Complaint Review: Alabama Pinnacle Homes The Appraisal Group Retired Military Financial Services (Structured Invest - Pinnacle-Huntsville, AL,RMFS-Huntington Beach,CA California

February 10, 2005 To all concerned: Since 2001, I have been fighting the system on many fronts. All these offices and agencies that were set up to help the citizen consumer when in need are a waste of time and tax payer money. I am talking from the Federal Government on down to state and local. My problems pre-date Katrina, but the Katrina syndrome sounds like a pretty good analogy to me. I can wrap it up in a short phrase; "that's not my job, call.....or write...... so and so." Pass the buck, is the name of the game. There are personnel and offices that don't even know what their mission or functions are. There are offices that will admit that the FBI investigates mortgage fraud against lenders, because they are losing millions of dollars. I am told that one of the places to call to report fraud is the FBI; do they even have the courtesy to answer back or even answer their phone for that matter? The answer is "no",, because I have tried. Then there are all the data collection agencies that are too numerous to name whose job is to keep tabs of the Top 10 Scams in the United States. These are the ones you call that can't do anything, but they will tell you to file a complaint and we will keep that data until it overflows all the bit buckets and then we start all over again. These are the offices like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and there are others. Crime is rampant all around these agencies and they are going to keep the data in case they see trends that people don't know.....like Identity Theft is bad news...well duh! There are just so many I have dealt with. I just can't name them all. Then there is the matter of trying to get legal representation as an individual in a obvious mortgage/appraiser fraud case and 99% of the law firms won't mess with you because they can't make the big bucks, like they can with the lenders fraud cases or they all of a sudden have a conflict of interest. Hmmmm! I can always go back to one of my first stops in this process. The Better Business Bureau of North Alabama. (The BBB). In the first place they can't do anything. They can't even make the business that the complaint is against respond to the complaint, and besides these businesses that are members of the BBB pay their salaries, so there is another..duh, situation. I had an interesting response from the BBB one time and I will quote it here. This was a complaint I lodged against a business here in Huntsville for mortgage/appraisal fraud. Here is their response, "We regret to inform you that the BBB cannot process your complaint. The case has been reviewed and was found to contain issues that are out of the BBB's Purview. Your complaint would be best handled by the Attorney General's office listed below." It is of course the Alabama Attorney Generals office in Montgomery. I might add that the complaints sent in never show up as ever having been filed against the company through the BBB, so what is the use? Also the BBB's very own Mission statement says it is to promote ethical business practices in the community. One might ask; so if a case of mortgage/appraisal fraud isn't an ethics problem, I wonder what is...I give this one a "duh" as well. I have more..see you tomorrow and I will tell you about our illustrious Attorney Generals office and the supportive words that come out of there. Until tomorrow.....! I'm back and here is what the Attorney General's office had to say. Actually there are a couple of quotes I have; first." Mr.. Walden, I am the Assistant Attorney General who made the no probable cause determination referred to in the letter we sent you." I had mentioned to him that in that year between April 2001 and April 2002 that I had put in a lawn planted trees, added a workshop and many, many feet of chain link fence. He said doing these things doesn't necessarily increase the value of the property. I find it hard to believe that grass and trees and such don't help! Now before I add the second quote, let me ask you this. I am by no means a Rocket Scientist and certainly I am not a "Assistant Attorney General", but let's figure this out on the facts that were given to them. In April 2000, the house and property was valued at $210,000. One year later two things happened, in April 2001, I had accepted a position in Minnesota and number two the loan was due for a re-finance based on an agreement with Pinnacle Homes, as they were carrying a second mortgage for the land. This was all a result of being given some erroneous information from the Veterans Administration, with whom I had first applied. I had it word of mouth from the VA that the house and 25 acres was no problem, but at the last minute they decided the information I was given was wrong, so I was stuck and ended up with a 80/20 mortgage; 80% with Heritage Bank and the 20% carried by Pinnacle Homes. The re-finance was done in May 2001 and at that time the appraisal was somewhere between $213,000 and $225,000. I was told approximately $225,000 by Scott from Hometown Lenders. I was in Minnesota at the time and we were discussing this by phone. Anyway in May the re-finance was done and my payment went up and also in a years time the appraisal went from $210,000 to $225,000. Something that may or may not be significant is the fact that between April 7, 2000 and June-July timeframe of 2001, this deal/mortgage went through the following hands. First it was Heritage Bank and Alabama Pinnacle Homes, then Sebring Capital, Hometown Lenders and end up at Homecomings Financial ; currently