I really hope there is an Attorney out there that will pick this up and help us. We're losing our home because of the crooked dealings of these people. It just isn't right.
Part 1 of 2
On or about June 1, I was contacted by Mr. Luke Singen, of Home Funds Direct, in St. Louis, MO., in regards to an online request I had made for a home refinance loan. During the next three weeks, we discussed the loan and had it all worked out where our payment would be approximately $768.00 and some change. When we had the closing, on June 22, the papers were not saying what we had agreed to and the loan was not a 40 year loan as agreed, nor was the payment $768.00. The papers showed it to be a 30 year loan and that the payment was $843.06 and left a balloon payment of over $68,000.00 due at the end of the 30 years of payments. I've never seen, nor heard of such a thing. It's just not right to owe two thirds of the original balance after 30 years of payments.
I called Mr. Singen on the evening of the closing and informed him that the papers did not read as we had agreed and of the discrepancies. He told me not to worry because one of the papers we would sign would give them permission to sign papers on our behalf so that the corrections could be made. There was such paper and we did sign it, given the promise that it would be taken care of and the contract would read as we originally agreed. The papers also did not show a credit life protection policy as agreed and did not show the $3,868.00 that we agreed that we would really receive in cash.in fact, we did not receive that at all! We only received around $2900.00. Mr. Singen then promised to send me a personal check for the difference, which I never received. That was when I found out there would be no changes made, as he had promised, in the contract and we were stuck with the payment of $843.06, as I mentioned above. The closing person also talked to him on the phone the evening of closing and he even argued with his closing person, who told us that this was not a good way for him to do business. He told Mr. Singen that he needed to talk to us and make good on his agreement if he wanted to salvage the loan. I had told him that we could not afford this kind of payment and he knew that from the beginning.
He started calling me a liar and a deadbeat the day after the closings waiting period was over when I told him there was no way we could make that kind of payments and that he had not held up his promises. He denied all of the things we had agreed to and told me what a lowlife I was for accusing him of lying to us and cheating us. This was when I contacted the Missouri Attorney General's Office about what had happened to us and how we had been done wrong.
He (Mr. Singen) also lied to my insurance agent and told them they were paying the premium for our insurance, but I don't remember the length of time. It was either six months or a year, I don't remember which. They have been in constant contact and were very rude, from what I've been told, to the agent and her employee's working on the collection of the premium. As of yet, they have not received the payment for the premium. I would like you to contact Sherrie, at the (Shelter Insurance) Traci Thomas Insurance Company for further information on this. The telephone number there is 417-624-2220. Sherrie is the office manager and has worked closely on this case with Traci and me to get this resolved. She has also been in contact with the Vice President of Home Funds Direct, and he also informed her that it would get taken care of, in emails and telephone calls. Sherrie has all of this information on file.
In summary, this has been one nightmare after another and has cause unwarranted stress and other health related problems for me and my wife and mother-in-law, who is on the deed and lives with us in the home, from worry and the fear of our losing our home over the deceitfulness of Mr. Singen. I am totally disabled and in a wheelchair, and so is my mother-in-law, and we have not been in good health for many years. Mr. Singen knew this and I feel he was just telling me what I wanted to hear, in order to secure the loan with us, knowing he was lying and making promises that he never intended to make good on. They are also charging $104,000.00 and some change for paying off approximately $98,000.00 plus a 5% early payoff penalty (presumably) which exceeded the amount we really owed in this case, a little less than $103,000.00. Then there is another $8,000.00 and some change that they charged us for the loan, with over $5,000.00 of it being a so-called Loan Origination Fee, and closing costs of over $2,000.00 on top of that, plus numerous other fees I had no knowledge of or understand. Our last loan only cost us around $3,000.00 for everything, and not this ridiculous amount we were charged this time. That loan was even through a broker and not a direct lender like Home Funds Direct is.
All of this combined puts us in a position so that we can not make the payments and he knows this. I believe this was all done intentionally so he could line his pockets with the money he'd make from the loan, regardless of the damage it was doing to us. He knew our nearly $2,000.00 a month income could not stand this kind of payment and he never changed it to the original agreed to amount of $768.00, knowing that we had other payments of $409.94 and $283.51 per month for my handicapped van and my wife's 2001 Durango, as well as our utilities, insurance, taxes, and food to live, to have to pay. With what we take in for income, we pay out almost equally as much, and he knew this. His lies and deceitfulness have put us in a position that we can not overcome, and will cause us to lose everything we've worked hard for all of our lives.
Thank you for your time and I hope you will help us to undo the wrong that has been done to us and help us save our home and propery. This is not right, the way we've been done, and my health degrades more each day as I worry about what and how to do something about what he did to us. It's just more stress than I or my wife should have to bare.
Part 2 of 2
Monday, September 11
I received a telephone call from a Luke Geesic (not sure of the spelling on his last name) who claims to be the branch manager of Home Funds Direct, which I previously filed against at the Missouri Attorney General's office. He threatened me over the telephone with foreclosing on our home immediately if I didn't stop this. I informed him that I intended to do what the Attorney General tells me to do, and not him, and that what he was doing was not legal. He told me that he witnessed all conversations between myself and Luke Singen which I know is false. The reason I know this is because part of the calls were from Mr. Singen's cell phone and he told me he was at home, and various other places. Mr. Geesic could not have possibly been at all of those places at the time of day these calls were made, unless he lives with Mr. Singen 24 hours a day. Mr. Geesic also swears there were never any of the promises that Mr. Singen had made, and I believe he made the promises without Mr. Geesic knowledge, in order to make the loan and his large commission. That, or Mr. Geesic is lying to cover for Mr. Singen.
