Predatory Lending Story From California

[Moe Bedard]

Predatory lending is a very serious issue confronting homeowners everywhere. Many borrowers/victims are losing their homes and getting lost in the system that seems to now facilitate foreclosures like McDonalds serves hamburgers.

Take for instance this homeowner in Upland California who called me yesterday in a panic and needed help fast. How fast you ask? Friday is his scheduled sale date. That fast!

He emailed me his explanation of the story. After review I determined that he was DEFINITLEY a victim of predatory lending and that he should speak with "qualified" predatory lending law specialist. He mentioned he was already tallking with someone who would do it on a contigency basis but the lawyer needed $3,000 to proceed. I was like, WHAT?!!! A contingency basis does not involve fees. Stay away from him with a 10 foot pole. Especially when you were already taken by another attorney and he was a trusted neighbor and friend. I referred him to a reputable and proven mortgage law expert that actually has a mortgage broker back ground. Now, he is in good hands.

Read this story and I will report more on this as I am updated.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Jason _________. I’m writing this document to try to explain the events that lead up to why we are currently in term- oral with our home. Six almost seven years ago we (my partner) and I decided to renovate our home we went to Wells Fargo for what they called a future value loan, basically a construction loan based on the value of the home once finished. We spoke to a representative of

Wells Fargo bank by the name of John _______ who assured us that the loan we were obtaining from him would assist us in completing our home renovations. We applied and received the loan and under the condition of the loan had to have a mediator who was bank appointed to help manage the expenditures. We were under the impression that what monies we had left over from our renovation would be rolled over into our existing home loan thus reducing our 1st.

With that in mind, we use what monies we had in our bank account and on our credit cards to keep down the cost of the loan which was approved by the bank’s mediator. After several months of paying for construction without using any money from our 2nd loan with Wells Fargo, we were contacted by the bank and told that if we didn’t start using the money we had applied for in the 2nd loan, that we would lose it. Upon receipt of this information, we submitted the receipts we had paid for with the approval of the Bank’s mediator for payment.

Within a few days, we received a call from Wells Fargo bank telling us that we had already used up most of the money in our loan and would not be receiving repayment for the receipts we had sent in. We immediately contacted the bank and informed them that we had not activated the loan until now and that we wanted to have our account reviewed. We were later told that an employee who was working on our account and several others had directed unused funds into several other accounts and then into his own.

Even with this knowledge and the support of the bank mediator as to our lack of usage of our 2nd loan, Wells Fargo demanded payment for our loan. Again we tried to explain to them that we had not used any money from the 2nd loan and wanted payment for the receipts we had given them.

We stopped making our payments to Wells Fargo on our 2nd loan while still paying on our 1st with them. Wells Fargo then rolled both loans together increasing our payments in an effort to obtain the money from the 2nd loan. We stopped payment on the loan all together until the matter could be settled while at the same time still working on the house. Because we were not paying on either loan, Wells Fargo then started foreclosure procedure. Instead of just bringing the house payment up-to-date, Wells Fargo demanded full payment of both loans.

To stop the proceedings we attempted to obtain a loan from another company that would cover the pay-off with Wells Fargo while at the same time begin legal actions against Wells Fargo. The loan company that we were referred to sent a representative to our home and started the loan process in order to pay Wells Fargo off and pay off the bills we had built up on our credit cards. After paying this person $2,500.00 over a period of a month, in order to process the necessary paperwork and get the house appraised we learned that this person had mislead us as to the need of the money we gave him and that the loan that he had quoted us was indeed going to make our house payment out of our reach. Unfortunately for us, the clock was still ticking away with our problem with Wells Fargo and we got into the final stages of foreclosure.

While visiting our attorney concerning another matter, the topic of house came up and we told him that we were facing foreclosure because of Wells Fargo’s mismanagement of loan. He stated to us that he would gladly take on the case with Wells Fargo while at the same time arrange a loan with a client of his in order to stop the foreclosure. He assured us that he would arrange all the details as to the terms of the loan and at the same time stop the foreclosure procedure.

We took out a “hard money” loan with this client of our attorney for $99,000.00 to reinstate the loan with Wells Fargo and to pay-off all of our debts that were occurred from the renovation of the house. The terms of the loans were such that he did not have to start paying interest on the loan until a year after obtaining it, and that our attorney would be to middleman who would be responsible in paying off all creditors.

Several months have passed before we realized that there was a problem with the loan we had taken out with our attorney’s client. We had started getting letters from the companies that we had owed money to stating that they were going to begin legal action against us if we did not pay them in full. Prior to signing for the loan we had called all of our creditors and had arranged pay-off with all of them and gave our attorney a list with address and phone numbers and amounts to be paid. The attorney stated that he would handle it and make sure the all the companies on the list would be taken care of.

Learning that none of the creditors were paid, we contacted the attorney concerning the matter and he stated that he had paid everyone on the list and that it would just take them some time to credit our account with a pay-off.

More on Predatory Lending in California below.

[Moe Bedard]

The time was nearing for the first payment of the “hard loan,” we had taken out and so we had decided to just refinance everything into a single loan. We contacted several loan companies in order to obtain a good term loan, one that we could afford and would not have such a high interest rate.

