Complaint Review: Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

After attempting to sell our home for more than a year and being unable to find a buyer, my husband lost his job and we had to move for a new one.  We paid the mortgage on top of the rent on our new place for six months, hoping it would sell, but finally exausted our savings and contacted the mortgage company, Wells Fargo about a short sale.  We were assigned a Home Preservation Specialist, Faith Montoya, and were instructed to call her anytime with questions or problems. She was our assigned point of contact.  To this day, more than seven months later, we have never once been able to get a hold of her.  NOT ONCE.  

We explained the situation, and they told us that we could stop making payments and start the application process for a short sale.  We collected all kinds of required documentation and faxed it to the number.  Weeks passed.  We called "Faith Montoya", but the number we called didn't get us to Faith Montoya; it got us to the collections department, because we were now late with our mortgage payment.  No matter who we called, we could not get anyone to give us to Faith Montoya. Someone finally informed us that they had somehow not received several pages of the fax, even though they ahd received all of the other pages. No one had bothered to tell us.  We refaxed those pages.  Days went by.  We called to find out what was going on, and had to go through the collections department again, because the number for "Faith Montoya" did not get us to her.  They had no record of receiving the faxes, even though this time we had kept the proof that the faxes had gone through.  We discovered that the faxes are delivered through a system in India or somewhere, and then scanned in by employees there; apparently, if they drop the ball and miss the fax or some pages, there's nothing we can do.  Our house and our life and our credit gets screwed over.

We faxed the pages, and kept faxing them.  We faxed them repeatedly, at least thirty times in a day.  We decided it was the only way to make sure our lives weren't ruined.  It had been two months since we began the short sale process, and our credit score had dropped tremendously from two missed payments, and we still weren't in the short sale process!   Finally, we received a call letting us know they had received the fax.  It worked.  Then, we began receiving demands for other kinds of documentation.  They didn't believe we didn't have other jobs or other income.  They wanted all kinds of nonsensical stuff. (My husband, the only borrower on the house, sent in a hardship letter; that wasn't enough- they wanted a separate one from me as well!). Every time we would fax papers with ridiculous "letters of explanation" stating that we didn't have non-existent jobs or non-existent sources of income (for which they had no reason to suspect, other than suspicion, because we sent them complete bank records!) they would request more.  We sent them our bank accounts.  They ask for the EXACT SAME BANK ACCOUNTS- in my name.  They didn't even bother to look at the account numbers to see that they were joint accounts.  And every time, we had to fax them multiple times because they "wouldn't receive them" for weeks.

This whole process took four months AFTER we first submitted the paperwork, just to get the application completed.  Then, come to find out, they don't pay the minimum commission!!!!  So our realtor backed out just as the short sale process was supposed to be ready to begin- they had never told him or us this before!  In addition, at the same time, they sent us a short sale contract agreement that contained clauses that were unacceptable- we had told them previously that we no longer lived in the house or anywhere near it, so we would be unabel to keep up utilities, maintenance, snow removal, etc... but the contract they sent us explicitly stated that we woudl have to do all these things.  We called every day, day after day, the number on the contract, Brittany Burns.  We called the number of a customer service rep who had contacted us when we complained to the BBB before.  We called the ever-elusive Faith Montoya (who we still don't believe exists.)  We called Faith Montoya's boss, Sam Sieger.  We called everyone we had spoken to at some point, trying to get someone to help us.  We left voice mails.  No one we spoke to could help us; no one they transferred us to would answer.  No one we left voice mails for  would call us back.  

I complained to the BBB again, because the last time, it actually got them to return our calls, when the fax things was happening and we couldn't get anyone to talk with us.  But this time, the company just said that the complaint had been resolved and they were done.  We got a letter from them stating everything they had done to try to resolve the complaint- all of it was either false or misrepresented.  Most of it was stuff they SAID they would do, but never actually did.  Finally, we just gave up.  No one would speak to us.  We couldn't sign the contract as it was.  Our realtor had quit and no one else was going to do it for the commission they were offering on the short sale.  And our point of contact, Faith Montoya, DOES NOT EXIST.  We believe she is not a real person- some kind of scapegoat the company has made up to blame when people get screwed over.  

Last month, about a month after all this went down, a realtor contacted us about people interested in our home.  We took her on.  We got an offer, amazingly.  Now we have been trying to reach Wells Fargo to get them to agree to this offer, which is near market value (like, $1000 under.). They told us we would have to start the short sale process ALL OVER AGAIN because the application expired.  It expired because they wouldn't return our calls!!!!  Words cannot express our frustration.  Our house is now in the foreclosure process.  We are hoping to get a buyer who will pay full price, but we are not otimistic about being able to get Wells Fargo to get the paperwork through no matter what.  We just got a letter today from "Faith Montoya".  It thanks us for "speaking with her today", and apologizing that we couldn't come to an agreement regarding available options (meaning we didn't want to start the short sale process again because they screwed it up so bad last time and we don't have another 5-6 months to waste with our credit already ruined and the house in foreclosure!)  We have NEVER SPOKEN TO HER, and this letter says that we have!!!  Another outright lie!! They are sending false documentation to pretend that they are doing things that they are NOT doing, just like they did before when we complained to the BBB.  

These people are either incompetent or avoid doing their jobs properly at all costs, and they will lie and create false paper trails to cover up their incompetence/laziness.  Don't even bother trying to work with them- your life, your credit, your finances will suffer more if you do.  You would think they want to avoid foreclosure at all costs, but they don't care.  I don't know how they get away with it.  This should be illegal.  At the very least, what they are doing is unethical and it's terrible business practice for them as well.  Our lives are certainly ruined, at least for the next few years.