Complaint Review: WAMU - Washington Mutual - Florence South Carolina

First- not paying attention to your bank account or mail is ridiculous. You must take responsibility for that. However, you did call WAMU and ask for directions. You received directions. Under the 'agency theory', any representative of that company is speaking for that comany and that company assumes any risks/responsibilities thereof. If you were 3 months behind- usually 1 month short of foreclosure and were offered a plan, you should have sent that plan money in right away- also noting who you spoke to and on what time and date. Always ask who you spoke to when you make a deal. It is also better to be asked that the 'deal' be faxed to you. Get the # for the local UPS store, you can receive it there. If the rep refuses, demand a supervisor and then ask for the fax. If, indeed, these are the conversations you had, the company IS liable. You also should have followed the directions in a timely manner to avoid foreclosure. Had they received even 1 payment, immediately, in this financial climate, it would have bought you time. WAMU is on an automated system. They DO NOT wait 3 months to call you. I am 2 months behind on my mortgage and they have called me 4x a week since I was first late. I am working with early loss mitigation and have sent in lots of paperwork that they have received. I also KNEW I was behind and called them right away to say why and how often I could send them money and have been following what I said. I always ask for a name and that my account be noted. I have been 2 payments behind since April and and am nowhere near foreclosure. Early Loss Mitigation is still working on a loan modification for me. In your case, it may be hard to prove, but you need a lawyer to state for you that you followed directions form a WAMU rep and the expected results didn't happen. I wish you luck!

""This worked fine until I had to take over my sons' car payment. Eventually, my monies coming in did not cover what needed to go out, and I got behind in my mortgage payments. "" Where's the ripoff? You decided that your son's car was more important than your home-paid the car and didn't pay the mortgage. Seems to me your priorities are out of whack. You knew that you were not paying your mortgage so your defense of not balancing your checking account is moot. And you're surprised that they are attempting to foreclose on the house??? Perhaps your son should be looking for a second job to help YOU out.

""This worked fine until I had to take over my sons' car payment. Eventually, my monies coming in did not cover what needed to go out, and I got behind in my mortgage payments. "" Where's the ripoff? You decided that your son's car was more important than your home-paid the car and didn't pay the mortgage. Seems to me your priorities are out of whack. You knew that you were not paying your mortgage so your defense of not balancing your checking account is moot. And you're surprised that they are attempting to foreclose on the house??? Perhaps your son should be looking for a second job to help YOU out.

""This worked fine until I had to take over my sons' car payment. Eventually, my monies coming in did not cover what needed to go out, and I got behind in my mortgage payments. "" Where's the ripoff? You decided that your son's car was more important than your home-paid the car and didn't pay the mortgage. Seems to me your priorities are out of whack. You knew that you were not paying your mortgage so your defense of not balancing your checking account is moot. And you're surprised that they are attempting to foreclose on the house??? Perhaps your son should be looking for a second job to help YOU out.

""This worked fine until I had to take over my sons' car payment. Eventually, my monies coming in did not cover what needed to go out, and I got behind in my mortgage payments. "" Where's the ripoff? You decided that your son's car was more important than your home-paid the car and didn't pay the mortgage. Seems to me your priorities are out of whack. You knew that you were not paying your mortgage so your defense of not balancing your checking account is moot. And you're surprised that they are attempting to foreclose on the house??? Perhaps your son should be looking for a second job to help YOU out.

To Ken, Its your responsibilty to balance and maintain your checkbook, not the banks. Failure to pay your mortgage will usually result in foreclosure, thats a given. Regardless of WaMu dragging their feet, you should have started to pay your mortgage immediately upon finding out you were 3 months behind. Double the payment until you caught up those 3 months, become current with the mortgage and if it proceeded to foreclosure court, you can show good cause for not having the home foreclosed upon. Because you are current on all payments. Only you are responible for what happens to you. I wouldnt have taken over the sons car payment, unless I was on the loan, and then I would have sold it or had it repo'd, it would have affected your credit score, but wouldnt have you in foreclosure. Dont wait for help, help yourself, be proactive, especially when it comes to loans and finances. To Paula, Read the above it applies as well. The only other thing is, that at a foreclosure auction WaMu ONLY recieves the balance left on your note. They do not recieve any home equity, or increased value. IE: Loan amount 250,000, balance left on loan 100,000, sells for 250,000, WaMu GETS 100,000 only. WaMu is made "whole", you would have recieved 150,000. It cannot recieve anything more that what is due to them. If that was the case, WaMu and every other bank would have foreclosed on properties all over to get a financial windfall. The downside to that is most often or not, home auctions usually sell for under the loan balance amount, and under fair market value. We all learn by our mistakes, and now you know never to rely on anyone other than yourself and those close to you..IE: your mom. Question, how much time elapsed between the injury and the auction, and was there any monthly mortgage paid during that period? If not than foreclosure was a given. Chris NY

