Chase’s own catch-22

This came from a comment to one of our posts, but it is much to interesting to leave burried there.

Chase has been reading a lot of Kafka lately. Especially, the Castle, and they’re inspired!: There are lots of people caught in a terrible loop of Chase “losing Documentation” and making people continually re-send in forms for an MHA even after they are appoved for one by the gov’t. So we had a Chase bank mortgage specialist at a Chase bank fax all our forms for us but Chase still claims they didn’t receive all the required information and then demanded even more information not asked for on the application. Since we own and live in a duplex we must now send them proof we do not have not formed a homeowners association with our housemates, for example. But the real test of their devious cleverness is a scam based on their own bank statement paperwork. Please admire its Kafka-esque brilliance. On Chase bank statements they leave the last page “left intentionally blank” but they do not number this last page. For example, a Chase account may have 6 pages and all the pages say, i.e., 1 of 6, 2 of 6, but page 6, the blank one, is not numbered 6 of 6. we have been continually turned down for an MHA because we are not sending them, Chase- holder of our mortgage and the bank where we have our accounts- complete bank statements even though we do send them that 6th page. Since it doesn’t say 6 of 6 they claim our application isn’t complete and make us start over from the very beginning. Going on Month 7. Evidently that’s nothing, most people who have tried have been trying for twice this long. There is one recorded incidence of Chase approving an MHA but it was too late and the house was already in foreclosure…

Anyone see the movie Brazil?  That is just brilliant, don’t number your statements properly so that anyone sending them in as proof of a bank statement will have an incomplete statement.  Brilliant!

Chase better late than never with East Bay foreclosure office

Chase may call them homeownership centers, but they are more aptly called foreclosure prevention offices.  Well their latest one is in the San Francisco Bay Areas East Bay region which has been rife with foreclosures for a good two years.  Why so late to the party?  The question remains whether Chase is truly committed to working with people facing foreclosure of whether their move is simply a political one.

Chase loan mod – delay, delay, delay, foreclose

Cindy reports:

Trying since April 2009 for home loan mod.. made my payments.. did everything they asked.. and now on June 23, 2010.. my property of 25 plus years will be sold at auction…i’m fighting this.. but after reading your letters.. i think this is what they do.. i also.. submitted paper..after paper.. call after call.. and now no one i’ve spoke with is there.. and they can’t find papers.. or say i didn’t send papers..

What can you do ??

We’ve reported this same exact scenario many times.  What is still an open question is whether Chase is doing this on purpose or because they are inept and just can’t seem to get their act together.

A two-year Chase loan modification odyssey

Jonathan started trying to get a loan modification (then called a loan workout) back in April of 2008.  Even before the official government programs started in 2009, Chase couldn’t get on the ball fast enough and had him resubmit his paperwork because it was out-of-date before they were done reviewing it.

What followed was a two-year odyssey of repeated refiling of paperwork, leaving messages and not being able to get a hold of Chase employees, being told to wait, racking up extra fees, and the constant threat of foreclosure.

I have said this before and I will say it again:  Assuming fraud wasn’t involved, there is nothing wrong with Chase wanting to hold people accountable to the commitments they have made.  What is so troubling is their lack of clear process, clear messages, and the slightest inkling that they know what they are doing.

Woman pays mortgage in full and on time, Chase still tries to foreclose

Wow, this is a big screw up on Chase’s part and shows just how badly Chase screwed up some things when they transitioned WaMu customers over to their bank.  In essence,  the customer had a mortgage with WaMu since 2003 and never missed a payment or was late.  All of a sudden she received a letter in the mail saying they are being foreclosed upon.  WTF?

Turns out that Chase, in response to a small lapse in the homeowners insurance, added an escrow account for insurance onto her loan that added additional payment.  But they somehow forgot to notify her of it. When checks came in, they noticed that the check amount didn’t equal the newly increased due amount, so they put all the payments into a “suspend fund” and the payments were not applied to her mortgage.  Again, they failed to notify her that this was happening.

So many of  the problems with Chase seem to do with their lack of notifying customers of essential information.

Chase sued for telling homeowners to stop making payments

Another lawsuit calling out Chase for bad behavior. This time related to the practice of telling homeowners to stop making mortgage payments so they will quality for a loan modification:

JPMorgan Chase instructed homeowners to stop making mortgage payments, as that was the only way to be considered for a loan modification, then repossessed their house when they followed the bank’s advice, a couple claims in Federal Court.

The process seems to go like this:

1. Chase recommends stopping payments to qualify for a loan modification
2. Chase  approves a trial modification.
3. Chase works in parallel on foreclosure actions
4. Chase denies permanent modification after an extended trial modification and then demands all missed payments in a lump sum or they will foreclose, or Chase skips this step and just forecloses.

Foreclosure dismissed because Chase doesn’t have the authority

This is interesting.  A judge dismissed a foreclosure action with prejudice (meaning they can never try to foreclose again) after ruling that Chase, as an intermediary and not the owner of the mortgage debt, did not have the authority to foreclose.

It is not clear from the blog post all the circumstances that led up to this decision, so it isn’t clear if it might apply to a broader base of Chase mortgage holders where the loan has been sold off.

Chase warns investors of borrowers walking away from their homes

Apparently Chase’s loan portfolio continues to sour and they recently warned investors of a substantial risk from borrowers walking away from their homes and their debt with Chase.   This includes homeowners that can still afford their payments but are walking away in so called strategic defaults because they owe much more than the value of their home.

Good luck with that Chase.