To recap the promises made, here they are again.
1. Monthly Payments of $768.00 per month for 40 years. He said that we qualified for a special program because of our payment history and $768.00 would be our payments each month. He also said it was a 40 year loan, which turned out to be a 30 year loan instead of 40 years as promised, and leave us owing over $68,000.00 after paying for 30 years! The payment also turned out to be $843.06 and he promised to correct this as soon as the papers arrived to their office. He told me that one of the papers we signed gave them permission to sign on our behalf for any corrections needed. Mr. Geesic claims that no such paper exists, yet we have a copy of it and the closer pointed this paper out to us at closing.
2. Mr. Singen also promised to pay one year of Homeowners Insurance for us, so, Mr. Singen, or one of his office people, contacted my insurance company and told them that they were going to pay for 1 year of insurance premium on our home, which they did not. After several weeks of arguing with my agent, and causing my home to be uninsured from June 30 to August 10, they finally paid six months worth of premium and have refused to pay the other six months plus the late fees incurred because of their delay. My agent had to go to a Vice President of their corporation before getting any cooperation on this matter, but only 6 months of the 1 year premium has been paid to date. My agent has told me that until they contacted the Vice President, Mr. Singen and everyone involved in Mr. Singen's office were extremely rude to them and would not cooperate on the agreement they had made with my insurance agent. They were to pay approximately $595.58, but only paid $307.50, which was also not a complete payment for 6 months premium. It should have been 308.58 according to my insurance agent. The Premium is higher, of course, when you pay 6 months instead of a year at a time.
3. Mr. Singen promised that we would receive $3,068.00 after all cost had been paid and we did not. We received a little over $2,900.00 after we paid $25.00 to receive it. We had to pay the $25.00 in advance.
4. Mr. Singen promised us credit life insurance to cover the total of the loan in the event that one of us should pass away during the coarse of the loan. We did not receive that, and he also denied any knowledge of that, as did Mr. Geesic. This was the only reason that I considered doing business with them. If something were to happen to me, I didn't want my wife losing the home. He promised that this would be taken care of and it wasn't.
In short, they have denied everything they promised to deliver in order to get our business with them, and failed to keep the promises made. Their threats and arguments with me are taking its toll on my health too. I am not in good health enough to keep arguing with them about it and I can not stand by and let them cheat us out of our home either. I have been disability retired for nearly 8 years now because of increasing health problems. I draw a small disability social security check each month that helps very little. I am on oxygen and I am wheelchair bound. I am on various medications for heart and lung related health problems, as well as bone and joint problems. My check doesn't go far enough to help much either.
My wife is the worker in our family and brings home less than two thirds of her gross pay. Her pay also varies each week. Sometime she works three days and sometimes she works four day. She makes around $9.35 an hour and has to travel on her job as a Certified Nurse Aid, deducting from her net pay to buy gasoline at the high prices we have now. This eats up about one third of the net income she brings home. She was informed this last Friday that she would only have 3 days each week. This hurts us even more, but we could still make the $768.00 (MAYBE) a month, if they would only keep their promises, though things will be tighter for us now, than what they were before last Friday.
I told Mr. Singen from the beginning that we could not pay more than $775.00 a month and be able to survive. I told him that we were just barely making it as it was. He kept insisting that our income showed we could afford more, but I emphasized to him that we could not. That was when he informed me that we qualified for a special program they have for people with as good of a payment record as we have. Now that they have lied to us and made the payments so high we can't make them after promising us the $768.00 per month payment. I believe he was intentionally wanting to take our home from us, and knew it would be beyond our means to pay this higher than agreed to payment. I explained to him, in detail, what we had to pay each month. There was no question or doubt of what our financial situation was.
They've broken every promise and agreement they made. I wish I could afford to hire an attorney or somehow bring charges against them for such deceitfulness and put a stop to such treachery on senior citizens and disabled home owners. It just isn't fair that they get by with this sort of thing and cause us to lose our home we have worked so long and hard for when they lied to us about everything. It just isn't right!
By the way, it has taken us 2 months to get 1 months payment together and sent to them. I mailed it this morning. We just can't make the payments they have set up by lying to us. We can possibly make the $768.00 a month, like they promised it would be, but not the $843.06 that they failed to correct to $768.00 as promised. I hope there is something someone can do to help us resolve this atrocity that they have done against us. They insist on lying to us and even lying to other people involved, like my insurance agent. They even lied to the person they hired to do the closing. How is this permitted to go on?
I really hope there is an attorney out there willing to sue Home Funds Direct for us on a contingency basis. We have a good case, according to the Attorney General's office. We are not able to make the payments they forced on us and they have sold the contract to HSBC, who wants their money, of course, and we just can't do it. Things are even worse for us at this time and it's just a matter of time before we lose our home. We lose all of the money we've invested in it over the years, and it just isn't right.
Ken
Joplin, Missouri
U.S.A.
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