My story is a little different then most, but here it goes
In 2008, I did a cash out refinance on my property, I owned it free and clear. My mortgage was with Ohio Savings Bank (AMTRUST). Wells Fargo Subsequently purchased the note from them.
So when I took out this mortgage it was to help save a Restaurant business that was distressed from the economy. So I knew that there was a possibility that in the future the mortgage might be hard to meet. So my plan was to whenever I could was to make prepayments in the form of extra payments or overpayments to go toward future payments.
My mortgage payment was $1200 per month and for quite a few months I made $2000 a month payments - $800 in overpayments to go toward future payments.
Amsouth took these overpayments & Wells Fargo subsequently took them. In September of 2009 we were finally forced to close our business and were trying to limit our financial damage, so we stopped making payments to Wells Fargo, since we know we had prepaid our mortgage for 8+ months.
After the first 30 days the phone calls started and we tried to explain the situation and this is when we found out that they so graciously applied all our future payments to "Principle" We explained to them they misapplied that we directed with our payments it was for future payments.
First started late fees.
Next out of no where we received paperwork that we were approved for a modification. A modification that we never applied for nor that we wanted. We just wanted our payments to be credited correctly and late fees and other fees that were mistakenly placed on our account to be reversed.
Not only would they not take our phone calls, but when we did send payments, they just put them in suspense, and only would apply late fees, inspection fees and so on.
Just for a little more information, this house at the time was not our primary residence it was our second home, that we eventually were going to move to. The home was in North Carolina and we were in Florida. Without notice, and without any pending Foreclosure action, Wells Fargo had contracted with a Firm to enter our home, change our locks, empty our pool, drain our hot water heater and toilets and cut off our water.
Thank god an friend of mine was driving by to check the property, caught them entering the property, contacted us and we subsequently told them they needed to leave the property and if they returned we would file trespass charges.
Wells Fargo excuse was when they inspected the property on several occasions, each time charging us an inspection fee, they decided since they didn't see somebody living their they determined it was abandoned and was going to take it over. Again at the time there was no foreclosure going on at the time.
At this point I retained an attorney to deal with Wells Fargo in hopes to get my payments applied correctly, stop this modification we never requested and stop them from entering my property. Wells Fargo made it an art form on how to dodge my attorney. Obviously they wouldn't take his phone calls without a Power of Attorney. With no joke, he had to mail, fax and email the executed Power of Attorney at least 10 times before they would acknowledge it.
Finally he was able to speak with the Trustee for the Deed of Trust, with Bock & Scott. He explained the situation and they said that they could not get the payments applied, told us that only Wells Fargo could do that. That the only way to get the file back to Wells Fargo was to get the mortgage current and he would send the file back to Wells Fargo and that at that point they will correct the payments.
We at that point paid 11k + to bring current according to their records and then we proceeded to try and have Wells Fargo correct everything, under the promise from Brock & Scott that all the extra fees we paid would be applied correctly eventually.
We started contacting Wells Fargo to get payments straight and our lawyer kept getting the run around. First hurdle each time would be that they couldn't speak to him because he was not authorized and that would be a 15 minute argument that they have a power of attorney. Once he got past that, next thing would be was that we were in a modification program and payments, including the 11k was in a suspense account and was not applied.
Finally we got it through their heads that we never applied for a modification and we wanted our money applied to our account, we want it bought current, then we want our original prepayments applied, which would have made our account current all along, next we wanted all fees, penalties, legal costs and inspection fees waived and applied to our account as future payment.
Well here we are almost a year later. They have never corrected the account, the file is back with Brock & Scott and Foreclosure proceedings have started!!
They have stolen thousands of dollars in fake fees!!
Any thoughts??
J.A.
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