My name is Matt and I bought a home in Omaha, Nebraska almost 13 years ago. Since the loan was sold to PHH Mortgage by US Bank I have had nothing but problems and headaches.
I will detail some of the problems I have had with PHH in subsequent blogs, I will provide supporting information, and I will show that I am not the only customer PHH is mistreating, pulling stories from the news, consumer advocate sites, etc..
The short version is very straight forward. When you take out a mortgage, you have monthly payments that you make that the mortgage servicer puts toward your mortgage as you pay it off. Over time, your interest payments become less as you begin reducing your principle amount. What's happening here is that I have been making my scheduled payments as agreed upon with the President of PHH, but the payments I've been making are not being applied to the account. The payments stopped being applied around July 2011, though I was not notified of this until November of 2011 when I received a notice that my account was 90 days delinquent. (Shock to me since I'd been making the payments and the money was disappearing from my account, so SOMEONE was taking the money) While I will outline some of the abuses I've encountered with PHH trying to resolve the matter a little later, the end result is that they give me the run around, have refused to produce evidence that they even hold my mortgage paperwork (I've repeatedly requested to have them send me the original loan documentation and/or give me the name of the title company that now supposedly holds the title - and they repeatedly refuse to disclose this information, a clear and simple violation of RESPA), ask me to call numbers that they then block me from calling, have lied, forged documents, have made multiple accounting errors and send out conflicting information on what is even owed. Furthermore, the original loan was for $95,000 made with US Bank in 1999. 13 years later, PHH is claiming the principle amount due is $110,000, meaning not only have my 13 years worth of payments not reduced my principle and interest, but in fact has gone up $15,000!
On February 2, 2012, we received a foreclosure notification from PHH's lawyer.
I have contacted the State Attorney General, who turned it over to the office of the comptroller who turned it over to the Nebraska Dept of Banking and Finance, whose response will be posted below, essentially stating they have no authority to make a financial institution adhere to federal laws. In the state of Nebraska, we cannot sue them for punitive damages nor recoup court/lawyer fees if we were to take them to court. Nebraska is a non-judicial foreclosure state, so the only way to get it in front of a judge to review is to fork over large sums of money to take them to court. In essence - without deep pockets to take on the mortgage industry, there's nothing we, as citizens of the state of Nebraska, can do to stop them from just stealing our house. I can't refinance because the delinquency reports have destroyed my credit, and the alteration of the original loan amount has caused the loan-to-value ratio to be such that it's impossible to refinance with another institution.
The sad part is - this is the third time they've done this to me, and the third time I've had to fight off a fraudulent foreclosure from them. Previously, because I was living in the house raising a daughter by myself and did not want to be homeless, I simply paid them what they wanted - in the amount of over $27,000 in additional fees, charges, and additional payments (over and above what my normal payments should have been). Call it extortion, racketeering, fraud... whatever - basically if I wanted to stay in my house, I had to do whatever they told me to do and pay whatever they told me to pay. Because I got married and am now living in my wife's house in Kearney, we have the luxury of trying to fight them off. If we lose the house - we won't be totally homeless. Not everyone that PHH is doing this to is that lucky, however. And we aren't the first - but we're working on hopefully being the last.
My purpose in broadcasting this is not about me. I would like to get the issues permanently resolved, and would like to help others who are being burdened by this corrupt company. As you will see in the supporting articles, PHH recently lost a $21M settlement that did nothing to change their behavior. My goal is to see a reaction that causes PHH's share price to fall, for their investors to demand change, for states to suspend their ability to conduct business within their borders, for awareness to be raised and permanent action be taken.
What you can do: share this site to people you know. Get it attention. Call your congressmen, and elected officials, call PHH's offices. Email their board chairman and their CEO. Help me shine a spot light on this abusive company. Be angry, outraged, and appalled along with me.
I am not asking for financial assistance from anyone. I am asking people to donate something more valuable than money, your time. Please call, forward, retweet, share, blog, network and do whatever else you can to help get the word out and stop this company once and for all.
Thank you in advance for your help and support.
**Please note, the dates for the blog posts are not accurate dates. In order to put things in order, we had to make the dates for the posts earlier than the first one since there's no way in blogger to put them in whatever order you want. So this post has to be the most recent posting if we want it to be viewed first.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The History
To give a brief history of how this has gotten so incredibly messed up (please note - these are all PHH's OWN statements and dollar amounts specifying what was and wasn't paid - our own records reflect additional payments not reflected here, but those payments are not even necessary to show the blatant errors.)
