I've posted here several times about the importance of choosing a good lender. If this story doesn't convince you, nothing else I could say will!

I've cut and pasted this from another blog. The writer is a real estate broker who wanted to remain anonymous for professional reasons. Hey, it can happen to anyone!

After an exhausting fight with Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker my mortgage has been sold to Bank of America.

The year leading up to this event has made me an emotional mess. Never have I felt so helpless and small. I was so distraught I sought out comfort from other victims of TBW scams. Some of those new found friends had lost their homes in foreclosure. The rest of us were holding on by a thread for our dear lives.

Now, for a real estate broker, foreclosing on your home is simply embarassing. Seeing my name in the legal section was my worst fear. People would automatically think I was in financial trouble or irresponsible. So my husband hugged me every day and told me there was nothing more I could do. The lawyer in my said otherwise.

So I went in search of others who were facing problems with TBW and found a class action lawsuit against them for effectively forcing people into foreclosure. The stories sounded eerily similar to mine.

1. The online bill pay site was down almost 24/7. When you did happen to find the website running they made it virtually impossible to pay online by hiding their payment system somewhere within the site. After 4 hours one day I managed to find it. I tried to pay and the system would not process the payment due to technical difficulties.

           Because online bill pay was down we tried to mail our payment in.

2. I keep immaculate payment records. So I sent my payment through the mail.

25% of the time TBW claimed they never received the payment(even when mailed in their own envelope) and it never was seen again.

50% of the time TBW claimed they never received the payment and it showed up as being cleared on my bank statement. They refuse to use bank statements as proof of payment and marked my mortgage as late.So who was cashing my checks then?

25% of the time they received the payment but took 45-60 days to process it. Because their billing system took that long they tacked on late fees.This happened even if my payment was received weeks before the due date.

Now I am three months behind on my mortgage and receiving demand letters from TBW. I write them a long letter begging them to TAKE MY &**$% MONEY. I have been sending the payments but no one will process them or acknowledge ever receiving them.

3. I send by certified mail a payment for all that is currently and past due. I receive verification that they have my letter.

4. I receive a foreclosure notice because I have not paid(according to them). My credit is ruined at this point. I call them and am put on hold for 4 HOURS until their business is closed. I get a message that says to call back tomorrow.

5. I call back every day and wait on hold. My maximum record was 7 HOURS.  I pressed the operator buttons, trying to trick the system into giving me a live person. No luck.

6. Even though I have verification of them receiving my payment it has not been processed yet.

7. I try the Pay-By-Phone option. They have a live version(supposedly) so maybe they will talk to me if I offer to throw more money at them. No such luck. The operator told me my account was in "Lockdown Status" and I needed to contact their attorneys in order to pay.

At this point I was pulling out my hair, drinking every night, and my temper was flaring. I wrote them one more nasty note before I intended on joining the lawsuit. They responded: You're mortgage has been sold to Bank of America. All payments received by us will be forward to BOA as required by law.

BANK OF AMERICA SAVED ME! I have contacted them and they have no records of any forwarded payments from TBW. So TBW has approximately $4800.00 in complimentary payments from me that disappeared from my bank account but was never credited to my account. And yes, I did verify the mailing address because at one point I thought I was being scammed by a private individual.

I wanted my story to be told because there are still at least 100 people that I know of who were forced into foreclosure or on the brink by Taylor Bean & Whitaker. And no, they were not doing this randomly or to everyone.  Being a real estate agent I instructed other individuals to get a BPO or appraisal done on their house just in case they needed to sell fast. I presented their findings to an anonymous banker who knows the costs of foreclosures. He noted that TBW stood to make a sweet profit on each of properties if they foreclosed and sold themselves. Whether or not that is what they were planning I don't know.

I haven't followed the class action suit. From what I heard the majority of them were suing because TBW refused to take their monthly payments and forced them into foreclosure. But TBW has received a cease and desist order for FHA loans and are under investigation for fraud.

Just remember when you talk to people who are foreclosing, it  isn't always their fault.

Now I'm with a new mortgage company so hopefully I don't get screwed again and this is all behind me. And I hope this never happens to any other person.

An assortment of tidbits today.

Here's an interesting overall look at the Northern VA real estate market. It only comes out as far as Loudon and Prince William but you can extrapolate from there.

Bank of America appears to be set to buy Countrywide. This is good news. Countrywide appeared to be headed for bankruptcy which would have been unbelievably disruptive to the industry.

Zillow has announced that the number of homes it covers and the accuracy of it's estimates are greatly improved. You could have fooled me. When I took a look at where I live there was no Zestimate at all for our home or any of our neighbors.

This blog post if right on in pointing out that REALTORS should be the first ones objecting to NAR's absurdly rosy predictions. Credibility once lost is hard to regain.

Ben Bernanke appears set on cutting interest rates again this month. A half point cut now seems entirely possible. The effect on the mortgage interest rate remains to be seen. However, LIBOR, a rate used to set interest rates on adjustable rate mortgages fell this week. Good news if you've got an ARM due to reset soon!