I don't know what WaMu told this gentleman however anyone that reads this and you fall behind on your mortgage payment with WaMu dont believe them when they say they can help you save your house!! My husband had his back go out in April and for 3 weeks couldn't work. He went to the emergency room, to a specialist, then MRI and then a shot in the back to relieve the pain which took 3 months. During that time, he couldn't continue cleaning pools which paid for the mortgage... that was his second job.. I was having to make sure I brought in enough money to cover the expenses which by July, I realized that we wouldn't be able to make July's payment. I told my husband that he needed to call WaMu about options that may be available to us to get back on track with the loan. For example, put the payments at the end of the loan, refinance or make payment arrangements with them. He was transferred to their loss mitigation dept. They first discussed payment arrangements however the amount that they were asking was so extreme that there was no possible way that we could agree to it! We faxed in our financial statement, a letter stating why we were behind, etc... about twenty times and every time I called them to see if they got it, they never did and I would have to refax it!! Then how many times I would call to discuss the account with them however because I wasn't on the account, they wouldn't discuss it with me. THEY even HAD a letter that my husband signed stating that he was giving me permission to discuss the account with them but do you think that they ever bothered to put that in their notes??? NOT!! It made it really difficult to talk to them!! They kept telling my husband that they would work with us however the options that we thought we had was no longer an option. We were getting different people telling us different things. Every time my husband called they were telling us something different. Honestly, to tell you the truth, they are complete morons over there! And from reading the ripoffreport.com on WaMu, I think that because of their incompetence, is the reason why most of these people have lost their homes. When they keep telling you how much they want to work with you and that you qualify for their program to help you save the house, you should believe them because they are your bank and as much effort they put into sending all the promotional notices saying please call the loss mitigation dept.. WE CAN HELP YOU!!! By the way, there is no point in opening those PROMOTIONAL notices because all they will do is give you promises that they don't plan on keeping! I honestly think that they waited until the last minute on purpose to tell us that they couldn't do anything for us so we didn't have any time left to get the money to save our house and guess what? If my mom wasn't there to help us two hours before the Auction, THEY would've gotten the house back and made a fortune!! Now, had we known that they weren't going to help us back in July, the first thing I would've done was refinance the house in my name because I am not on the loan now! And NONE of this would be happening right now!!! I only hope that other people that are in the same boat don't rely on WAMU to help them because they just trick people into losing their home and that is SCARY!!! The day before the auction was going to take place, my husband finally decided to go down to WaMu branch to demand an answer since we weren't getting any response from them over the phone. The branch manager was able to talk to someone in the dept. who said that they looked over our information and just decided that we had no other options other than we needed $8100.00 to save the house and that was it!! I was so upset and angry that I couldn't even think straight and that then I realized that they really did want our house BAD!!! We have well over 100k in equity in the home!!! However, All I ever hear is how much banks don't want to lose your business and didn't even think that they would pull this!!! Paula

Ken, First, am sorry to read of your foreclosure situation, but let me address some issues. 1. Wamu notified you that you were in danger of foreclosure. Wamu has records that they mailed you multiple notices of pending foreclosure which you admitted you did not open the envelopes thinking they were promotional or informational correspondence, i.e., junk mail. You wrote: Unfortunately, I am not one of those people that sits down every month and balances my checkbook. I did receive mail to the effect that I was behind, but thinking they were just informational or promotional correspondence, I did not open them, and they went on a vast pile of junk mail I hoard. I never received a phone call from your company until I was behind about 3 months. 2. Considering you were in danger of foreclosure, you should have visited a local Wamu bank office to speak with a loan officer and if that was not possible, you should have returned the paperwork for mortgage payment changes via a tracked deliverly service such as Fedex, DHL or UPS addressed to a specific loan contact name. You should not have waited two weeks. You wrote: He also told me that he could send me a form to fill out as to my finances and that doing the afore mentioned business over the phone is hardly ever approved anyway. I received the paperwork and sent it back to your company. I did not hear from you for about 2 weeks, so I called your company 3 or 4 days ago. The person I talked to said that your company had not received the paperwork (she said probably because of the holiday mail), and that someone from your company would be in touch with me in the near future.