At the end of 2003, PHH's year end activity statement showed my principle balance was $90,228.82 (second gray column from the left).
At the end of 2004, PHH's year end activity statement showed my principle balance was suddenly up $97,300.70. (see below)
That same statement reflects payments to principle in the amount of $7071.88... the exact amount my principle balance suddenly went UP instead of down. Additionally it shows a "payment reversal" of $7713.50 that was dumped into an escrow account - and then that money just... disappeared.
Total payments for the 2004 year were $12,216.94.
So in 2004, they added principle instead of reducing (7071.88 *2) and took 7713.50 to escrow - a total of $21,857.26 in errors. (So instead of my principle balance being $83,156.94, it jumped to $97,300.70) Despite the $21k error, their annual statement still reflects an over payment of $1128.46 for the year.
However, this error began to haunt me in 2005 resulting in the first foreclosure attempt and the start of all these headaches. In 2005, the monthly payments were $912.69 for a total annual amount due, $10,952.28.
As of June, 2005, I had paid $10,312.92, which meant I had only $639.36 left to pay for the remainder of the year because I was overpaying each month.
At the end of the 2005 - I began receiving delinquency notices and received foreclosure notices stating that I still owed $10,893.51.
I wrote the following letter and hand delivered the following payment to PHH's then attorney Eric Lindquist:
In January of 2006, I received the following adjustment to my mortgage:
Despite the fact that my taxes for the year did not increase from the year before, they actually went down between 2005-2006, I suddenly had an escrow "shortage" of $21.49 for the year that was unexplained - but that shortage somehow increased my monthly payment by $42.70 - or $512.40 for the entire year to cover a $21.49 shortage.
So, I went ahead and paid the new amount for the remainder of the year - I made 1 payment in January for $912.69, and the next 11 payments were for $955.39 - those were the minimums due (though I paid more than each month as the statement below will show). At the end of the year, I should have only needed to pay $11,464.68. But - I overpaid by paying 16,180.02 as you will see in this next statement at the end of 2006, showing my actual payments. (add together my principal, interest, property taxes and alleged late charges)
At the end of 2003, PHH's year end activity statement showed my principle balance was $90,228.82 (second gray column from the left).
At the end of 2004, PHH's year end activity statement showed my principle balance was suddenly up $97,300.70. (see below)
That same statement reflects payments to principle in the amount of $7071.88... the exact amount my principle balance suddenly went UP instead of down. Additionally it shows a "payment reversal" of $7713.50 that was dumped into an escrow account - and then that money just... disappeared.
Total payments for the 2004 year were $12,216.94.
So in 2004, they added principle instead of reducing (7071.88 *2) and took 7713.50 to escrow - a total of $21,857.26 in errors. (So instead of my principle balance being $83,156.94, it jumped to $97,300.70) Despite the $21k error, their annual statement still reflects an over payment of $1128.46 for the year.
However, this error began to haunt me in 2005 resulting in the first foreclosure attempt and the start of all these headaches. In 2005, the monthly payments were $912.69 for a total annual amount due, $10,952.28.
At the end of the 2005 - I began receiving delinquency notices and received foreclosure notices stating that I still owed $10,893.51.
I wrote the following letter and hand delivered the following payment to PHH's then attorney Eric Lindquist:
In January of 2006, I received the following adjustment to my mortgage:
Despite the fact that my taxes for the year did not increase from the year before, they actually went down between 2005-2006, I suddenly had an escrow "shortage" of $21.49 for the year that was unexplained - but that shortage somehow increased my monthly payment by $42.70 - or $512.40 for the entire year to cover a $21.49 shortage.
