Is this legal? Morequity tried to strike a "deal" with me!

[Social Apocalypse]

I called Morequity (an AIG owned company) today to make a mortgage payment. "Donna" answered the phone and asked me how much I would like to pay and I said that I would like to pay the normal payment amount of $2802.14.

She then proceeded to tell me that this would be fine and demanded to know when I would be making the August payment (I am 30 days behind). I said that I wasn't sure yet, but that it would be the first payment I would be making when I had the money. I said they would have the payment on or before September 10th, because we get paid then.
She commented that she could offer me a deferral of my interest in order to bring the account current. I was surprised and asked her how this worked, and that nobody had ever offered me that before. She said that she was only able to offer it because we had been behind in our payments for a few months now and that made it available.

The offer she made me, in a nutshell; if I agreed to pay the late fee, with a principle payment today of 2925.36, then I would only owe my normal payment on September 1st and not be behind any more. Incredulous, I said, "WHY would I NOT want to do this? What is my penalty? I can't believe Morequity is going to simply chop off an entire payment amount for nothing. It's too good to be true."

She said that, well, they would be insistent that I never went 30 days past due again, and that if I did, I would automatically be put into default and that foreclosure proceedings would begin.

I said that I didn't believe that was even LEGAL. While I feel very confident that I won't go 30 days past due again, I am not going to gamble my home that this is the case, in the shaky situation that we are in.

They were making a "deal" with me. I said, no thanks. I will make my normal payment. You cannot charge me late fees or default action for "late fee" amounts on my account, and those late fees will be waiting for me there when I get my job back and can afford to pay them.

She said fine, and took my payment information, and then began again making demands on exactly WHEN I would be making my August payment. The usual conversation ensued: I would when I could, and that was all I could promise.

I also inquired about whether she had any news about the news that FannieMae had purchased Morequity's financial instruments on July 17th... She became very snippy and said that she had no new information on it and that "upper management was meeting every day about it." I said, "Wow, that's a big deal, you guys probably won't have any loans left!" She didn't like that.

Can they do this to borrower's? Bargain with them to get permission to accelerate foreclosure proceedings? MY GOSH, we aren't even that far behind, they just KNOW that we are in great hardship and want to start foreclosing on us before they lose our loan, I bet!! I know that they make a lot of money in fees before a foreclosure happens.

OR is it that the agreement with FannieMae states that the only loans they will take are those with specific profiles (perhaps they were trying to get mine into that profile??)

Sorry this was so long.... You guys rock.