The following, (in ""'s) is an exerpt from a letter we wrote to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency:
"A broker was enlisted to find us refinancing, and he did so with a company then called Equicredit. Unfortunately, our lack of savvy at that time led to this broker becoming privy to certain details of our situation, which enabled him to take advantage of us as follows:
After informing us that hed found a deal in which wed sign a 30-year, fixed-rate note at under 9%, and cash out for the money we needed for a used vehicle down payment, an appraisal was ordered, but came in too low, ($79,000), to complete the deal. We were told not to worry, and that hed get a second opinion. This second appraisal, ($105,900), was high enough to write the deal, and we were advised that wed be going ahead. At the closing table, our deal became a 7-year balloon note at nearly 12%. Our financial duress and reassurance by the broker that another refinancing at more conventional terms would be available to us after a certain period of performance prevented us from backing out at closing.
Over the next two years, Equicredit repeatedly mis-posted and lost payments. Despite our efforts to rectify these problems as they arose, it continued to occur, with Equicredit applying late payment charges each time while promising to research the discrepancies, but never doing anything that led to resolution. They also repeatedly charged us for insuring the property during alleged lapses in our own coverage, and again, despite our attempts to rectify, they were always less than cooperative on their end.
At one point, we signed an agreement with them, in which they were to defer 2 payments to the end of the term, at a cost to us of over $5,000. Though it was promised as such, this also never brought our account to a current status, and the accrual of interest and late payment charges continued. (Weve recently found out that there are thousands of victims of these very same tactics perpetrated by this predatory company, which now operates under the name Fairbanks Capital Corporation.) Again this was all very damaging to our financial situation, and disastrous to our credit rating.
Near the end of 1996, we filed bankruptcy, but elected to stay in the home. Repeated attempts to refinance the home since then have all failed, with the numerous, (at times) inquiries further damaging our credit rating. Stuck in the loan, the balloon payment came due on September 1, and as shown on the Act 91 Notice received 6 weeks later, is now more than 14 times the (balloon) amount shown in the original note. Our delinquency, real or otherwise, notwithstanding, we are now in default due to the fact that we, of course, do not have the balloon payment, and cannot refinance."
Our manufactured home is now worth considerably less than Fairbanks' payoff figure, (which they charged us $50 to get, by the way). We have no equity at all and no way out. Fairbanks allowed us to apply for a "modification, " which I'm certain can only lead to more "crime" on their part. It's been weeks since we submitted both our application for assistance from PA and the Fairbanks "modification" deal, with no word from anyone yet.
0 comments