So, I went ahead and paid the new amount for the remainder of the year - I made 1 payment in January for $912.69, and the next 11 payments were for $955.39 - those were the minimums due (though I paid more than each month as the statement below will show). At the end of the year, I should have only needed to pay $11,464.68. But - I overpaid by paying 16,180.02 as you will see in this next statement at the end of 2006, showing my actual payments. (add together my principal, interest, property taxes and alleged late charges)
They would do the same thing to me all over again beginning in 2008 and in 2011. Documentation of those errors still to follow. But this gives you a glimpse of the glaring errors made that PHH refused to fix and their continued fraudulent activity by taking my principal payments and instead of applying them to my principal reduction - simply added it to what I still owed. To date - they have my principal amount set at over $110,000 13 years after taking out a $95,000 loan.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Some specifics
Here is the situation - I will try to keep this brief and add more details in subsequent blogs, the goal is to get enough information out to start getting attention. I will add one more blog today - supporting evidence, and continue to update this as time and details become available. Be assured, that what I am posting here is accurate, and I have documentation to back it up. I realize this is a lot to sift through - it goes back almost 13 years, so I am trying to limit what I post here.
Since December 2010 to December 2011 - PHH's attorney has stated my amount due was $13,084.31. The same attorney has submitted records that I have paid - 11818.32*. Despite this, PHH is claiming that my account is several thousand dollars past due. This same attorney, put in writing that my account was current in Nov 2010. PHH has accepted payments as recently as January 31, 2012, yet they have not applied payments for several months. They are holding my money, refuse to apply it to my account, refuse to pay interest on the money.
*My records and PHH's documents show I have paid more than this.
Basically PHH is like the young child who whines for a sandwich, gets it then refuses to eat it because it wasn't cut right, or the peanut butter is on top, instead of on bottom. This is one in a series of games PHH is playing.
I am accusing PHH of mental and emotional abuse. PHH tells me to pay one way, changes it and says to pay a different way. PHH tells me to work through their attorney but calls, emails, and snail mails me - asking me to call them. Despite asking me to call them, PHH has blocked me from calling in to their toll-free numbers, as this you tube video illustrates. These are just simple illustrations - and there are plenty more if you are interested.
Since December 2010 to December 2011 - PHH's attorney has stated my amount due was $13,084.31. The same attorney has submitted records that I have paid - 11818.32*. Despite this, PHH is claiming that my account is several thousand dollars past due. This same attorney, put in writing that my account was current in Nov 2010. PHH has accepted payments as recently as January 31, 2012, yet they have not applied payments for several months. They are holding my money, refuse to apply it to my account, refuse to pay interest on the money.
*My records and PHH's documents show I have paid more than this.
Basically PHH is like the young child who whines for a sandwich, gets it then refuses to eat it because it wasn't cut right, or the peanut butter is on top, instead of on bottom. This is one in a series of games PHH is playing.
I am accusing PHH of mental and emotional abuse. PHH tells me to pay one way, changes it and says to pay a different way. PHH tells me to work through their attorney but calls, emails, and snail mails me - asking me to call them. Despite asking me to call them, PHH has blocked me from calling in to their toll-free numbers, as this you tube video illustrates. These are just simple illustrations - and there are plenty more if you are interested.
I have sent Ms. Hawk and Marty Foster at PHH emails offering to pay the difference their records indicate is owed, but they have refused to accept this. PHH is refusing to discuss any settlement discussions that do not favor PHH 100%, and include a release of PHH from any wrong doing for RESPA or Fair Credit Report Act violations.
PHH is refusing to discuss accepting any payments that are not in the $6000-$8000 range, despite their own records showing less than $1300 is owed.
This is the current situation that needs to be worked through and resolved. This is what immediate help is needed with. I will add more information in coming days, my last post of this weekend will be supporting evidence.
Please let me know what questions you have, what information/evidence you would like to see, what I can do to help you to want to help me. I need help getting the word out - so please comment with what I can do to get you to help accomplish this.
What you can do
I am asking you to please help me. You can do many things. Forward this to your local news outlets, forward it to your friends. The only way this does any good is if it gets visibility. The goal is to get this national attention - anything you can do to help with this is appreciated. This isn't for me, I don't want publicity, notoriety, or attention.
I encourage you to call the NJ Atty General's office and encourage them to not let up in their investigation.
Joseph Iasso is one of the investigators, his number is 973-792-4237.
Call your Senator or Representative and encourage them to investigate this company.
Regardless of your state - if enough calls come in, it might spur action.
