Here's a copy of my letter to Wells Fargo. I've posted it here, on usacomplaints.com and sent it to others I thought MAY make a difference.
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
MAC: X7801-03K
3476 Stateview Boulevard
Fort Mill, SC 29715
Re: Loan Numbers xxx
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this hardship letter after speaking to John Morgan (800-853-8516) on Thursday, April 30, and receiving his Retention Checklist on Friday, May 1. Attached to this letter, you will find all of the information requested: an explanation of our situation, the Financial Worksheet, proof of income, monthly business and personal expenses, signed contracts for work scheduled (for my self -employed husband), bank statements, and tax documents. *All in duplicate-for each loan.
My family is actually suffering from TWO hardships.
The first, being the economy. Like many other self - employed people, my husband is suffering from less work and having to lower his prices in order to obtain work. While his income is decreasing our bills are staying the same or increasing. The power bill for example, has increased 18% this year! We are cutting back on everything possible. We've canceled our health insurance (with the exception of our daughter's), cut back on other unnecessary expenses and taken our daughter out of all of her extracurricular activities. Attached, you will also find documentation from the state of North Carolina advising that MY pay is being decreased by. 5% and 10 hours of labor will be furloughed.
During a phone conversation with one of your representatives it was suggested that we ask family to lend us money and/or put our house up for sale. It would be great if either were possible. We are unable to ask our grandparents for help because they are living off of small social security checks. My mother-in-law is battling cancer and working full time to support herself and her husband (who is looking for work after suffering from health problems). My father has been consistently looking for work since the company he worked for went out of business in May. And, my mother, who lives near us, in Dare County, was laid off and has been unemployed for several months as well.
According to the Virginian Pilot newspaper (in their April 26 issue), area unemployment rates are starting to creep downward, but Dare County still has the highest rate, 14.6 percent, in the northeast region and one of the highest in the state. North Carolina's jobless rate is 10.8 percent, the fifth-highest in the nation.
It would be WONDERFUL if we could sell our home, but houses aren't selling right now! There are houses in the county and even on our block that are larger than ours listed for $30,000.00 less than we owe and they still aren't being sold! Our interest rate has prevented us from putting a dent in the principal and our house is way over priced for the current market. We have spent several thousand dollars painting and putting granite counter tops and hardwood floors in our home and it doesn't help the value of our home us a bit.
The second hardship is the more stressful of the two; our relationship with Wells Fargo itself. I am not being humorous. This is very serious, upsetting, and unfortunate.
When my husband and I purchased our 1120sq ft. Home in March we were told that we had to have an 80/20 loan with high interest rates due to our past credit, BUT once we proved our credit worthiness after two years, we would be able to refinance to have a normal interest rate and one combined (smaller) payment. That turned out to be UNTRUE. Although we have paid your company approximately $60,000.00 in interest over the past three years, have NEVER been 30 days late on our payments, and have raised our credit scores we have been denied both refinancing and loan modifications.
When I called last November and asked to refinance or modify our loan I was told arrogantly, that due to the new laws, Wells Fargo didn't HAVE to help us because we were not past due. That is amazing. Not only were we lied to, but we are being penalized for being good paying customers that care about our credit! What a business strategy. It appears that you know that with the interest we've already paid in the past 3 years, you won't lose money on our house if you have to foreclose on it. So no, you don't really NEED to retain our business with your company. It's DISGUSTING that people would HAVE to be past due and RUIN their credit rating just to get your help. One would think that we were being responsible for trying to prevent a bad situation BEFORE it happens!
I called back in January of this year and advised a representative that our bills are the same, but our income has decreased and I asked for our interest rates to be modified. She asked me why I thought Wells Fargo would give me a loan if we were making less money! I explained that we have been making the extremely high payments for 3 years without being late and didn't see why they wouldn't trust us to make a smaller payment. She rudely said, with a smaller income, I guess we'll see just how long you can make those payments! Again, great customer service. Yes, we did go past the grace period, and did pay the corresponding late fees - BUT we didn't hit 30 days past due and even if we had, I didn't deserve to be treated with disrespect.