We were contacted by a company from Orange County called, “Bay Shore,” and they had sent out a loan officer to go over several loans that could be offered to us. While we were in the process of securing this loan, Wells Fargo increased the amount of our payments to a point that we could not afford the payments and pay our other bills. Again, Wells Fargo started the foreclosure procedure and demanded payment of the entire loan in full which we could not pay. The loan officer from Bay Shore kept presenting us with loan offers by lenders who at the very last minute would all of a sudden pull out of the deal, leaving us looking again for some to fund a loan.

With only days away from having our home sold out from under us, the loan officer from Bay Shore contacted us again with another lender who would back the loan. When he brought the contract over for us to sign we had learn a few troubling details that greatly upset us. In order for us to take out the loan and consolidate everything into one loan, we had to pay off our attorney’s client but instead of paying of the $99,000.oo note we had taken out with him, we are now having to paid a $180,000.00.

To make matters worst, while at work just before being approached by the Bay Shore loan officer with this last offer, I was brutally attacked by an individual who left me in the hospital. The attack shattered my cheek bone, broke my jaw and nose, and practically left me blind in my right eye. The force of the blows greatly affected my mental ability of reasoning. The attack took place the latter part of July 2006, and I was scheduled for surgery within the first week of August which most likely could have lead to my death. Without the surgery I would be forever disfigured with lose of mental reasoning. I had no choice, surgery was my only option.

Within a few days prior to my undergoing surgery and being in a mental and physical stated to which I did not have full control of my facilities, I was approached by the loan officer from Bay Shore again. This time he had all the documents for the contract prepared for mine and Arthur’s signatures. He also brought with him a notary to rush through the loan agreement.

When questioned by Arthur as to why we couldn’t wait until after the surgery, the loan officer stated that time was slipping away and this was the only lender left who would give us a loan. I was totally unaware of what was going on, and the next thing I can remember was having this person pressing me to sign some forms.

We had told the loan officer from the beginning of our negotiations with him that we needed to have enough money taken out to make sure that we had one year worth of payments in the bank, and that a few months before the year was up, we would want to refinance again to lower our payments. We had spelled out in great detail with the loan officer the terms we were willing to sign with, and would only sign to. After signing for the loan, we could not reach anyone from Bay Shore nor could we get into contact with the loan officer we had dealt with. We had tried contacting him at the office and on his personal cell phone but were unable to reach him.

After the surgery, and a complete recovery, I review the contract and realized that there were terms of the agreement that I had questions about. It was these concerns that lead me to find out that in the terms of the agreement that Bay Shore had taken out more money than what was due them. The amount of money would not have covered the payments for an entire year and other concerns.

Within a few months of signing for the loan, we were contacted by “Countrywide,” by mail stating that our loan had been taken over by their company and to make our payments to them. We called up Countrywide Loan and started asking them some questions concerning our payments and terms of our agreement with them. It was learned that the terms of our agreement with Bay Shore were changed without out knowledge and upon comparison of the contract agreement we had sign an were given and the one that Countrywide was in procession of we learned that the terms of the agreement were not the same. In fact there were several changes made without our knowledge or consent.

We made several attempts to contact Bay Shore Funding and even made a trip to their office in Costa Mesa. It was at this time that we had learned that Bay Shore Funding had closed it doors several months prior and had moved to another location near Newport Beach. This information was false and we again tried to contact Bay Shore Funding and the loan officer by phone concerning the contract and documentation that we had given them.

We were able get into contact finally with someone with the phone number that were on the contract. We were informed that indeed Bay Shore Funding had closed their office and that the owner of the company had moved to Mexico. As for the documents that we needed to have returned to us, the person on the other end of the phone stated that he would try to get into contact with the owner and try to get permission from him to open up his storage bin and get our paper work. Within a few days, we received all of our documents in the mail with no explanation as to how he was able to get them.

We have tried to come to some sort of an agreement with Countrywide to either renegotiate our loan or come up with some sort of a payment plan that we could afford. All of our efforts have failed and in fact, we have not been able to keep in contact with one person enough to come to any compromise. We have been lead to believe that their were ways in which we could come to an agreement and then someone else the next time we called told us that there wasn’t such a plan and that we would have to continue making our loan payment according to our contract.


Once again we find ourselves in the position of having foreclosure proceedings being filed against us and we are needing a loan in order stop it. Please contact me at 909-XXX-XXXX….please I don't know what else I can do.

Thank You,

Jason

Don't be a victim of predatory lending. Upon talking to him further it was established that this homeowner has almost $1 Million in equity and the sale of his home was to take place on Friday September 7, 2007. That one phone call to me saved his home Another great day fighting for homeowners and another victim rescued.

[vaughnet]

Hi Moe,
Is it possible to connect me with your mortgage and law specialist in California? You responded to a post of mine on your wonderful website about possible TILA violations and I would like to know if I still have time to pursue this avenue to stop my foreclosure sale, which is this Tuesday, Jan. 8th. Thank you so much for your time.