Complaint Review: Greentree

I've read the many reports on Greentree most of which involve people who've become late with their payments to Greentree. Well, don't think you've been singled out, Greentree has a way to screw those of us who religiously make our payments on time or ahead of time as well.

I was always a renter until spring 2002 when I retired (disability) and purchased a mobile home financed through CONSECO now Greentree. Being the conscientious person I am, as soon as my monthly mortgage bill would arrive I immediately wrote a check and mailed it. I've always been under the impression that when a person has a mortgage that the amount of the payment applied to interest each month declines and the amount applied to principal increases. How wrong I was. Guess time has passed me by and thieves have overtaken the corporate world. Each month I noticed variations in the amount applied to interest and the amount applied to principal. It wasn't until I had to put my car in the shop for a couple weeks during which time my bill from Greentree arrived. I don't trust our mail pick up so I always went to the post office to personally mail my payments. On that particular occasion I made my payment about 10-days later than I normally did, though it was still well in advance of the due date.

When my next statement arrived I was in for the shock of my life. I was charged MORE INTEREST than the total amount of my monthly payment. The excess interest being carried over to the next month or more if necessary, I suppose.

I was outraged. At that time I began a series of letters and phone calls with Greentree's service center in one of the Dakotas and to the CEO in Minneapolis (I see on this site he's not even located in Minneapolis).

I received letters from their legal department highlighting one sentence that changed the way my interest was calculated from the assured "fixed"interest rate to something I've yet to figure out.

What I've come to learn as a result of my disastrous account with Greentree is that the "due" date of the mortgage payment means nothing to them (I have a letter from them stating that fact). They calculate mortgage interest the same way a credit card or a revolving charge at a store is calculated BY THE DAY. They calculate their interest from the day they receive your check until the day they receive the next check from you. They even told me I was a fool for paying several days in advance, that it was of no benefit to me. Not only do they charge daily interest from receipt of check in one month to receipt of check the next, if the check is not received prior to the due date then they also tack on late charges. So as far as Greentree goes you are "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

The way they charge interest, there is no possible way you can ever pay off your mortage. If you make your mortgage payment on or before the due date for the entire length of the mortgage even if it's thirty years, when you send that last payment you will not own your home, you will still be owing money to Greentree and that is DECEPTION, FRAUD, THEFT, or anything else you want to call it.

When I sent them a letter saying I would take legal action one of their attorneys wrote to me and said if I didn't stop sending them threatening mail, they would file criminal charges against me and have me arrested. I never threatened them at anytime I only informed them of what I intended to do with them and called them the names they deserved to be called. I also told them in my last writing that if they threatened me with any type of action I would immediately have them in court and I wouldn't think twice about doing so.

I've had other problems (applying additional money I send to interest and not to principal or applying it to next months payment, etc.) with them concerning my payments, but I won't go into those details because I assume it's lack of knowledge and education on the part of the lowly employee who handles the payment envelopes.

I suggest to anyone who reads these comments to file complaints with Better Business Bureaus, the Consumer Affairs Department of their State which is usually a branch of the Attorney General's Office. Perhaps some Attorney General will wake up and prohibit this rotten corporation from perpetrating their criminal activities in his or her state and hopefully they'll quickly learn they don't run the world.

I advise anyone reading these coments to turn down any offer of a Mortgage from Greentree regardless from whom it comes and run away from them as fast as you can go, if you don't you'll spend years regretting your decision. Don't be a dummy like me.

William
batavia, Ohio
U.S.A.