The Boehm family

There’s a good reason why Attorney General Koster has not taken any action against serial mortgage abuser Bank of America. He is waiting for a report. One of his lieutenants is in charge of getting interviews from everyone who has listed a complaint on the AG site. Currently that is 152 Missouri homeowners. When I mentioned all this to Mary Boehm more than two weeks ago, she chuckled. “Right. Well, they haven’t gotten to us yet.” But within a couple of days, bingo, she got a call from the AG’s office. The investigator wasn’t calling to set up an interview, but he did offer concrete information. Here’s how Mary described it in an e-mail:

An investigator from the AG’s office called me two weeks ago. He was very nice and said he was calling to let me know that the AG was investigating all the banks and their possible fraudulent behavior, but that it was a very time-consuming process. He said he would be calling us back to get our statement soon. He also said that the AG was investigating this crisis along two lines:

1. The banks telling people to make modified payments while they were “processing” modifications and then suddenly trying to foreclose on them.

2. The banks refusing to give customers their loan documentation proving who holds the note (most likely because no one knows where the notes are).

He told us that we were one of the few complainants who were in both situations. He also said we might be called as witnesses. Lucky us!

When I called and asked Mary if the “lucky us!” was sincere, she laughed and told me it was and it wasn’t. Yes, she and Mike would relish a chance to turn the tables on their tormentors. On the other hand, it’s one more way to assure that the nightmare drags on.

And yet, even on the mortgage modification front, the Boehms are finally getting some traction. Here’s more of her e-mail:

Big news: We paid BOA on 2/11 the amount Stephanie Caruso gave us in writing to come current, which we agreed with (no fees!) and she also put in writing that BOA would fix our credit. (Caruso is in Customer Relations at the Office of the CEO and President.) We will have to wait 90 days for our credit reports to be updated, and by then interest rates will probably be too high for refinancing our loan to be helpful, but we thought this nightmare was finally over!

But then Bad for America reverted to type:

Of course, on Monday, 2/14, I got another collection call from BOA! When I told the woman that we had paid up on Friday, she said that we still owed $830 more and that our Notice of Intent to Accelerate had expired on Dec. 26. (I guess this was a threat to frighten me into paying.) When I told her that we were working with someone from the Office of the CEO and President, she said there were no codes in our file stating that we were working with that department. I said a bad word and hung up on her.

Then Mike left an angry message on Stephanie Caruso’s voicemail complaining. She called back and left a message stating that she was sorry that happened, that it SHOULDN’T have happened, and that we really WERE paid up and current through Feb. 28. To top this off, she said she was putting a “hold” on our phone number which means that we won’t get any more calls from BOA. Unfortunately, she said, that also means that SHE can’t call us anymore either. So if we need to talk to her, we have to reach her in person, because she won’t be able to return any calls. RIGHT! Can you believe that this is real?! This is world-class customer service? It sounds to me like a great excuse for not talking to us anymore. I am beginning to believe that this will NEVER really be over.

Bank of America doesn’t ever believe in doing things the classy way. There will be more teeth grinding glitches for the Boehms. But it looks like they might be among the lucky ones.