Please Help!!!

[LMD0623]

My husband and I were first time home buyers got screwed royally.. 80-20 7.5 fixed 30 year interest-only balloon.. weren't even in the same ballpark as the mortgage company that gave us the loan, same story i'm sure you've heard thousands of times.

I found out about a person "who does all this she can save your house" ( since I was in the process of trying to find someone legit online since the loss mitigation dept. for Weichert is a joke ) from a very trusted family friend.
Called the woman that day and never heard anything better in my entire life. She PROMISED me i would not lose my house, told me not to deal with the mortgage company AT ALL... and if they did call and harass us that we are to say that "we've retained an attorney and they will be contacting you shortly". I got off of the phone with her and called my husband and said thru sobs "honey i think we're going to be okay i don't think we're going to lose our home!" That's when things started to make me nervous. She told me to tell Weichert that we've retained an attorney but we didn't even know her companies name. Everything i've read from everywhere said DO NOT IGNORE YOUR MORTGAGE COMPANY. Shes telling me DONT make any payment, and to basically tell them to go screw if they call or send us any late notices. She even acknowledged that and said to me " I know this is going to scare you but DO NOT PAY YOUR MORTGAGE THIS OR NEXT MONTH" My mortgage was due on the 1st of January and its the only payment i haven't made so far. We're ALWAYS late... but we also ALWAYS find a way to pay. The woman explained to us that the money she wanted up front ( which started out as $1000, than later was promised that it would be $2100 or a mortgage payment plus monthly property taxes (whichever was cheaper )Saturday and then when we sat down with her two days ago (Monday) her partner said "how are you going to pay your fee today? check or C.C.) I asked her how much it was and she stated $2,675. I almost passed out but told her i'd have to call my mom and see if she can put it on her credit card because if we had that kind of money to spend right now it would have been on the mortgage and other bills) was to pay legal fees and would be held in escrow. My mom agreed to pay the fee for us but wanted something in writing that she'd get the money back if it didn't work out. The woman assured us its all "on the contract". We then realized that my mom had to sign the authorazation form and that would have to be done on Wednesday and she'd return our 2008 w-2's in exchange for payment Wednesday night.( tonight ) We signed everything ( except payment ) and filled out all of our expenses and gave her the paystubs. She left. Then I looked at the C.C. form ( the only thing i had from the visit) and realized that on the top of the form and the company name was there and an address in Cherry Hill. If we're paying them ONLY for attorney fee's why is it on company letterhead?! So i jumped onto the computer and found the exact contract that we signed.
According to that ( which felt like the closing of our house "intitial here, here, here, and here, and sign and date there. kthanxbye) paperwork we signed states that we have to secure our own attorney. And has all sorts of stipulations that can pretty much guarentee that you won't get your money back. It states in the contract that if they reach no solution WHATSOEVER than we don't get our money back.. When questioned on that she stated that they will not come up with a "crappy" soultion... say $50 less a month. She stated that the name of her company was something else, but all of the paperwork we filled out was in a different name on the letterhead, she said it had to be that way because of the way the paper is filed, that it streamlines the process. She also had told us that she can produce the names of the attorneys and references if we would like. My main issues are that I can't find any information about her company at all, she says shes from and from what i've read online there are no Legit Modification companies, they're all scam artists. Her answer to that ( when we called and spoke with her for over 2 hours last night ) was that they can't change the contract "for every Tom, Dick and Harry". She asked us to see specific links about the negativity surrounding the company. ( she's never heard of ANY). We emailed her and she called us back. She stated that "there is some truth to some of the links we've provided... and there are ALOT of people claiming to be the real HOPE NOW but she really is.and that it's true that if we were to have called the HOPENOW number, that we probably wouldn't have been helped, and that we've found a way around all of the things that other people are complaining about. She insists a lot of what's on that contract doesn't apply to us ( such as the transaction fee ). We asked her what happens if they come back with a "soulotion" for us that isn't acceptable ( say $100 less payment a month ) She responded with well then we didn't do our job it all goes based upon income and expenses, and that if that was the case and we weren't satisfied we could get our own attorney to do better. Okay well at that point what does she care she already came up with a soultion which is the only thing they need to do to get paid, and we're S*&^ out of luck again. She said "if i was a scam artist would i spend all night on the phone with you?? Would i give you my cell and HOME number?" She even joked that we could just go to her house for some cake. She said if we're not 150% comfortable with this then not to do it and walk away. But we're scared to do it and scared to walk away. We NEED her if shes legit to help us.. we WILL lose our home. I can forward you our hardship letter as an insight as to what are issues are. I'm SO SORRY this is so long, i registered for the loansafe.org site, but i can't post this on the website as i KNOW she reads it. I honestly believe this woman and trust her, yet at the same time something is telling us that we're going to be screwed either way.. Please help us. Please.