Here are the pages for Nebraska:
http://johanns.senate.gov/public/?p=EmailSenatorJohanns
https://forms.house.gov/htbin/formproc_za/terry/webforms/zip_authen.txt&form=/terry/webforms/issue_subscribe.html&nobase
http://www.bennelson.senate.gov/email-issues.cfm
https://adriansmith.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Call the Department of Justice and encourage them to start a federal criminal investigation.
Call PHH - a list of phone numbers are below, call them and let them know you are aware of their abuse. If they get flooded with 1,000 phone calls a day it might serve as a wake-up call. If their voice message boxes are full of messages from people who are fed up with their abuse - it might serve some good (although losing a $21M law suit, didn't help with that).
Luke Hayden - President of PHH - 856 -917-0184
Executive offices - 856 917 6846
Marty Foster - 856 - 917-8222
Camile Hawk - PHH's attorney in Omaha - 402 330 6300
Glen Messina - CEO of PHH 856-917-6847
Call US Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, etc. and discourage them from doing business with this company. My original loan was through US Bank -
The Office of the Corporate Secretary
U.S. Bancorp
BC-MN-H21O
800 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55402-4302
We will be adding more information to the blog with templates, scripts and more addresses soon.
Thanks for anything you do.
I encourage you to call the NJ Atty General's office and encourage them to not let up in their investigation.
Joseph Iasso is one of the investigators, his number is 973-792-4237.
Call your Senator or Representative and encourage them to investigate this company.
Regardless of your state - if enough calls come in, it might spur action.
Here are the pages for Nebraska:
http://johanns.senate.gov/public/?p=EmailSenatorJohanns
https://forms.house.gov/htbin/formproc_za/terry/webforms/zip_authen.txt&form=/terry/webforms/issue_subscribe.html&nobase
http://www.bennelson.senate.gov/email-issues.cfm
https://adriansmith.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Call the Department of Justice and encourage them to start a federal criminal investigation.
US Atty General's office has a generic email address of : AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Call PHH - a list of phone numbers are below, call them and let them know you are aware of their abuse. If they get flooded with 1,000 phone calls a day it might serve as a wake-up call. If their voice message boxes are full of messages from people who are fed up with their abuse - it might serve some good (although losing a $21M law suit, didn't help with that).
Luke Hayden - President of PHH - 856 -917-0184
Executive offices - 856 917 6846
Marty Foster - 856 - 917-8222
Camile Hawk - PHH's attorney in Omaha - 402 330 6300
Glen Messina - CEO of PHH 856-917-6847
Call US Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, etc. and discourage them from doing business with this company. My original loan was through US Bank -
The Office of the Corporate Secretary
U.S. Bancorp
BC-MN-H21O
800 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55402-4302
We will be adding more information to the blog with templates, scripts and more addresses soon.
Thanks for anything you do.
How they are hurting others
There are a number of articles about PHH in the news. A simple google search of PHH + Fraud or PHH +Complaints or PHH + lawsuits will give you matches.
If you go to consumer advocate sites and search for PHH you can easily find numerous complaints. The Better Business Bureau, Rip off Report, etc.
In the supporting evidence blog you will see some information from the NJ Attorney General's office regarding their investigation into PHH, some documents from PHH, their attornies, etc.. This blog contains links to just a handful of articles.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/phh-mortgage-servicing-foreclosure_n_823768.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/30/david-brash-phh-mortgage_n_842707.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/economy/25gret.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.ripoffreport.com/mortgage-companies/phh-mortgage-corpora/phh-mortgage-corporation-corr-2e38c.htm
http://www.givemebackmycredit.com/blog/2011/01/dear-phh-mortgage-stop-screwing-up-our-credit-and-our-payments-stop-trying-to-steal-our-home-through.html
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/03/23/phh-mortgage-jury-awards-gi-20m-in-mortgage-case/
http://phhmortgage.wordpress.com/
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/06/23/illinois-fines-phh-mortgage-corp-290000-in-foreclosure-fraud-document-probe/
http://www.afscanhelp.com/companies/mortgage-companies/phh-mortgage-services.cfm
http://cfpbjournal.presspublisher.us/issue/cfpb-journal/article/cfpb-launches-lender-investigation-publishes-new-exam-guidelines
http://grubealaw.com/archives/2823
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-PHH-Mortgage/#13283937709891&action=udata&udata=false
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/phh_mortgage.html
http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news21154/phh-mortgage-wont-stop-foreclosures
http://www.change.org/petitions/phh-mortgage-stop-illegal-foreclosure-practices
http://phh-mortgage.pissedconsumer.com/
http://www.change.org/petitions/phh-mortgage-stop-illegal-foreclosure-practices
These are just a handful of many, many articles about PHH mistreating their customers, investigations into them, etc. I don't expect anyone to read all of them, but rather to know that for every one I linked to, there are literally dozens more out there.
