This is our nightmare. It is a lengthy story but the details are crucial I think to impress the scope of this banks behavior and how it has tore apart our lives.
Welcome to my personal hell!
My husband and I decided to refinance our home mortgage with our local Firstar US Bank due to lower interest rates, in Aug.
In April a friend called to say that our house was in the legal notice of local newspaper as a forclosure notice. I immediately called the local bank where we had done our mortgage and was told to call the branch office in our nearby capital city. I was connected with a woman named Mary Louise?
After many days of run around she assured me the problem had been found and that there was a transposed number in our acct. # so that our pymts. Were being credited to another acct. She assured me she was crediting our acct. With all these pymts. Three days later I again called the same number and extension and got Mary Louise. I asked her if everything was taken care of and if there was any different acct number info that I needed to mail my pymts. She replied that our # was unchanged and that she had corrected everything in the system.
Life goes on... Right...
We received no futher correspondence from US Bank, phone calls, notices or anything. We assumed everything was fine.
Never assume anything with US Bank!
On Saturday morning, August 16, We received a phone call from my husbands brother. He asked if we knew that our house was again in the legal notice section of the newspaper but this time it was a notice for Sheriff's Sale. It was to be sold to the highest bidder on August 27 at our courthouse. We were dumbfounded. We had received no court papers, notices from US Bank or the law firm representing them.
We called US Bank with the ext. For Mary Louise only to get a voice mail mess. Belonging to someone named Don. We left mess. That we were trying to reach Mary Louise with US Bank regarding our mortgage, and left our name and acct. Number. We received a return call from this Don that he didn't know who Mary Louise was and that he knew nothing about our mortgage.
We then called our local US Bank and spoke to a branch manager named Karen %. She told me to come into her office on Monday morning and to bring my cancelled checks, receipts, ect. With me. I scrambled around trying to get all this together because in less than 10 days they were going to try to sell our house!
On Monday morning I arrived at the bank with cancelled checks, money order receipts, and receipts given to me by that bank for cash pymts. I had made. I was informed by the receptionist that Karen was unavailable. She said she was not sure how long till Karen would be able to see me but I could sit and wait.
(Now I have 4 children who were out of school for the summer, with me. I did not have anyone who could keep them for me.)
I had all my things in a business size envelope. Being an idiot, I sealed the envelope and wrote Karen's first and last name on the envelope in black ink and asked if she (the receptionist) would give this to Karen and have her call me when she was available so I could come back in. I didn't hear from her, so that afternoon I called and the receptionist told me she was gone to lunch and would be returning at 2 pm. At 2:05pm I called and was informed that she was on the phone with a client and would I like to leave voice mail. So I left mess. Asking her to please call me regarding the documents I had left for her that morning and what was being done about it. She never returned my call.
The next day was much of the same runaround. I was growing quite frustrated!
By Wed. I was livid. My husband took the day off from work. We spent much of the morning trying to obtain copies of checks from our old bank who we only had carbons.
We arrived at the bank after lunch time and was told that Karen was still out to lunch and that she would be back at 2pm. It was 1:30.
We went to the courthouse to review these documents and see if there were suppose to be any papers served to us. Sure enough there it was. That they served forclosure papers to my husband himself on Jan. 25 at our front door.
Let me interject here that we only have less than 3 years left on our mortgage at this point. We have remodled and almost doubled our living space and the price of our house and property. I can guarantee you that if we were served any form of papers in Jan. Or any other month, we would have been there with bells on to straighten it out. They want to sell our house for $42,000.00 when it's easily worth $85,000.00 to $100,000.00, due to the blood, sweat, money and tears that we have invested in it over the last 12 years.
Anyway, we went back to the bank at 5 minutes after 2 that afternoon. Upon arriving we were informed that we would have to have a seat and wait that Karen was on the phone. We sat there from 2:05 until 2:55 waiting to see this woman. I then approached the receptionist and told her that we have been waiting almost an hour and that I had children coming home from school. (School had started the preceding day). I said that I would call from home and see when would be a good time for Karen to see us. That apparently I might have more luck talking to her on the phone than sitting for an hour waiting to see her. We were so enraged!!!
At 3:15 I called and was told Karen was still on the phone!
At 3:30 I called and was told that Karen was still on the phone! I left voice mail mess and waited.
At 3:45 we still had not heard from Karen.
We got the children in the van and arrived back at the bank at 3:55. The receptionist told us that Karen was still on the phone but if we wanted to wait she would tell her we were there as soon as she was off the phone.By this time we were about to blow a gasket! We waited for approx. 10 minutes when Karen appeared and asked us to follow her to her office.
My husband asked her what was being done about our mortgage and she said that she was still waiting for us to bring her the information. I told her I had left it at the desk for her on monday and that I had left several messages for her to return my calls. She looked at me and subtly implied that I had never left anything for her, that I was lying.
Furthermore she stated that US Bank had never employed a Mary Louise and that the extension number I had given them belonged to another company who occupied that office in US Bank, and that they had never employed a person named Mary Louise either. I said, " It was US Banks phone number and I reached that extension numerous times and spoke to this Mary Louise who was suppose to have this all straightened out back in April. I also think that you need to start looking for that envelope that I left here Monday. It has all my proof in it."
Anyway she kept saying out of one side of her mouth that she wanted to help us but calling me a liar out of the other side. I got up and left her office before I exploded. Afterward she started implying to my husband that maybe I was the one deceiving him about this matter. My husband blew up and asked for the vice president of the bank and told her that he would have no further dealings with her when she would be so rude and disrespectful to me and to him.
The VP gave us a number with the name of Debra %. This is who our acct was turned over to when it went into forclosure. It is an asset collection company contracted by US Bank. I have yet to meet a more uncaring, rude, and snotty person as this woman. (Except maybe Karen!)
I called this woman and tried to explain that we were waiting for more copies because the bank here had lost mine. That we were unaware of this whole matter until a few days ago, ect. She informed me that she had notes on our file that someone had talked to owner's spouse and that I had said this or that. I said, "No, maam, you are mistaken. No one from your office has contacted us at any point in this nightmare." She then informed me that unless I could fax her copies of all missing payments by the end of the day on the 26th that they would see us at the sale Wed. Morning and hung up!
After this it was just more of the same shit. Everyone saying they wanted to help, but no one actually doing anything! They have still not produced my envelope... That set us back days and days while waiting for more copies from our bank where our checking is.
On August 26th we ended up having to file chapter 13 bankruptcy to keep them from selling our house because we could not get more copies in time.
With the bankruptcy still pending, I have filed complaints with the FTC, the Federal Banking commission, the Attorney Generals Office and the OCC.
We are now looking for a lawyer to hopefully file a lawsuit against US Bank.
I can not tell you of the emotional, mental and physcological toll this has taken on my husband and I.in just a few short weeks, we have almost separated, our life is in turmoil, we are so stressed we are hardly able to function and the children are also affected, being to young to understand what this is all about.
I pray to God daily to give us the strength to defeat this evil that has entered our lives. I only hope we can endure.
Thank you for this website and the chance to share this with you all.
Melissa
Taylorville, Illinois
U.S.A.
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