Too Big To Fail?

Over the past several years there has been quite a conversation around the various financial institutions and their shenanigans (that’s a technical term used in the financial industry). The mantra has been that these financial institutions are “too big to fail” and therefore need to be rescued by you and me, average American taxpayers who are apparently “too little to matter”.

Now in my household, you can get too big for your britches which I think is equivalent with too big to fail, the difference being that you actually have consequences rather than getting rewarded. But I digress.

Recently my husband and I decided to take advantage of one of the few positives for those of us who actually made wise financial decisions about how much house we could afford (in spite of what we were told and what we qualified for). Refinancing. We were also pretty disgusted with our mortgage lender who for confidentiality sake will only be referred to as, oh say, Boa. As in snake.

Our refinance was completed on July 10th. We were told that it shouldn’t take too long to get our escrow money returned. That was exciting because, for a variety of reasons (which could be another blog), it was substantial. Shoot in our household, an extra $150 is substantial – we have five teenage girls. We were told that it would not take long for us to get that refund.

My initial thought was “why don’t you just put it back into the checking account that you have been taking it out of?”. Apparently that was a ridiculous idea. The Boa mortgage department has not been speaking to the Boa checking account department for years. In fact, there is some question as to whether they have ever actually been introduced.

So we waited for our $$ to show up. And waited. And waited. Finally towards the end of August, we contacted our local Boa den to see what was up. We were told the check was in the mail. Had been since the beginning of August. Boa didn’t know what had happened but they would put a stop payment on the original check and reissue it to us. And send it overnight delivery via trolls.

I can only assume that it was sent via trolls because we waited. And waited. We figured that perhaps “overnight” had a different meaning for trolls, coming from the underworld and all, so we waited a bit more than overnight. Again, we called the local Boa den, who to their credit were being as helpful as possible (truly) but because they were a checking account den they were having to try and get information from the mortgage den who wasn’t sure who the checking account den folks were, apparently. But they did tell them that, woops, it did not appear that it was actually sent overnight at all. So we needed to wait 10 (ten) working days because that’s how long it takes for these things to happen.

Now this check is supposed to be coming from a Boa den somewhere in the heart of Texas. As a side note here, it takes less than 10 (ten) CALENDAR days to get a package from the heartland of America to a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan. Just pointing that out.

So we wait for the ten working days to pass. Still no check. So we contact them again. By now the Boa checking account den people are getting as frustrated as we are except that they aren’t waiting on money. They are just having to put up with us.

They now find out that the 2nd check was never actually issued. So they re-order the check again. With instructions that it is to be sent overnight.

In the meantime, it comes to light that somehow, somewhere along the way, an extra line has been added to our address making it a five line address. Could that be the problem? Well, we were getting all of the other notices related to this mortgage account, e.g., escrow analysis, so probably not.

We wait. And we wait. By now we are practiced waiters which is good because probably the only way we are going to get this money is by waiting – tables.

I’ve had it. I go down to the local Boa den. I spend two hours in the manager’s office on the phone with a variety of folks to whom I say “that’s not ok. Let me talk to your supervisor”. Now that works for a while. Finally I meet my match. Ian, in the Boa mortgage den, assures me that he is solving my problem, gives me his direct line to call, and promises to call me back that day. He looks at the notes on our account, notices that the address that the checks are being sent to has dropped off the street address because they only print 4 lines and ours is a 5 line address. Yes, he can see where the checks have come back. I ask why they didn’t think to correct the address before they sent it out REPEATEDLY. He is apologetic. I am exhausted. I have a weak moment. I hang up feeling victorious.

Later that afternoon I had not heard back from Ian so I called the number he gave me. It went to voice mail. I called again the next day – several times. Still do not hear from Ian. Now usually in a business voice mail box the message identifies the company and the person. Not this one. It just tells me to leave a message. Clearly when Boa got all their TARP funds, one of the requirements was that they allow the intelligence community to start using their mailboxes for informants to leave secret messages. No one EVER answered either the phone or my voice mail.

I went on to Boa’s website and sent an email message describing the problem and begging for help. I get a response back that tells me to call the Boa mortgage den for help. Really? So I reply and tell them that I’ve done all of that. They need to call me! They need to send us our money! This is the response I receive back (with some security edits):

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Subj: Re: Joint Checking (checking account #) Other

Dear Donald Barton (Note: name changed to protect the innocent),

Thank you for your Internet inquiry addressed to the Customer Service Department pertaining to your escrow refund.

According to our records, loan number (checking account #) is a second mortgage. We do not escrow on second mortgage loan accounts. Regrettably, we were unable to locate a first mortgage to research further.

In reviewing your first email to us and our reply back to you, we realized that you were mistakenly provided with a fax number for the Payoff Department. Regrettably, they do not have a direct line. If you call the Customer Service Department number below, a phone representative will be able to reach out to them directly to look into your concern.

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Customer Service Department at 800-669-6607.

Thank you for communicating with us electronically; we appreciate the opportunity to be of assistance.

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I have NO clue who “Donald Barton” is but I do know what his mortgage account number is. It’s the same as my checking account number. I truly hope he isn’t having as much trouble with the Boa mortgage department as we have. We finally did receive our refund. It came overnight via FedEx. Inside the FedEx envelope was another envelope that, according to Ron at the Boa den in California, was just leaving the facility via mail when he rescued it and sent it FedEx to us. It still had no street address on it.

Too big to fail? I think they already have.