As a history, this company has replaced their CEO several times in the last ten years, one of their old CEOs, Terry Edwards, is now with Freddie or Fannie - he was ousted by their share holders. Their last CEO, Jerry Selitto, left suddenly in January of this year. Is it normal for a company to go through multiple CEOs in a decade - it isn't abnormal - look at HP, but it certainly merits a closer look. Their mortgage division has also had several different presidents over the last decade, Terry Edwards, Mark Danahy, Luke Hayden, among others.
There is an old expression - where there is smoke there is fire. This blog is pointing out some of the smoke.
If you go to consumer advocate sites and search for PHH you can easily find numerous complaints. The Better Business Bureau, Rip off Report, etc.
In the supporting evidence blog you will see some information from the NJ Attorney General's office regarding their investigation into PHH, some documents from PHH, their attornies, etc.. This blog contains links to just a handful of articles.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/phh-mortgage-servicing-foreclosure_n_823768.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/30/david-brash-phh-mortgage_n_842707.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/economy/25gret.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.ripoffreport.com/mortgage-companies/phh-mortgage-corpora/phh-mortgage-corporation-corr-2e38c.htm
http://www.givemebackmycredit.com/blog/2011/01/dear-phh-mortgage-stop-screwing-up-our-credit-and-our-payments-stop-trying-to-steal-our-home-through.html
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/03/23/phh-mortgage-jury-awards-gi-20m-in-mortgage-case/
http://phhmortgage.wordpress.com/
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/06/23/illinois-fines-phh-mortgage-corp-290000-in-foreclosure-fraud-document-probe/
http://www.afscanhelp.com/companies/mortgage-companies/phh-mortgage-services.cfm
http://cfpbjournal.presspublisher.us/issue/cfpb-journal/article/cfpb-launches-lender-investigation-publishes-new-exam-guidelines
http://grubealaw.com/archives/2823
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-PHH-Mortgage/#13283937709891&action=udata&udata=false
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/phh_mortgage.html
http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news21154/phh-mortgage-wont-stop-foreclosures
http://www.change.org/petitions/phh-mortgage-stop-illegal-foreclosure-practices
http://phh-mortgage.pissedconsumer.com/
http://www.change.org/petitions/phh-mortgage-stop-illegal-foreclosure-practices
These are just a handful of many, many articles about PHH mistreating their customers, investigations into them, etc. I don't expect anyone to read all of them, but rather to know that for every one I linked to, there are literally dozens more out there.
As a history, this company has replaced their CEO several times in the last ten years, one of their old CEOs, Terry Edwards, is now with Freddie or Fannie - he was ousted by their share holders. Their last CEO, Jerry Selitto, left suddenly in January of this year. Is it normal for a company to go through multiple CEOs in a decade - it isn't abnormal - look at HP, but it certainly merits a closer look. Their mortgage division has also had several different presidents over the last decade, Terry Edwards, Mark Danahy, Luke Hayden, among others.
There is an old expression - where there is smoke there is fire. This blog is pointing out some of the smoke.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Correspondence With NE Dept. of Banking & Finance
Below is the correspondence between the Nebraska Dept. of Banking and Finance and me. Here is my initial letter to them (sent February 23, 2012, a follow-up to the original complaint filed originally to the NE State Atty General):
Mr. Munn,
I have an active complaint with the NE Department of Banking against PHH Mortgage. PHH is attempting to fraudulently foreclose on my home. They have accepted my payments, but not applied them to my loan. My loan payment is just over $1000 a mont, and PHH is currently holding over $6000 in un-applied payments. Despite them confirming they have my money, they are moving forward with foreclosure, destroying my credit, and creating a very stressful situation for my wife, daughter, and I. On top of this, I bought my house in 1999 for $95000, today despite never taking a second mortgage and living in the house for 13 years PHH is claiming my payoff amount is $110,000 - with no equity gained in 13 years.