a subject of a class action suit. All that in itself seems a bit suspicious to me. I know I got a bit long winded since the 2nd Assistant Attorney General Office quote; but here it is. "It is apparent that the matter cannot be resolved through our mediation process." (They never tried) "Though the Consumer Affairs Section does provide assistance by attempting to mediate consumer related complaints and can even initiate litigation against unfair or deceptive business practices against the public, the AG cannot act as a private lawyer for you in this type of dispute." Now lets go back to the first thing they said about the reason for not pursuing it. The Assistant AG said there was "no probable cause." Lets see now, we went from a value of $210K in April 2000 to $225K in April/May 2001. In April 2001 I put the house on the market at $214,900 in an effort to just break even and clear my mortgage. The first realtor went through her routine and said we would be lucky if we got $160-$170,000 for it. Then she told me why. There was nothing she said about the condition of the house or property that would indicate any devaluation due to not taking care of the property, as Mrs. Neal from Alabama Pinnacle Homes insinuated. Mrs. Neal dreams up a follow up to Cat in the Hat with her rendition of Cat in the Rug, which I will discuss in a bit. It is a good joke for the day. There are 3 different things that the Realtor pointed out as to the reason for the devaluation of the house and property and here they are; 1) Lack of road frontage, just two 60 foot wide accesses off the main road, 2) No comps in the area to help 3) Small houses in the $60K to $70K built in front of the house. The realtor said these are the items that devalued the property. It was not the condition of the house and property as Mrs. Neal again will try to lead you to believe. I might add that these three items pre-existed even me signing the mortgage papers on April 7th. So, the AG thing comes into play again, which states "litigation against unfair or deceptive business practices." Let me ask you this; if these things pre-existed the signing and were things that devalued the house and property, and the builder/seller (Alabama Pinnacle Homes) and "The Appraisal Group" knew about it, which I know they did. Is this not "unfair or deceptive business practices?" It is, along with many other potential crimes; larceny, fraud, cover-up and I am sure there are others. I might add that I had 2 other realtors and 2 auctioneers who all said the same exact thing. So here again, I ask you..is this not "Probable Cause?" If it isn't then I guess I am just a stupid Joe citizen, that they expect to say, "Oh ok, thanks" Wrong answer..there is something wrong with this picture and it is spread all over the offices and systems that are suppose to protect us. President Bush announces a National Home Ownership Month. Give the builders/sellers/appraisers/attorneys a year or so and then they will be holding the annual Bankruptcy/Foreclosure Jamboree, because that is exactly what is going to happen with all the money hungry greedy predators around. They will set you up to fail, so they can line their pockets some more. There are other offices I have been in contact with that either pass the buck or as usual just ignore you and not respond to anything other than it is not their job. I have written the Alabama Senator and Congressman representing us in Washington. I have written the State Legislative Senator and Congressman representing us in Montgomery; no response. I wrote the Governors office, explained the situation to him and the fact that the only ones they were concerned about that were losing money was the lenders and that no one was concerned about the consumer. So what does he do? He forwarded my letter to the Superintendent of the State Banking Department. What good is that going to do me?....another duh! and a typical case of selective listening/reading. Not enough bling, bling noise. I've written the Department of Justice. They just ignore you and won't even read your emails. It just goes on and on, a vicious circle and no help or justice. Let me backtrack a little bit and give you a little history on my BBB dealings and Alabama Pinnacle Homes. When this all started it took quite a bit of time to come to light, due to several things. One was my admitted ignorance in the real estate property arena. It was my 2nd purchase in my 55 years. I spent 22 years in the military moving around every 2-3 years, so we never had the time to purchase a house build a little equity then sell and move on up the ladder. The other thing was the fact that I was out of state for 17 months and was relying on the realtors. It being advertised at $214,900, I thought maybe the realtors weren't advertising properly, so I would switch and still nothing. So after the realtors it was the auctioneers and when two of them; Pioneer Realty and Auction and Fowler Auction and Real Estate told me the same thing the realtors said then I got suspicious, a light came on and I realized I had been scammed, defrauded or whatever you want to call it. Actually I guess we can call it what it really is and that is theft. So with me being at another job for 17 months and everything else, it was 2004-2005 before I realized what had happened and started trying to do something about it. With all the "that's not my job", passing the buck, referred here, referred there and on and on, it is no wonder so much time has passed, so if there is any statute of limitations on this it is the bureaucracies fault and not my own. My statute of limitations clock started from the time I recognized what they had done and had it well hid in the