Stopping Foreclosure – Sometimes Lenders Worry Me
Sometimes lenders don’t seem to have the brightest customer service people working for them. Maybe I should say that the people working for them are just content with putting in their hours and having a job. They are not really passionate about giving great customer service to the people who contact them.
You know what I mean – the kind of people that are just putting in their 40 hours every week. The only reason they are working in the job they have is to get their pay every Friday. They have no desire to help people. They would rather be working someplace else. Yet because of their attitude this was the only job they could find.
I have heard of people who are having financial challenges and struggling to pay all of their bills on time. They have kept paying their bills on time; however, they have gone through all of their savings. Then they have gotten advances on their credit cards to make their payments.
They are now at the point where their savings are exhausted. They are at the limits on each credit card they have. There is nowhere else they can go for additional money to pay their bills. Soon their payments will be late.
Their financial situation may be temporary. Their crisis may have been caused by unemployment and now they are on the verge of getting a new job. The new job won’t pay them as much as the old one but they will be able to pay their bills. They may have had a home which they could not sell. They have decided to rent it. When the rent money comes in, they will have more than enough to pay their bills.
They just need help short term to tide them over until the money comes in.
They contact their mortgage lender and talk to a customer service representative. They explain their financial situation to them. The customer service representative checks the mortgage record. The payments on the mortgage have been made time up to this point.
The customer service representative advises them that since their record is current, nothing can be done. If they were two months or more behind on their payments, they might be able to get a loan modification. However, right now they cannot.
Duh – does that make any sense? I don’t think so.
These people don’t want to fall behind on their payments. They just want the lender to work with them. Yet the customer service representative implies that the lender won’t do anything until they fall two or more months behind on their payments.
By going by a strict interpretation of the guidelines the lender will not be paid as quickly. The mortgage may go into foreclosure. The people lose all respect for the lender.
It really upsets me to hear about customer service representatives who do this. Rather than helping they are making the situation worse. In the long run they are costing you and me money because if people in these situations go into foreclosure, the lender loses. We pay with our tax dollars to bail them out. We also pay in the form of higher interest rates on mortgages.
I hope that you are not caught in this situation.
Much Success,
Mark Elkins