I should get a lawyer - right? That is one of my problems - we've spoken to a dozen lawyers. Nebraska laws are written to protect businesses not consumers. With no possibility of punitive damages, any lawyer wants a significant retainer to take the case. Significant as in $20,000 - $30,000. Also, since Nebraska has changed from a judicial foreclosure state, no judge has to review the process to make sure it is legitimate. We have contacted PHH, we have requested assistance, explanations, government aid with the various programs, but we receive no response. We did receive the application for assistance form - but no response after completing it. We have contacted them under RESPA - requesting our original loan docs, and nothing. We have requested information under MERS - no response. We have disputed information they are reporting to the credit bureaus and no response. So RESPA and the Fair Credit Report Act have been violated, but we can do nothing about it. We made our payments - our banks have confirmed the payments - hell the mortgage company has confirmed receiving most of the payments - they just refuse to apply them.
PHH has prevented me from calling them to even discuss my situation - as this video that I made illustrates - http://www.youtube.com/
I realize you are concerned with Nebraska - but here are some stories of how other states have stepped up to address this issue - options not available to me as a Nebraska resident.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/
http://consumerist.com/2011/
A final article to demonstrate that I am not the only person PHH is doing this to:
The exact same thing is happening to me as is happening to this family.
We need help, not lip service. More importantly, the 1100 people that have taken the time to report abuse, mistreatment, fraud, or other wrong doing by this company - need justice. We'd like to see criminal charges filed against Luke Hayden, Martin Foster, Bill Brown, Walter Wronka, James Eagen, and other executives at PHH - instead of letting the individuals committing the crimes continue to do so with immunity. We'd like to see PHH charged with fraud and lose their ability to victimize other Nebraskans. We'd like to see the elected and civilian members of the government of Nebraska stand up for its residents.
Please do what you can to help us, or point us in the proper direction for assistance. HUD is not an option - we went that route and discovered the head investigator had financial ties to the mortgage industry - including PHH, the company she was allegedly investigating. When we pointed this out, they complained about me. We need real assistance. We need action - not form letters and passing off to other people. Please help us.
Thank you,
Matt McDermott
Kearney Nebraska
Here was their response:
My response was as follows:
Dear Mr. John Munn,
Thank you for writing me back, I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I read your response and I am confused. As the director of the Department of Banking, surely you are aware that your Department has the ability to prevent a company that can be proved to be committing fraudulent acts from doing banking business in the state of Nebraska. Your office has the ability to protect Nebraskans from fraudulent companies, and has the ability to prevent these companies from doing business in the state.
I never asked your agency to determine compliance with federal laws, but I did reference federal laws as part of the evidence against the company. After all, do you want a company that knowingly violates federal consumer protection laws able to do business in your state, and harm the residents of Nebraska? If I were a public official – whether elected or simply compensated by the tax payers of my state – I’d make it a priority to look out for them.
Had you actually looked into my complaint, you would’ve realized that my mortgage company won’t talk to me. They are practicing what has been clinically confirmed by a medical professional as emotional abuse against one of the residents of your state. It’s ok – Nebraska doesn’t have any laws protecting me against this abuse. Nebraska doesn’t have any laws protecting me at all – I can’t take them to court, because I can’t get my legal fees reimbursed, I can’t sue for damages, because Nebraska considers destruction of my credit history to be punitive – not actual – damages, I can’t wait for a judge to review the foreclosure and rule it fraudulent (as was done in NY and IL – against this very company) because Nebraska changed to a non-judicial foreclosure state. Over the last 15 years Nebraska has changed or passed multiple laws to make it almost impossible for the average citizen to defend themselves against a big business. So your office finding someone at the mortgage company isn’t what I have asked for assistance with.
I am fully aware that your Department is unable to assist me in stopping the fraudulent foreclosure. I am asking your department to make Nebraska a safer place for Nebraskans to do business, and to protect the people instead of the businesses. Your office can stop PHH from doing business in this state. Your office can fine PHH $5,000 per day for non-responsiveness. Your office can make a difference, if the government of Nebraska decides that protecting Nebraskans should be the priority instead of protecting the businesses. I am not optimistic that this will happen, but it is the right thing to do, and it is possible.