Thank you SO much if you've made it this far!!!

[Dan Bailey]

LMD,
If it looks like gar***e, smells like gar***e and tastes like gar***e, no matter how much we wish it wasn't gar***e...its still gar***e.

If this person were legit,and professional, they would not need to be looking on Loansafe which is a site for homeowners.

If you did authorize payment to her via CC, have your payment cancled.

Moe or *** will be by as soon as possible to discuss this with you further.

[Dan Bailey]

PS: after looking at that "contract" I am sickened.

[LMD0623]

Thank you for your fast reply.. We are so scared.. i tried to find out how to edit my post to add, that shes claiming shes NOT hopenow, and that her company has to work thru hopenow, to get the money from the FHA loans, and also that we are not doing a Modification, we're doing a re-negotiation.

Or did i say that already?!

[Dan Bailey]

LMD,
All of it leads up to a typical scam.
They leave themselves so many "outs" on returning the money in paragraph 3.
Basically, you are paying them all that money, simply for them to refer you to a lawyer that works for them...

Everything they "promise" you can do on your own, or with a lawyer that you choose with experience in these matters....you can look up your local BAR association and find a qualified lawyer through that.

As I stated above...anyone who would join a free forum made for homeowners in order to get information on how to do "loan mods" is not a professional, they are scam artists.....*** deletes these type of people everyday.

The process is scary, and being in this situation is stressfull, we are all there, or have been there. "Companies" try to take advantage of those facts every day on all of us. From e-mails, letters sent to our homes, phone calls, etc....
I call them vultures.
Many of them are very smooth talkers, in fact, many of them are the same agents and brokers who pushed these loans in the first place, and had to find a new way to make a living.

Hang in there LMD...due to time zones across the US, it may take a bit for Moe or *** to get to your post, but I assure you they will.

[LMD0623]

Thank you again... it's just my husband, myself and my infant, and we do not want to lose our home.

After re-reading my very confusing obviously done in a hurry first post, i also forgot to mention my husband got laid off on friday,( way to kick us while we are down huh?? ) while the woman knows that, shes "hurrying up the process" so we can still show income. So she claims that pretty much it's her, or no one can help us due to his being laid off as he was the main source of income..

[Moe Bedard]

Hi LMD0623,


Welcome to the forum and thank you for joining............


First............could you please email me the name of this individual to ***@loansafe.org

Second...........At this point can you not pay and cancel the contract because you are in the middle of a serious scam here.

Here are the two main red flags that you have described..........

Collects a fee before providing any services to you, only an attorney can collect a retainer if helping you to save your home from foreclosure.

Instructs you to cease all contact with your lender, credit or housing counselors, lawyer or other legitimate experts.




Also if you have household income you can go through a non profit for help............
Do you have income coming in?