mortgage. Anyway back to the Cat in the Rug story. Mrs. Neal in her efforts to make excuses and tap dance after being caught with her hands in the cookie jar, created a second part to the story. Her first statement was this and she really had no business saying it, because it was none of her business. She was correct in saying that I wanted to acquire a home with a large piece of land for my family and the animals I had. She also knew that at the time I had plans to stay there for the duration. Well things change. I took a job in MN and was making good money. Mrs. Neal made the statement that evidently there was a strain on my resources. We were doing just fine even making 2 mortgage payments the one in AL and one in MN. Where the resource strain started was when DOD cancelled the contract I was working on and I was laid off 17 months into a 6 year contract. Then the fact that my house in Alabama hadn't sold really got to be a burden, because I was unemployed. Mrs. Neal went on to say that apparently, the deterioration of the house and grounds had an adverse effect on the value of the property. It is kind of strange that she would say that, because during that very same timeframe the house and property was appraised by "The Appraisal Group" at $225,000. Darn that house dropped in value by $60,000 almost overnight. It must have been that Cat in the Rug story that is coming next. In a reply to the AG office Mrs. Neal attached a copy of a letter from Floor Fashions in an effort to justify some more cover-up. First let me explain this carpet that was installed. Initially there were two different shades installed and it was al to be the same, so that was changed. This carpet was alive; it crawled, bunched itself up, and pulled away from the walls and all sorts of weird things. Mrs. Neal will try to make you believe that Floor Fashions only came out once to restretch the carpet. Well I beg to differ with her, because I know they came while I was still there and they also came after I left and my daughter and son-in-law were there. Also the installer from the company told my son-in-law that the carpet was never installed right the first time. Mrs. Neal though manages this letter that attempts to blame the cat for the problem, because the cat "may have urinated on it." This is what she writes about the letter, "Enclosed is a copy of a letter from Floor Fashions which indicates their observations concerning the carpet and some indication of what appears to be some of the difficulties with the condition of the property." This is another attempt by her to put the blame on someone else, because like I said the house had just appraised at $225,000. I know it was That Darn Cat! As an added act of desperation, Mrs. Neal attempts to paint my demeanor and personality as someone that "strikes out at those with whom he has dealt and threatens to cause difficulties in the future if he is not made happy." Find me one more person in all Huntsville, Alabama that believes that and I will give you that land in Florida. What a lie that one is. She is talking about the class clown, the guy that risks life and limb to stop and rescue box turtles off our highways, the guy that buys from telemarketers and door to door sales persons just to get them to leave, a guy that grieves over the death of any animal. That is another reason I wanted the room to build space to rescue critters. Now let me shed a little light on Mrs. Neal's charming desire to help her clients. In the process of our house being built there were several things I was concerned about, one was this huge hole they dug to get fill dirt to fill in other houses yards in the area. Fill dirt was their idea of topsoil. Another item was the fact that there were piles of non-biodegradable trash around that I wanted removed, drums, tires, these huge old fashion satellite dishes and other. They did remove the dishes, but there were still piles of other stuff, old mattresses etc. I specifically told Mrs. Neal in her office that I did not want any trash buried on the property, because I knew they had that big hole they needed to fill in. In the first place it is illegal and is a Environmental problem. Well, guess what they buried it anyway and then they have the audacity in my Deed book on the restrictions page to say, and I again quote Exhibit B item 9; "No part of the property shall be used or maintained as a dumping ground for rubbish, trash, garbage or other waste." Seems to be a little double standard there too. Another issue was the fact that there was a property line dispute that they were aware of, but did not inform us about until we were threatened and almost shot. The lady that was there was crazy and when myself and daughter went walking down there way within our lines she was cussing at us, flashing and mooning us. I specifically told them again that this issue needed to be resolved. It never was. Myself, the surveyor and the building foreman went down there to look at the line and she came out with a gun and threatened to shoot us. The surveyor gave her another copy of the survey, but that was that and it went on until she finally moved. We were put in harms way by them not settling this issue before hand. I have a copy of a fax I sent Mrs. Neal and also a police report. oooops! Little problem with the slab too when the house was being built, seems they made a boo boo and the slab was not where it was suppose to be, so the entry box for utility hookup exceeded Huntsville Utilities limit. The proper thing to have done would be to add another pole, but instead Pinnacle persuaded them to do it. These are just other things that happened along the way that weren't right either. So if they want to throw