time and that I would keep you posted on when they finally did here on our Call for Action blog. We finally received a response almost an hour after the deadline we gave them.

First I'll post my email to Bank of America I sent at 10:12 a.m. on Tuesday:

Christina--
We are running a follow-up story today. We have had a LOT of responseto our story and I have several questions I would like answers to before we run our story at 6pm. If we do not receive a response by 6pm, we will be unable to include it in our story.

1) Nicole informed us the respresentative from Bank of America said they were speaking with Isla Blue developers to buy back her home.Isla Blue told us they had NOT been contacted by Bank of America at all. They told me they were receptive to a call from BOA just had NEVER been contacted. Why did the representative say this to Nicole if they had never actually picked up the phone and called?

2) We have had more calls from people who have been in the loan modification process only to have their homes sold while they are in the trial period. What is BOA's procedure for processing loan modifications? How many people typically work on a loan modification? Why are we seeing a trend of communication breakdowns between borrowers and BOA and the courts?

3) MOST IMPORTANT--is BOA still receiving money from the Federal Government for these modifications that they process and then foreclose? How much does BOA receive per loan modification?

4) Does BOA sometimes choose to foreclose because it more advantageous to foreclose a claim against mortgage insurance rather than work with a homeowner?

Thanks.


Now their response from 7:03 p.m. Tuesday night:

Melissa,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Please include the following in future updates:

Before a Bank of America associate contacted Ms. DePuy yesterday afternoon, we confirmed that our outside counsel had reached out to an attorney of the third party purchaser to inquire about repurchasing the property. The attorney stated that they would get back to us with their interest. We will be submitting an offer to the third party tomorrow morning for their consideration and asking for a delay of the eviction while we work out a settlement. We are still researching exactly what transpired that lead to the foreclosure sale. We are doing everything within our power to keep Ms. DePuy in her home.

Through the first half of 2010, Bank of America has completed mortgage modifications providing homeownership retention solutions for about 160,000 homeowners who face difficulties in making their monthly payments due to economic conditions. That brings the bank's total of modified home loans to 650,000 since January 2008. The July Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) performance report from the Department of Treasury shows Bank of America continuing to lead all servicers with more than 72,000 permanent HAMP modifications completed through June, up from 63,000 reported by Treasury the month before.

Bank of America apologizes to its customers if they did not receive the service level they expect from Bank of America. Recognizing the need to do more for our customers, Bank of America has opened Customer Outreach Centers in various parts of the country. Last week, we opened one in Fort Lauderdale. The centers offer customers facing financial hardship with an opportunity for face-to-face counseling. Bank of America Home Loans has expanded default management staffing to nearly 18,000, an 80% increase since January of 2009. We are also introducing case managers who will be assigned to a customer throughout the modification process.

Keeping customers in their homes is in the best interest of servicers, investors and especially the homeowner. Foreclosure is a last resort. The decision to move forward with a foreclosure relies heavily on the customer's past payment history, their ability to make future mortgage payments and investor guidelines. Ms. DePuy did not have mortgage insurance on her loan. The Treasury's Making Home Affordable program offers a $1,000 incentive to servicers for placing a customer in a permanent modification. The servicer does not receive any incentive payment until the borrower has successfully made the requires trial payments and modification is completed. The servicer is eligible for an additional $1,000 incentive each year that the homeowner makes timely payments for the first three years after the modification.

Christina B. Toth
Bank of America
Media Relations

My producer received a call from Laqurdia Tatum--the woman we introduced you to last night-- after we sent our initial email. Laqurdia told us she had received a modification, paid the first mortgage payment, then left to go to Fort Bragg to send her son off to Afghanistan. She came home to find her home auctioned. So my producer Katie sent this email to Bank of America at 3:19 p.m. :

Christina:
I am a producer with Melissa Yeager at WINK-TV. We just interviewed another woman who says she was also approved for a Bank of America loan trial period and even sent her first payment in-- and her home was also sold out from under her.

I have copies of the letter from BOA that states she is in fact part of the modification trial and during that time, no foreclosure would happen. I also have a canceled check for her first payment due on July 1st. She called BOA to make sure her home would not be put up for auction-- and an agent told her (after 45 minutes to an hour on hold) that she took care of it and her house would not go to auction. She even placed calls to the lawyers that were in charge of the auction to tell them of the recent developments-- and still the house went to auction.

She found out her house was sold on July 8th only after she came back home from Fort Bragg-- saying goodbye to her soldier son who was being shipped out to Afghanistan.
Can you please look into her case and let me know how this happened?

Again, we are running her story-- as well as an update about the woman below-- tonight at 6pm. That is the deadline to hear from you.

Thanks!
Katie Cribbs
Executive Producer, Special Projects

So we received this response back at 7:28 p.m.:

Katie,
You may use the following in any further updates. I will let you know anything I find out tomorrow.

Bank of America:We are still researching this case. If we proceeded with the foreclosure sale in error, we will work on trying to resolve the situation for Ms. Tatum.

Christina Toth


I understand it takes some time to look into these cases--but we initially contacted Bank of America a WEEK before we actually ran the story. We wanted to run Nicole's story when we had some answers from Bank of America. I'm still not sure we have those --but trust us to keep asking for you! In fact, if you have questions you would like to pose to BOA...feel free to post them in the comments. I would love to hear them. We're running an updated story at 5 p.m. And thanks to all of you sending me emails about your story. I am keeping them as we do more stories about the loan modification process.

(On a side note--I'm really irritated by the late response by BOA two days in a row. If I paid my credit card payment late, they'd charge me $35.00. By my math, that's $70!)

Also--Katie and I are busy bees back here in Call for Action. We have a GREAT piece running at 6 p.m. about what the Coast Guard is doing on a daily basis to keep our waterways clear. If you're a boater--this is some great information...and look back here tomorrow for some extra info!