The Loan Mess

I have decided to start calling banks out on the carpet. I am a realtor and am fed up with the behavior of "big banks." They have our taxpayer dollars and do nothing, frankly nothing to ease the current situations that some homeowners are faced with. Let's take a situation that I am working on at the moment.

I have an offer that has been signed by the homeowner since January 13, 2009. The contract and all requirements were send over to Wells Fargo and I was told it would take 30 to 45 days. First, Wells Fargo can't even find the fax. I complain that it has already been a week and we are losing time. They agree after much back and for and give me a direct fax number to refax the file and it will immediately be placed in Escalation. I do get the file escalated and the file is assigned a negotiator on January 18. It takes almost 3 weeks to get Wells Fargo to issue a Broker Price Option, known in our industry as a BPO.

The homeowner has now been placed on the list to be foreclosed on March 3, 2009. I called the other day to see where we are because we are now 3 weeks from the foreclosure date. I was told by the customer service person that "sorry, we take 30 to 45 business days" to get back to you. Business days? are you kidding? That puts our transaction as business day 30 at the date of the foreclosure! Surely, you must be kidding me. Actually, Wells Fargo is not kidding.

I would like to know how are they helping? I have worked short sales for over 5 years before the crises and befoer short sales became the norm. I have worked with banks that have lost files, had incompetent temps working the transaction and who have also not cared. They even did not take the attitude of Wells Fargo and Wells Fargo's staff vocal disregard for the homeowner and the situation. There is no compassion. When are the banks going to take responsibility for what is going on and the solution to this crises?