[LMD0623]

***...

Thank you for your reply.. Thankfully it snowed here and my shop was closed so i did not go into work today so i didn't get the authorazation form signed for payment. The woman stopped by my house yesterday to "reassure us " and spent a lot of time on the phone with my MIL, explaining the situation, she also gave us back all of our origionals and copies of everything and was waiting on my moms signature for payment and an "okay" from us, than we would have went ahead with everything. She says if we made a check it would not be made out to "hopenow" rather it would be made to her company, for their lawyers.. SO as of right now, we have all of the paperwork, and all of our information back, just want her to be for real and i will email you the info you requested.. thank you!

My husband was the main sorce of income, and mine is laughable at best. He actually has 2 interview already so we're keeping our fingers crossed, as i don't know if the lay off will count against him even if he secures another job quickly

[Moe Bedard]

The reason why I was asking is if this is the only property you own and if it is owner occupied, you can use the non profit NACA and you don't have to pay a dime for their services.................they will do the exact same thing that a for profit company will do.'
here is the info for that...........
https://www.naca.com/refinance/refinanceTenStep.jsp


The problem with her contract is that she will keep the money upon getting any workout put in place..............

The modifications given are up to the investor on your loan and they have the final approval................however, for a repayment plan or forbearance of the defaulted amount, the investor does not need to approve that..................so in order to keep your money............this is the workout that is presented a good majority of the time............and no work on her part is involved in getting this type of result.


I would have to ask.................if you trust this person and you think that they will be able to help you.............why did you post for help here on the forum......................something must be telling you that she is not on the up and up or you wouldn't have had to ask..............

All I can tell you is to go with your gut feelings on this one...............

[LMD0623]

I understand what your saying and i thank you for taking the time out to help me..

My gut instinct? to run like hell. We've been scammed once and we will lose our home if we don't get help. She just says all of the things we need and want to hear, has "facts" to back them up and is making herself out to be our only hope given our current situation. My husband and I aren't babies by any means we're both 26, but we're both naive so the other part of my brain has to ask "if shes our only hope am I ruining our only chance of saving our home".

[Moe Bedard]

Just a note.............she would not be your only hope............anything that she is able to do would have to be approved by the investor on your loan...........and that you would be able to do too, but you would need to make the decision that is best for you and that you feel comfortable with.


Who is the lender?

[LMD0623]

We make our check payable to Wecihert Financial Services, but when we got our state tax form, it says Dovenmulhle servicer of Weichert..

[Moe Bedard]

Dovenmuehle only has a customer service number to start with...........

1-800-669-4268

Dovenmuehle Mortgage

you may want to call and see what options they have for a modification on your loan and what they can do to help and go from there.

[chasepmt2hot-firefighter]

If they do such as awesome job than she should be so busy with referrals from other customers and NOT have time to stop by your house. How many lawyers do you know drop by a potential clients house? Have you ever heard of Ambulance chasers? Same thing here... If you feel the fear and stress that I do about the entire process than please don't make a desperate decision. I'm ten years your senior and I promise you every year counts. Every year something clicks and makes sense and you realize as much as you want to trust someone you have to back up and analyze the whole picture. To me a big red flag is her coming to your house. Not that I'm not seeing the other red flags, I certainly am. Don't allow her to scam your mother either. You will feel ten times more stress and less about yourself. You will be down more and you don't need it. You need the least amount of stress for that precious baby. Any child can tell if you are stressed. If she is what she says she is than she can back off and respect your decision to wait. Good luck to your husband, I hope he gets two offers and then this will be your biggest decision. Make your own calls and do this yourself. The life lessons we learn we pass down to our children. Go with your gut and take a step back.

[LMD0623]

Thank you so much for the input and a perspective on things.. I walked away from the situation, now it's back to fighting with Weichert, They're super helpful and actually send you right over to Loss Mitigation, but they don't actually send the paperwork they promise. They've sent it once to us, and on the letter it states to return all paperwork/forms within 20 days of the date on the letter, we've recieved one, back in November, and it was dated and postmarked 18 days before we recieved it on a Saturday.. We called back and they have since sent out (3) more packages.. funny we've never received them. Thank you all so much again..