My wife and I refinanced last fall on our home we have been living in for a few years. I have been a homeowner for over 20 years, and have had a mortgage with many lending institutions. With my wife out of work, and our budget tight, we needed to refinance to pay off some bills that had higher interest. We consolidated other loans into the mortgage. Our loan was sold to a financial institution called CitiMortgage.
We both have had loans over the years, and have been very good to our commitment. Realizing that within our budget, a large lump sum on one of our two paydays conflicted with payments to the utilities, gas and food expenses, so we decided to get on the Bi-monthly payment plan.
Setting up this payment plan was a challenge because everyone we talked to on the toll free number was from a call center somewhere outside the U.S. Needless to say a language barrier took place on every call. We finally got set up, and our payments scheduled. The bank however kept sending a bill. One of the monthly bills was a payment that we needed to make, on top of our bi-weekly plan.
Soon We got a letter every month stating we were a month behind. Finally a letter in January said we were in default and being one month behind, that the credit bureaus have been notified of a late payment for the last several months, and an inspector would be sent out every month to check on the condition of the house at our expense. Our issue was that every monthly bill received, we would call the toll free number to confirm. The person on the other end of the line, could not understand what our concern was, and acted as if they were reading responses out of a manual, twice this weekend to someone in India, and today to someone in the Philippines. And on every call, they needed my full SSN to verify the account number! I did get a chance to talk with a real US citizen over the weekend, working at home with a cold, and that person only needed verification of the last four of my SSN.
Bottom line here is our major financial institutions are looking for an easy $ at the expense of the very customer they serve and beyond. Those included of losses in US jobs in exchange for overseas jobs that pay less. So where did this savings go? Maybe into the Ceo's pocketbook, possibly. But big banks and lending institutions invested into oil futures, driving up the cost on the commodities exchange. (60 minutes 1/11). According to the program, there was no increase of the asking price for OPEC oil, nor where there any significant changes in the supply and demand over the years. When the price of oil went back down to normal, their investments went sour, now these banks are asking for bailout money, and laying off more workers.
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