There are many issues and discrepancies that have arisen through our dealings with ALMA, both monetary and with the performance of the representitives of ALMA.
My husband and I entered into an agreement to American Loss Mitigation Agency negotiate our modification with Chase. We used a 3rd party broker, IDRS, to aquire their services. We have been using for IDRS for debt consolidation services since March of 2009.
We told our IDRS rep, that we were having problems with our mortgage, and because of his impeccable record and customer service in dealing with our other debt problems, when he recommended ALMA, we did not bat an eyelash. He told us that your company would get us a better loan modification than we could get on our own, because of your 23 years of experience in that field
I asked IDRS for the ALMA email address because I felt so strongly about the way ALMA has dealt with us and our so called, "loan modification". We emailed the owner, but we have been denied a return of fees by Mr. Dan Schultz and in fact he will no longer respond to our emails. ALMC took our money and ran!
Let me explain the many issues we have with ALMA and what has happened to us.
We faxed everything over regarding the modification that was requested by ALMA, within 5 days of signing the agreement. All follow up paperwork that ALMA asked for, we faxed to IDRS within 1 or 2 business days of the requests, which he immediately sent on to ALMA. He sent urgent messages whenever there was a request and we sent everything ASAP. Dispite our diligence, ALMA charged an overage fee of $750, above & beyond the $1375 to secure a modification.
We were told that those fees were taken because it took over 90 days to secure a Loan Mod, with Chase Bank and so, per the agreement we signed, ALMA is entitled to $150 an hour for overage fees.
We were also told by ALMA, that Chase had held up the process.
So, I called Chase to find out why they had delayed the process and they told me that by looking at their computer and phone records, the delay was actually caused by ALMA.
We faxed the documents that were requested, to your rep in early July of 2009. Your company did not even call Chase until August 14th and that was only to ask for their fax number. It then took your company until September 15th to send the first wave of documents to Chase. That is over 2 months after we sent your company the initial information, so it's no wonder that it took over 90 days.
There were several occasions when we were asked to send documents that we had already sent to your rep, such as our taxes. There were questions about my income, because the rep had read my paystubs wrong. There were several other unnecessary delays that stemmed from ALMA, that had to be cleared up.
If these delays resulted because perhaps, there were documents that your rep forgot to ask us for, or their was something missing from the initial requested documents, I do not believe we should be held responsible for that.
Your company has been in this business for 23 years. You should know what to ask for and when. You are the experts, right? You were hired by us to mediate in what we believed, would be a timely and professional manner. We also believe that your company had a duty to perform in a manner that would be in our best interest. These delays have cost us money and were obviously in the best interest of your company, not in ours.
What reason do your reps have to complete the modification process on time? Your company stands to make more if there is a delay. So either the delays were intentional, or they were because of negligence or incompetence. We should not have to pay for that. We did everything on our end in a timely manner.
NOT TO MENTION, we did not get a modification, we got a TRIAL and have now been informed by Chase that we do not qualify for the Modification that you applied for on our behalf.
So, what extraordinary service did we receive through your company to justify your fees? We would have the same result, NO RESULT AT ALL, had we negotiated the modification ourselves and had we known this, we would have done it ourselves.
There is NOTHING that your company did for us to justify the initial $1375 fee, or the added overage fees of $750.
You also screwed over our broker at IDRS by taking the majority of his fees.
You were supposed to take $550 out of the $1375 fee, per your agreement with our broker and were supposed to give IDRS the balance of $825, for mediating. Instead you gave Them $75 and kept $1300. You ripped off IDRS, who then passed your fees onto us! He took the balance owed to him of $750 (which coincedentally is the same amount of the overage fees!), from the check returned to him from our escrow account that was held by your company. We ended up paying $2100!
IDRS is returning the fees they charged to us, because we did not get a loan Modification. We should also be refunded the $1,300 by ALMA. They did not get us a modification, they got us a trial and we have been denied.
We have now entered into an agreement with NACA, to see if they can do anything for us.
WE ARE AT SQUARE ONE. THANK YOU ALMA for NOTHING!!!!!
Go ahead and answer this, I dare you Mr Schultz. I have all of the emails, documentation and invoices you sent, to back up these claims, so BRING IT ON!!!!
Theresa G from Burbank, California