Ok, so I don't know if I'm posting this in the right forum or not, so feel free to move this if I didn't...

I just wanted to let everyone know that the bailout money that we allowed our Congress to give away to the banks, so that they could help people stay in their homes? Well, it's a total crock. A total fraud.

We should NEVER, EVER, EVER let Congress EVER bailout banks, EVER again. The banks are not giving out this money like they are supposed to...they are hanging onto it.

For months, I've been trying to talk to my bank (Bank of America) about a loan modification. I just got hung up on, time after time. (My loan interest rate is fine, but my value has gone down by HALF since I bought my house at the top of the market in 2005. I wanted them to reduce the principle since I've lost so much value in my home, thanks to all the foreclosures in my neighborhood, due to bad loans given out, etc...)

So, a few weeks ago, I decided: Screw it... I'm not playing this game anymore. And I'm not going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest into a house that has lost so much value. I decided I'm walking away.

So, tonight, I called B of A one more time, in hopes of telling them what I've decided, so that they might help me out to prevent me from walking away.... and I actually got a hold of a loan officer on the phone this time!

I told him my situation....and he got NASTY with me. VERY nasty.

He said no way, no how, are they going to reduce the principle of the loan. He said that only happens in about 1 out of 1000 loans.

I told him, well, I live in Arizona, we're the worst hit state...He said, "No, California is the worst, Arizona is one of the 4 worst. "

I said, fine...whatever...but my house is now worth about half of what I paid for it, and it will never be worth what I paid for it in 2005."

He got mean and said "that's speculation. You don't know that your hosue will never be worth what you paid for it again...it's all speculation, jsut like the stock market."

WTF?? Why did he bring up the stock market?? I'm talking about my house here, not my stock portfolio!

He continued: "We're not going to modify your loan, because if we do, and then the market goes back up, do you think we're going to let you walk away with that money??"

I was flabbergasted....I called him for help, and he was being SOOOO rude to me! You should have heard the tone in his voice.

I finally got angry and said "Listen, I didn't call to get attitude from you."

He said "Well, you just told me that you're going to walk away from your home. How do you want me to act towards you??"

I was dumbfounded. I got angry and hung up on him because I am at work, and I knew if I stayed on the phone, I would start yelling and screaming and that would not be good to do at work.

But I should have said: Well, I want you to take some of that 700 BILLION that Obama gave you guys and start modifying loans like you were supposed to. And this is YOUR fault my house is worth half of what it was 4 years ago, not mine. YOU guys were the ones giving out all the bad loans, and now MY house is worth **#$ because of all the foreclosures.

Oh, I am so angry. So, that was Bank of America's last chance to help me not walk away from my house....and they blew it.

You know, I pay my mortgage payments EARLY every month. I've never been late, not once.

And this bailout....I thought the whole point of this bailout was to help the banks help the people stay in our houses. Obviously not. The bailout was to help the banks get richer.

So now, when I tell people I walked away from my house because it lost half it's value...and someone asks me, "Did you even try to talk to your bank first?" I can say yes, I did. And I got yelled at and treated terribly on the phone....after I got hung up on 5 times!

[edit on 8-9-2009 by nikiano]

First, correct, they should not be rude to you.

Now, let's see, you're upset because you signed a loan agreement / contract to pay back so much money at a certain amount per month at a certain interest rate.

For whatever reason, now you want the bank to lower the amount you are to pay back.

Why should they? You signed, you have to pay.

To say that you're walking away is just wrong. You agreed to the terms, so keep making your payments and keep up your end of the deal.

Originally posted by nikiano
But then I realized... IT'S THEIR FAULT THAT MY HOUSE HAS DEPRECIATED IN VALUE BY HALF....not my fault.

How is it the banks fault that your house depreciated? Why is it their obligation to take a loss on a poor business investment that you made? Did someone from bank of America show up and force you to buy that house?

Originally posted by elevatedone

For whatever reason, now you want the bank to lower the amount you are to pay back.

For whatever reason? How about for the reason that my house is now worth HALF of what it was in 2005, when I bought it?? And my realtor is telling me it will NEVER be worth what I paid for it.

I would call that strang and extenuating circumstances.

I think the poster is really mad about is the hypocrisy of B of A or employee of B of A giving him the gears, when our tax dollars bailed them out.

They were given money to make loan modifications including buying down home prices for struggling owners. This is also why the government changes the rules on NOT having to claim the buy down as income on your tax bill for the next 2 years.

I've ALWAYS had perfect credit, and I got caught with a hefty credit card(I was trying to pay down more house principal by using a 0% interest card) since my HELOC was cut by 80% and I couldnt get the house debt back on my house.

SO I called B of A, and said, Hey...need a month to take care of this issue etc...Long story short she yelled at me, with the same attitude this poster was talking about. SO I ended up settling 43k in debt for 15k lump sum payment. Yep, 15 for 43.

I heard this SOOO often, "It's just business, don't take this personally." So I used it with B of A, and my bank. I said, give me a reason to keep my house, and they modded my loan as well.

So I ruined my credit for 7 years, and still have never made a late payment. The best part is, I wouldve paid the entire debt if they would have given me a month to figure things out.

Screw B of A. This is the guys HOUSE, he wasn't buying it on spec. When a corporation ends up in a tough spot they BAIL on EVERYONE no matter what contracts they sign. What makes them different then a regular person.

My words of advice is CALL back, CALL back, CALL back. Call the loan mod people directly of course, claim hardship.

