Everything the man from Joplin, every abuse of trust by the Sunset Hills of Missouri (St. Louis metro) branch of Homefundsdirect is most likely to be true. I know firsthand, and I also hope there will be a class-action suit, because like him I can't afford an attorney.
But to the person who said not to judge the entire company by the behavior of the few: Isn't that why the company should fire the offenders and repair its reputation by remedying the fallout? I went to the regional manager in Texas, by phone, and though his clerk said "this is not the way we do business", I was unable to ever get him to return the call; he was always "traveling on business".
I went to Luke Giesmann because I had suffered medical complications after paying out-of-pocket for major surgery, and it had caused me to live off my credit cards for a time until I recovered and went back to work after 5 months.
I now have a resulting medical disability hat very much limits my employment choices, too, so my financial situation was desperate when I went to Homefundsdirect/Luke Geismann.
I told Luke I could not make the payments on my 175k loan at 6.35%, along with my ARM HELOC through Countrywide for 23k, with the rate rising rapdily. My credit cards were in the 800-plus range, and had despite my desperate months of struggling finally gone 30 and (1 of them 60) days late. I was about to lose my house.
Luke told me his own mother is a nurse, and he knows how hard they work, and he would like to help me especially because of that and my new disability.
I knew the rate would be high, because my credit wasn't remotely good, and I was not surprised when the appraser he insisted on valued my house at 295k when the real value in 2006 was closer to 255k, but as the mortgage was for less than that, I did not complain. I know such companies are aggressive and they are in business to make a living on others' desperation. And don't they have a right to make money lending when no one else will?
But I thought Luke would be honest and up-front about the terms, if I was honest and realistic about this aspect of the business. They were making massive origination fees, so I thought that would be enough to keep them in business.
There were junk fees, too—thousands of dollars in what I knew were unwarranted and which we've been warned against, but there again I expected aggressive greed. When he sent out the wrong contract (on purpose, with a higher rate and missing points we'd agreed upon), he still charged me 200.00 for the notary and another 200.00 for the signing of the correct copy! A notary is 10.00 at my bank or Mailboxes, etc.
There were delays that were unavoidable: I had a new part-time job, and it didn't work out. I took another, and the HR office was slow in confirming my income. But the delay was still MONTHS, and when I asked Luke, he became defensive about it—but assured me that, since rates were actually going down in the market, I would benefit.instead, my rate was 9.4, partly because he unaccountably dragged his feet for about 2 months near the closing, knowing that if I went 30 days late with my existing mortgage, and it would have to happen very soon&and I finally did when I could hold out no longer—he could justify jacking up the rate again to that level.
But the part that devastated me was this: I had gone to him precisely because I was not surviving with my current bills, and I hoped to consolidate them and start fresh, by paying them off. There wasn't enough equity, he said, for me to do that, but he suggested I arrange a settlement with the card companies, and said he would make those arrangements himself. I needed some money for urgent medical/utility bill/household needs, and wanted to be sure I could make the first 2 payments while I got caught up, so I took out about 6k for that.
When I closed the loan, I picked up the checks—listed in the mortgage contract—from the title company and dashed to the post office, sending them Express/registered mail, with a letter confirming the arrangments.
But to my shock and horror, the 3 biggest companies—MBNA, Emerge, and Bank of America, said no such agreement had ever been made; they thanked me for the huge chunks of money toward my principal balances and said they'd expect my regular payments to continue.
Luke ignored me at first, dodging my desperate e-mails and calls, having Luke Singen handle it instead... Promising me via e-mail he could not understand what happened either, and he'd "pull my file right away" and straighten it out. Later, he became abusive, saying "count yourself lucky" and that he'd had no obligation to help me in any way because it was ultimately up to me to make any special arrangements with my creditors, and that there was therefore nothing I could do to him.
This was, of course, in spite of the fact he's stated unequivocally he had already made those arrangements, verbally and in the e-mails I still have. And knowing those debts, and settling them, was precisely why I came to him. And that now I had no hope at all, by what I knew, of keeping my house at all. I have only done so by working so many hours (which I am not supposed to do, medically injurious as it is to do).
I have many e-mails documenting this discussion, both before and after the closing. I went to an attorney who told me this amounted to loan fraud because Luke knew I thought the payoffs (settlements and closure of the card accounts) were not only part of the loan but REQUIRED as a condition of it, because anything else would leave me much worse off than before the loan.
And I was. I now had those same credit card bills and a new loan payment of 2300 a month! The loan origination fee and junk fees were the highest allowed by law, I was told, and so now my principal balance on my new loan was 245,000 with a payment of 2350 per month approximately; it varies a few dollars due to escrow needs, which have also gone up.
I have struggled for 2 years and 3 months to save my house, working 60-plus hours a week at times, suffering health damage while I tried, taking out cash loans at massive interest and living worse than paycheck-to-paycheck to survive. I eventually—many months later— got the card companies to accept the settlements, but not before they all reported me much farther in default first.
I have not been able to save my credit, though the only use of my remaining 3 cards (saved to preserve my credit/rebuild it) in 2 years or more has been Home Depot, as I tried to fix up the house to sell. (This in itself breaks my heart, because it is all I have ever achieved by going to college and working for all these years. I'm 49, and it was my 42nd birthday to myself.)
America's Servicing company will not talk to me because I am only—or will be, as of midnight tonight—30 days late for the 2nd time in 14 months. Yet I am maxed out on cash loans and am paying massive interest and have even been scammed by US Fast Cash, too.
I can't keep it up any longer... Even if I did, my employer no longer offers over-time, and so I can't save the house nor refinance it, because it is now already mortgaged for more than it's worth, and there's a 4500.00 early payoff penalty.
I have been told the housing bubble—but also the overly high appraisal—is making it impossible for me to sell now. All I can do is pray there is a program to help me before ASC forecloses, because no one will refinance me now. I tried BEFORE I got to this point, many times... The fiasco with the credit card companies ruined my credit so completely that by the time I got any distance beyond it, I could no longer survive the massive payments, and I had to be late twice on my cards.
So everything that poor man in Joplin said is totally and completely true, no exaggeration, I'm sure. I, too was told to the MO attorney general, and I did have the forms sent to me. But being so exhausted from overtime and so depressed, I never had the energy or the will.
But maybe I will now, if it's not too late.
And, as for the smart-aleck consumer woman who all but called that man stupid whiner, I can only guess she's about 25 or so, and has no idea how vulnerable she might someday be, and how deceptive lenders and salesmen can be. I hope she finds out for herself, though maybe not in so harsh a way as we did.
Jesse in st. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
U.S.A.
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