I am writing to tell you my story on behalf of my 88 year old father who has done his banking with Washington Mutual for many years and has 3 loans with WAMU. My father has Alzheimer's Disease and was found to be incapable of handling his affairs by Adult Protective Services.
My father has been a victim of financial elder abuse for a number of years by a person who was a caregiver for my mother who is now deceased. WAMU made it possible for this predator to extract a significant amount of momey from my father, even after they had constructive notice of the financial abuse. A family friend notified the local WAMU branch where my father banks of the problem. APS was notified of the situation as well. WAMU froze his accounts for a few days and filed a police report (I have the case number). The caregiver convinced my father to unfreeze the avvounts and WAMU proceeded to lend my father an additional $300,000 on top of the $500,000 he had already borrowed from the bank. All of this money went directly to the caregiver who purchased two homes for herself and sent significant amounts of money to her native country.
The additional $300,000 was lent after a home equity loan of about $500,000 was converted by WAMU into a mortgage loan. I believe this loan was converted because my father did not have the capability to repay the loan as a home equity. The monhly payment on the first and second together EXCEED his monthly retirement and social security income.
I have been attempting to work with WAMU for over two years and have been given the most deplorable customer service and runaround. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for anything. I have been told that there is an elder abuse case within WAMU to go after the caretaker and an investigation into a fraud and forgery case. (I have the case numbers given to me by WAMU) This has also been stalled because I cannot seem to speak to anyone who knows anything.
They drug their feet for over a year telling me that they were investigating and it took months and months for them to supposedly get all the cancelled checks. Then they told me that my case had been transferred to "LEGAL" and that I would have to have an attorney to pursue this any further. I cannot afford the $100k that I have been told that this would cost me, up front.
Adult Protective Services told me that this one of the worst cases of financial elder abuse that they have ever seen. His home was in the foreclosure process as of August of but APS told WAMU to record a rescission. Chase Bank is now preparing to re-start the foreclosure process.
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