Bank of America: You're right, we suck.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Bank Of America Acknowledges Poor Service In Mortgage Program



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/02/bank-of-america-executive_n_597587.html

Bank of America on Wednesday announced details of a plan to partially forgive debts of homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth -- and a bank executive expressed disappointment in the company's efforts to put customers in mortgage modifications via the government's Home Affordable Modification Program.

"We certainly know that as we rolled out the modification process we have not handled our customers to the standards Bank of America is accustomed to," said Jack Schakett, a Bank of America credit loss mitigation executive during a conference call. A reporter had asked about homeowners' tales of lost paperwork and frustration when applying for loan modifications.

Bank of America has put 11 percent of HAMP-eligible borrowers delinquent for 60 days or longer into "permanent" five-year modifications -- the lowest rate of the four biggest banks participating in the program. (JPMorgan Chase has granted permanent mods to 16 percent of eligible 60-day delinquent borrowers. Citibank: 18 percent. Wells Fargo: 20 percent.)

Schackett said the bank has been staffing up and currently employs 16,000 people in the distressed home ownership area. Bank of America put more HAMP homeowners into permanent mods in April than in any previous month.

"We continue to train and retrain to try to improve our process and we've done a lot of things to try to make sure we don't lose documents anymore," he said. "We do think the experience is getting better and better, but again, it's still not the level we would hope it to be because we still have more customer complaints than we believe are acceptable."

[gratuitous]

1. Fret not, big bank

You have your stalwart defenders who know that you did nothing wrong, and it was all the fault of people taking on more than they could handle. It surely wasn't your fault that you collected all those fees and points on loans you knew would go south. Just bundle them up and sell them to the next sucker down the line. Be careful about buying any funny looking packages, though.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Just in mortgages????

[AndyA]

3. I think BoA is wrong.

"...we have not handled our customers to the standards Bank of America is accustomed to..."

I don't think BoA HAS any standards, so anything they do must be OK, right?

[eleny]

4. On the heels of their infomercial series about American history

lol.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend -- indeed. Nt

[old mark]

6. ...but man, do we have a lot of YOUR money!!!!! Rec nt

[Dawson Leery]

7. These monsters of finance needed to fail.