Your letter misrepresented facts. I do not expect constant communications. I do think waiting now 3 weeks for a return phone call is unacceptable. I appreciate the workload, and if 45 Nebraskans are requesting help, perhaps the process by which the department allows businesses in, needs to be reviewed. You have one person assigned to help the citizens, how many are assigned to help the businesses?
You are also misstating facts. The email on February 17th was a new complaint of wrong doing. As were most of the 80 emails. Additional evidence of fraud. I have copied the DOB.COMPLAINTS address on emails to PHH so they are aware that my state’s government is involved. However, my response to PHH was dated January 31 – and the clock starts on that day. The 21 days are considerably past and your department, being very business friendly, may prefer to use every possible excuse and opportunity to extend PHH’s deadline, the fact is their deadline expired 21 days after January 31st. Perhaps if you would fine the companies that break the laws, instead of researching loopholes to extend their deadlines you would have fewer complaints – or be able to hire more people to handle them.
Your brief review is also incorrect. PHH did not quit accepting payments. They quit applying payments. PHH is currently holding more money than they claim is due, yet they still wish to foreclose. PHH is not crediting my account for the money they have accepted, PHH is not paying me interest on this money, PHH is damaging my credit, while they earn interest on my money.
I agree that I am at a disadvantage. I live in a state that passes laws to protect businesses from the citizens they harm. In NY, IL, GA, among others the citizens have been able to fight back. CA is widely known for its pro-citizen laws. The bank that my loan was through, US Bank, sold the loan to Cendant, who became PHH. US Bank has no ownership of my note, and PHH claims to be the owner and servicer of the note. Although in Nebraska, the note is in reality held in trust by a title company – the name of which PHH will not disclose despite numerous requests, including those under RESPA.
Also I am not past due. PHH’s attorney has documented a payment history that is missing payments confirmed by PHH’s Executive Vice President of Mortgage Services, Martin Foster, and payments confirmed by an Executive Vice President at American National Bank. The payments Ms. Hawk, Mr. Foster, and Mr. LaFollete have confirmed total more than the minimum payments due. You also mention partial payments.*
This email came from Marge Sherrer in the office of the President of PHH mortgage on March 10, 2009:
“If you continue to send in partial payments they will be
applied to
suspense or applied to principal as I stated in my previous
email. We do
have a program called FlexPay that may be a good solution
to this issue.
I can send the information out to you.”
applied to
suspense or applied to principal as I stated in my previous
email. We do
have a program called FlexPay that may be a good solution
to this issue.
I can send the information out to you.”
Please notice it does not say, “please do not send in partial payments” or “partial payments will not be accepted” it says – if you do partial payments they WILL BE APPLIED. If there was an issue with partial payments in late 2011, where was the communication to that affect, and why were they accepted just fine for over two years with no issues.
This is in response to your letter, and is not intended to buy PHH more time, so if you feel this would do so, than simply shred it. My intent is not to give a loophole to a company, I live in a state that has a government to do that for me. This is simply meant to inform you of the inaccuracies of your note. Also, please save your office and the tax payers money, if you respond do it via email. Save the stamp, the fancy letterhead, the environment.
Lastly, I have pasted my original email below, as you can see it doesn’t reference constant contact, or many of the other things you mentioned. The crux of the issue is you have an out of state mortgage company with a publicly documented history of abusing customers, ignoring laws, falsifying documents that is being investigated by their home state for illegal activity – and you have a lifetime resident of your state asking for protection – not for himself, but on behalf of all 1.8 million Nebraskans – from predatory and abusive companies like this. You have the power and the evidence to prevent them from hurting anyone else in Nebraska. Please demonstrate that you care about the people of your state, by taking action to stop PHH.
*What is meant by partial payments: the Office of the President of PHH Mortgage allowed me to make 2 payments a month - on the 1st & 15th, in amounts that ultimately were higher than a single monthly payment would have been. In essence, I was making one full additional payment a year by making 2 payments a month that were approximately $80 a month extra. This is a standard option among mortgage companies and servicers, designed to help save the consumer money in the long run because you pay your mortgage off faster, thus paying less interest. Payment overages were put into an escrow suspense account so that in the event I made a payment that was slightly lower than what the full monthly payment should have been, this suspense account would make up the difference by applying the funds from that account. To date, PHH shows that I still have over $200 in this escrow account that are also unapplied.
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