After hearing Obama on the news I went to http://makinghomeaffordable. Gov/. After seeing that my husband and I probably qualified (per this site) to modify our loan I called a local Wells Fargo branch. I was told that there was nothing that could be done on branch level because I didn't have a Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac loan and that Wells Fargo didn't participate in Obama's new plan!!! How funny is that?! The government just bailed Wells Fargo out with $25 BILLION dollars and they can't seem to help exceptional customers like they promised, even before it became a necessity due to the economy. We aren't asking for money! We are asking for our rates to be lowered, something we shouldn't even have to financially qualify for. We are trying to avoid having our payments one month behind. Do you realize how hard it would be for someone to catch up on a payment that is just under $2200.00 a month? At that point it will inevitably end up in foreclosure. Can't you see that we're trying to avoid that? We WANT our home. We NEED our home.
Your company has messed up our escrow twice, paid our taxes late, double paid our insurance AFTER I spoke with manager, Jonathan Suplin on March 12 about an ongoing problem dated back to February 25 (and tried to escrow us for the extra amount I STILL don't have the correction letter that I was promised by TROY in your insurance dept. I may still get an increased bill for it in June!) AND treated us like dead beat customers! Now that I've literally cried for help, to the Wells Fargo Presidential office, I did get a Retention Checklist (that I am VERY thankful was over-nighted to me) that states that I need to complete, sign and date an enclosed Financial Worksheet and it wasn't even enclosed! Yes, I did call back and it was faxed to me, but come on! How many times do you get to mess up? Do I have any recourse? NO, I don't. Have I made mistakes on my loan? Yes, I've gone past the grace period and I was penalized with monthly late fees of $50.92 and $21.11, not to mention the $15 per loan to make payments over the phone when we get close to the end of the month. When are you going to stick to your promises and reward us for our faithfulness and help us in these hard times? It would benefit everyone! Obviously we've been making our payments. I don't understand why it's hard for you to believe that we will continue to pay if our payment is smaller and affordable!
All we can do at this point is pray; pray that your company has a little bit of decency and my family can stay in our home. You have no clue how easy it would be for us to pack our belongings and let you foreclose on the house. We could easily rent the same house, anywhere in this area, for $1050.00 a month. Do you know how much money we would save? BUT, we care about our credit and the fact that we signed an agreement with your company. We are trying to honor it. We are using my husband's business money, which should be purchasing materials to finish his jobs, to pay you! The longer we delay his jobs the longer it will take us to get you your next massive payment! I don't know how much longer we can keep doing this. We are just asking for some assistance with a smaller rate not a bail out! We want our interest rates reasonable so that we can afford to live in our home and fulfill our contract. We deserve your help. WE'VE EARNED A LOWER RATE REGARDLESS OF THE ECONOMY.
Hopefully, someone in your office (or someone that I forward this letter to) will see that we deserve this modification and actually help us. I've attached copies of some recent articles regarding other Wells Fargo customers going through the same run-around or worse, as well as some bail out information. I think you will find them interesting. I just pray that unlike these customers, we actually get help BEFORE it's too late.
Sincerely,
All documents CC:
President Barack Obama Congressman Walter Jones
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW 2333 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20500 Washington, DC 20515
Department of the Treasury 10 On Your Side
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW c/o WAVY-TV
Washington, D.C. 20220 300 Wavy Street
Portsmouth, VA 23704
Dateline NBC Complaints.com
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112 usacomplaints.com
Better Business Bureau
505 5th Ave # 950
Des Moines, IA 50309
CBS Evening News: How A Big Bank Took American Tax Dollars And Went On A Spending Spree
Comments 31
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 | by Sharyl Attkisson
(CBS) Nearly four months later, how are banks spending bailout money? CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson takes a look at Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo hit the jackpot. It was one of the first banks to get bailout funds - the biggest amount awarded in a single shot: $25 billion tax dollars.
So how's all that money being used? CBS News asked repeatedly and Wells Fargo told us it is "positioned well to continue lending across all sectors and satisfying customers' financial needs, which is in the spirit of the Treasury's plan."
In other words, they didn't give specifics. And the fact is, neither Congress nor the treasury department required them to.
But there's one big change at Wells Fargo that's hard not to notice.
Troubled Wachovia has been bought out by Wells Fargo for $12.7 billion, creating the nation's second-largest bank in terms of deposits. But it might not have happened without the generous support of the federal government and your tax dollars.
Updated 8:02 A.M. EST, Tue December 23
Where's the bank bailout money?
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each received $25 billion — the largest amount given to any bank.
Wells Fargo said it can't provide any details until it releases its fourth quarter statement, though the bank said it intends to use the money to help customers avoid foreclosure.
Another Wells Fargo victim
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
U.S.A.
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