Let me ask you this... did you buy your house as an investment or as a place to live and raise a family? If you bought it as an investment you just happen to live in, then by all means walk away from a bad investment. What are they going to do? Mark your credit as bad, foreclose? Big flipping deal. People should be digging themselves out of credit anyway and never going back.

If you bought your house as a place to live in and raise a family then your house has a net market value of $0 until you decide to sell. In that sense you are just paying rent until you want to sell or you paid it off. If you can pay the mortgage, stay put and forget about the theoretical value of your home.

WTF happened to good business (i know stupid question) but seriously, people say to me well people should have been smarter when they bought and not fell for the deals they were handing out..... but what happened to businesses making wise business moves, i would imagine when they were doing these deals they knew people wouldn't be able to afford it. BAD BUSINESS. they shouldn't be there to 'F' over, they should be there to make good decisions on loans, i don't understand why they would set you up to fail, if by you failing they fail. idk i guess it's a bit over my head but good luck man.

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by nikiano
But then I realized... IT'S THEIR FAULT THAT MY HOUSE HAS DEPRECIATED IN VALUE BY HALF....not my fault.

How is it the banks fault that your house depreciated? Why is it their obligation to take a loss on a poor business investment that you made? Did someone from bank of America show up and force you to buy that house?

Have you not been following the news these last few years?

But I guess, to be honest, at first, it was the government's fault. They made the banks give out loans to "high risk" borrowers. So, the banks did. Then all those loans defaulted. Then, foreclosures went through the roof. Then, those of us in the 4 worst states lost lots of value in our houses because we had the highest risk states, with the most "high risk" borrowers.

I did not make a poor business decision. I did not buy a house I could not afford. I can afford the payments just fine.

The banks and the government created a "housing bubble." Many of us bought houses at that time, because first of all, we didn't know it was a buble, and second of all, as fast as house prices were going up, we were afraid we would get priced out of a home soon. So, we bought a house while we could still afford to.

In my opinion, those of us who bought houses during the "false housing bubble" should also be given a break on our mortgages, because now our house is worth about half of what we bought it for.

Originally posted by nikiano

Originally posted by elevatedone

For whatever reason, now you want the bank to lower the amount you are to pay back.

For whatever reason? How about for the reason that my house is now worth HALF of what it was in 2005, when I bought it?? And my realtor is telling me it will NEVER be worth what I paid for it.

I would call that strang and extenuating circumstances.

You know, a lot of us warned people like you that this would happen back in 2005 and even earlier. We got laughed at, called "tinfoil-hattes" or "bitter renters."

No offence, but the writing was on the wall. You, and millions of other Americans, should have paid more attention. I'm sorry you have lost half your equity, but you wouldn't be complaining if you had GAINED 50%, now would you?

Frankly, I'm tired of people blaming others when their poor investment decisions (and yes, a house is an INVESTMENT) go awry.

It's not the bank's fault, nor the government's fault. It is the FAULT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE for being greedy, not reading fine print, buying too much house, having too optimistic expectations about the future, etc. Don't take it personally, I don't mean to rag on you...millions made the same mistake. But it was THEIR MISTAKE as much as anyone else's.

Plenty of people were warning real estate was overpriced, even as far back as the late 90s. They got laughed at and treated condescendingly.

[edit on 9/8/09 by silent thunder]

First thing that we learned in psych class is that you can not rationalize with an irrational person.

First lesson of life is that you are never going to get a fair deal from a bank. It is about separating you from your money not giving the banks money to you.

I take it you have never been to a casino. Casinos would not stay in business long if they were in the business of giving away money. Same with the banks.

If you bought into the lie I am sorry. But the government and banks are not your friends and they are not going to help you.

The sooner the American people wake up to this reality the better chance we have of reconstructing our country.

I hate BOA. They are absolute crooks. I regularly paid bi-monthly on my credit card bill. Because of the way that the dates fell on a weekend I made three payments on my credit card in one month. I paid them 100 dollars on the 1st. 100 dollars on the 15th and I paid 100 dollars on the 30th to make sure that it would not be late for the 1st of the month.

Image my surprise when I got my statement along with a late charge because I had not made q payment for the following month by the 7th.

When I called them and told them that they could see from my credit history that I always paid bi-monthly on my account and that the payment they received on the 30th had to be for the 1st they also gave me attitude and refused to make the correction of the late fee.

So I did the only thing that I could do. I went to the bank. Paid off my credit card and took all of my money out and went to the bank across the street.

BOA are snakes in the grass and anybody doing business with them should run before they are bitten.

If they haven't been bitten yet. It is just a matter of luck and a matter of time.

Originally posted by rogerstigers
Let me ask you this... did you buy your house as an investment or as a place to live and raise a family? If you bought it as an investment you just happen to live in, then by all means walk away from a bad investment. What are they going to do? Mark your credit as bad, foreclose? Big flipping deal. People should be digging themselves out of credit anyway and never going back.

If you bought your house as a place to live in and raise a family then your house has a net market value of $0 until you decide to sell. In that sense you are just paying rent until you want to sell or you paid it off. If you can pay the mortgage, stay put and forget about the theoretical value of your home.

I'm single...no family, no kids...so, I bought it for myself to live in, but also in hopes that it would increase in value.

Yeah, I'm walking away.

For the record, I agree with the general opinion of BofA. I deal with them in my work in relation to check settlement. They are royal sons of female dogs. They gripe and moan until they get their way and threaten law suit or buyout if they cannot. They are extortionists in the worst way.

BTW, I have been banking with Bank One -> Chase for years now with no complaints, but even they have been known to be jerks. A bank is a bank and that the is *best* it can ever be.