some stones they need to move out of that glass house they are living in. The fact that I was laid off in MN for sure did not help matters, but the fact that I couldn't sell my house here to at least clear the mortgage really messed us up. I loved the place and didn't want to sell it, but I even more didn't want to see it foreclosed on, which it was. I had closed on a house in MN, January 25, 2002 and in July 2002 I was told I was being laid off with a termination date in September 2002. We stayed in the area hoping to find another job, but didn't. During the period from September to December I had a daughter that was assaulted which resulted in 2 years trying to put the person in jail. We were getting pretty desperate. We had the mortgages, 2 vehicle payments, 6 dependents and no job. I was at work one day and was looking through an Army Times newspaper. I saw an ad for a company called Retired Military Financial Services (RMFS) who said they would pay cash upfront for a certain amount of months of my military retirement pension. Come to find out later they were in no way associated with the military, but advertising in Army Times and being called Retired Military Financial Services will fish a desperate person in easily and they did. RMFS was the bait and Structured Investments Inc was the company that actually did the dealing. I was already on psychiatric medication for all the other things that has happened in our life, so I wasn't in my right mind anyway. I had visions of getting us out of the situation we were in, but it never happened. They gave me $50K upfront cash for my $1214 per month for 10 years. So that $50K when paid will be $150,000. All that money was spent trying to keep our heads above water with the mortgages, cars etc..well it never worked and soon I was just out of my retirement pension I had worked and fought for 22 years for. There was nothing else for us in MN. On December 24th and 25th of 2002, we were on the road in cars and a U-Haul headed back to Alabama and to the house that never sold. Shortly after arriving back there, still unemployed, I had to file a Chapter 13 to stop foreclosure proceedings on the house we were in. The attorney gave the house in MN back to the Mortgage Company. The Chapter 13 would not discharge the $1214 per month I had to pay, so it was of no help and all it did was buy a little time and eventually we had to file a Chapter 7, the $1214 was still not discharged. We lost the house and our vehicles and were forced to rent. I am still under treatment for depression, panic attacks, Obsessive-Compulsive disorder and others. I had a heart attack in March 2004 and had to have a steent put in place and December 2005, I had a stroke and had to be picked up by Med flight. We really miss our place at 1516 Ready Section Road. I had put so much into that place. I was finally somewhere I could plant some trees and maybe stay long enough to see them grow. I had a pond that I spent a lot of time and money stocking with fish so the kids and I could sit down there and catch and release for fun. I did things to try to enhance the place for wildlife and had so many dreams of what I wanted to do on down the road if I could. All that was erased by some greedy people and other people and offices in all levels of government that just don't want to do their job because the bling, bling is just not enough. Now, since all this has started we are not much better off. My marriage of almost 30 years is gone. My health is not great. I will be 55 years old this month. My military retirement I spent 22 years earning is gone for 10 years, so I will probably never see that money again. At a point where I should be enjoying life, I dread life. My dreams of a place like I had are to never be again and that was something I had dreamed about my entire life. I found great solemn and relaxation on "My Property" listening to the silence. That is gone now. I do blame myself partially. In the first place in 1976 when I was married and decided to go back in the military, I should have started planning then for the future, but I didn't. Much of the time was spent planning my future drink, but at that time it was cool and expected. So out of all this mess that is the biggest place where I could have made a big difference in our lives. We have never known anything other than payday to payday. The last few Christmas's have been pretty much non-existent, but the children fortunately are old enough to understand it all now. We had problems before, financially and otherwise, but we always managed. Since April 2001 life hasn't been that great and there have been times when I have thought about leaving it, but that is the cowards' way out. Mrs. Neal inspired me about striking out and I am not going to stop until something is done. I am hoping what they say can be true, "the pen is mightier than the sword" I sure hope so. Thank you all for listening (to those that have a hard time hearing.....here goes...bling, bling). I guess more appropriately it should be thanks for reading. I just hope I can reach out and touch all that haven't attempted to reach out and touch those our government allows to run rampant, gorging off of the consumer, waiting to be invited to the bankruptcy/foreclosure party. This party is by Invitation Only!....bring your own Crook. If I had the ability and the funds, I would sue everyone in the builder/seller/appraiser arena as well as all the offices that are suppose to be helping the consumer, but instead pass the responsibility and blame to someone else. After I do some more research, I might just attempt to form the biggest class action lawsuit seen. Yours honestly and sincerely; Virgil E Walden Jr.