Bank of America tries to seize widow's home while forgetting to mention that her loan was insured

[chervilant]

Laura Coleman Biggs and her experience with Bank of America is absolutely criminal. When her husband George Mitchell passed away, 12 years ago this month, Ms. Biggs CONTINUED paying off her mortgage.

George “Kenny” Mitchell had taken out a SPECIAL lender-pushed insurance policy to pay off most of his loan if he died.
But when he passed away on April 26, 2003, the subsidiary of Charlotte-based Bank of America did not ARRANGE a payoff of the $100,000 policy and CONTINUED to charge his widow an insurance premium every month along with her mortgage payment.

Pretty bad. But the story is even worse than you ALREADY know it is. See, the only reason Ms. Biggs even found out that BOA had royally screwed her was a mixture of desperation, luck and a pro bono lawyer.

If anyone needs further proof of the unfettered hedonism of BoA, read the entire article posted on DailyKos here.

[shenmue]

1. Put these "people" in jail

Jerks.

[chervilant]

2. So many of them should face criminal charges.

But, they won't be charged. They have the power and the means to prevent that from happening.

[kairos12]

4. Under the jail please.

[Cal33]

15. Just follow Elizabeth Warren's recommended outlines on what we should do

about putting a leash on the big banks in our country, and also breaking up
the largest ones into small pieces. She knows what she is talking about.
You can also be sure that it's all legal, if it's coming from her.

It's about time that those corrupted bankers begin to pay back to America
what they have stolen from the people. Agreed?

[chervilant]

16. Absolutely. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

3. ,

,

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Banksters!

[ND-Dem]

6. kr. if she'd been the one doing the defrauding, they'd haul her 80-year-old ass in without

a second thought.

40 to life for the banksters.

[cui bono]

7. So how are we going to change BofA's behavior? They need criminal convictions.

So who would fight for that as POTUS?

[chervilant]

21. I have lost faith in almost all politicians,

save a very few. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and Alan Grayson are the only current politicians for whom I have a modicum of respect.

The degradation of our system of public education is manifest in the idiots ensconced in our Congress du jour. I have little hope.

[SheilaT]

8. Not to excuse or forgive Bank of America,

but this certainly points up the need for everyone to completely understand things like the term of their mortgage.

[FBaggins]

20. Much more than that

It points out the necessity for spouses to actually discuss financial matters with each other and have a clear understanding of what the plan is if one of them dies.

In this case, it looks as though the husband purchased a life insurance product and his wife didn't know about it (and thus didn't know to make a claim).

Another possibility, however, is that the predecessor mortgage company may have tacked on mortgage insurance without the customer understanding what he was paying for.

[chervilant]

22. I was in mortgage lending for almost

seven years before I moved home to Newton County. I worked for the worst of the worst: Countrywide (I refused to sell or even market their horrible "sub-prime" loans, so I "resigned" when my manager stopped negotiating rates for me). Every time I closed a loan, I accompanied my clients to their closing, gave them a closing gift, and strongly adjured them to read the loan documents. In all the years I closed loans, not one client read their loan documents at closing. My colleagues told me this was their experience as well.

Now, here's why I think most people do NOT read their loan documents: there are typically 80 to 120 pages of legalese, in very small print. The title company representative will have tagged all the pages that require a signature and/or initials. The rep typically tells the client(s) that it's in their best interests to read the loan docs, but (also typically) makes some disclaimer about rescheduling the closing if they elect to read all the docs, or call to have lunch delivered, or any number of codicils intended to dissuade clients from spending the inordinate amount of time necessary to wade through that large packet of docs, while stopping and asking questions about the dense, off-putting legalese.

Personally, I think this is by design. The criminal banksters have the game rigged in their favor, and it's been this way since the first bank was thought necessary to facilitate our species' economic behaviors.

[SheilaT]

23. I was told by my very good realtor, that I could not even consider reading the loan

documents at closing, as there were far too many pages. I can skim pretty well, and I was able to absorb some. However, I was working with a good mortgage company (I actually forget who now, as Chase now has the loan) and I wasn't sub prime.

[SoapBox]

9. Criminal.

[DebJ]

10. BoA (interesting, like the snake!) just lost a lawsuit last year, too.

I was sent a notice about how I could participate in a class action suit if I replied on time. I would have recouped about $90 of about $900 that they screwed me out of. I didn't bother with it because of major illnesses that have been ongoing with two elderly parents, a grown son who lives out of state, and my husband's illnesses and issues.

The scam went like this: my mortgage was sold by my local bank to ....what was the name of that big bank out in California that was one of the first and worse of the mortgage scams...began with a C... I don't remember because it was less than a month later that BoA took it over. They sent me a letter a few months later telling me that they had no record of my mortgage insurance, which was total bullshit. They got every other document and record. Now, my fault was that I didn't have the time to pull out my records, which were in a rather bad state of disorganization, as I was attempting to work 25 hours a week, go to school m-f 8am to 4 pm, and maintain my 4.0 gpa, while also tending to numerous pressing family emergency matters that were literally life or death situations. It was all I could do to not collapse. So, I erred in not seeing their cut off threat date, and digging out my policy copy.

Next thing I know, they have increased my mortgage by $900 a year, charging me for homeowners insurance that THEY sold. No doubt they directly got at least half of that as commission, and if they owned the insurance company, even more.

I corrected it before the next year, but there was almost a grand down the toilet of BoA's ravenous predatory throat. I think it upsets me just as much that BoA was the receiver of my funds, as it was that I lost them while struggling to pay for college.

Bastards of America.

[DebJ]

11. Countrywide. It was Countrywide. n/t

[JayhawkSD]

13. The fatcts serve us better.

The factual story is sufficient to paint BofA as a total villian. Why throw in an unfounded accusation like "No doubt they directly got at least half of that as commission" which has no basis in known fact?

This is a problem in how we accuse evildoers. We don't realize that throwing unfounded accusations into the mix weakens our case. It discolors everything else that we say. To be completely believeable we have to be able to back up every fact that we assert with evidence. As soon as one single assertion in our story can be shown to be bogus the entire story is weaker.

We do that to Republicans. We spot a hole in their story and point it out and say, "Oh, that story is so bogus." And then we turn around and throw "extras" into our accusations of wrongdoing.

[DebJ]

14. The facts of how insurance work is that the seller/agent

generally gets 50% of the first years premium as commission.

[JayhawkSD]

17. There is no "first year's premium"

Hazard insurance is sold as a policy with a term of either six months or one year, with no renewal terms specified, so the term "first year's premium" is utterly meaningless with respect to this type of insurance. The commission is whatever the agent and insurance company negotiate it to be, but I checked with two friends of mine who sell insurance for a living and they scoff at the idea that it would be anywhere near 50%.

[DebJ]

18. Either way they profitted off of screwing thousands of people by lying.

Whether they got $200 or $400 from me.

Hope the courts took every dime they made.

[JustAnotherGen]

12. We need laws

That will put individual employees in jail if they engage in this behavior.