Complaint Review: The Money Store / HomeEq

We bought our home new in 1984, due to some financial hardships we claimed a chapter 13. In 1998 when the Chapter 13 was completed we decided to refinance to lower an 11 1/4 interest rate and borrow out for much needed home repairs.

We quickly found out banks wouldn't touch us & ended up contacting The money store, who were extremedly "sympathetic" & anxious to help. To make a long story short, they ended up talking us into borrowing much more than we had planned assuring us we wouldn't notice much of a difference on our monthly payments. We ended up with a new balance of $108,000 (before that we had $62,000 left to pay on our home) A 10.45% interest with a promise of lowering it two years from then, we agreed thinking we could hold on for two years.

They insisted we accept checks for companies that had been discharged on our bankruptcy so our credit report would be clean, didn't sound right but hey what did we know? They were the mortgage company & knew more about these matters than we did. It was actually a scam on their part to make our end balance even higher.

They never told us where to send these checks, and then became impossible to contact, so I took a chance & sent the checks back to the money store (without making copies for proof, BIG mistake) Homeeq sent back 3 out of 6 & thanked me for my business, still not telling me where to send them, I discovered on my own where to send 2 and still have one, needless to say we never could get ahold of homeeq to find out what happened to the other 2.

The money store sent an assesor who lied (we have the assesment for proof of this) about our homes condition to value it high enough for this new enormous loan. They valued it at $135,000 saying it was in average condition, at best it's below average, said our kitchen floor needed "cured" when in reality the entire kitchen had dry rot and we had to tear out the whole kitchen. (we have no kitchen to this day) They transfered our loan to an unscrupulous mortgage company, (American General Finance) I'm sure from replies I have read on this site they will claim it's our fault, we should have read the contract and so on.

Whatever it takes to make them able to live with themselves or sleep at night. They are "professional scam artists" An ordinary person doesn't stand a chance with them. so from it being in the hands of one vulture and passed on to a fellow vulture, Our house is being auctioned off on May 30th 2003. Most mortgage holders don't want your house, The money store/homeeq & those they transfer it to not only want it (they profit believe me) they jump at the first opportunity to take it, and like a pitbull (no offense intended to pitbulls) once they get their teeth in they don't let go.

After 19 years, I can't even imagine living anywhere else. Our home is in bad shape, but I would rather live here as is than anywhere else. We have searched every agency tried everything imaginable & have found no help or hope, we raised 4 children here and it is being stolen out of our hands so an unscrupulous company can profit off our suffering.

My advice to anyone reading this, never sign anything without a lawyer, check out any company you deal with including previous names they worked under, don't buy a house without attending a homebuyers seminar. (most States offer them for free) And never trust a corporation.

Catherine
Federal Way, Washington
U.S.A.