I regret that this happened to these folks, specifically during a time of disaster. The same exact thing happened to our family and Countrywide continues to harass our family each month, even speaking to our children in an inappropriate manner if we are unavailable. They send statements for fees that they cannot explain, however continually threaten to foreclose on yo if you fail to pay. Because our specific loan is guaranteed through the VA, if we fail to make the payment of fees that they claim may be due, they contact the VA and threaten to foreclose. Countrywide Home Loans is an absolute nightmare, I only wish that we could be placed in a financial position to refinance and get rid of these horrible people!! Thanks for such an informing story, it would be interesting to know how many others that this has happened to, I know personally of five families in our immediate area.
Thank you,
Abby Lassiter

This situation happened to me. I had to sell my home, after I dumped all my money in to it for repairs, to keep out of foreclosure. If anyone knows what I can do please let me know.

The problem is now that Countrywide has filed notice of defaults on these customers they have effectively trashed their credit ratings. Now it will be impossible for any of the borrowers to obtain affordable interest rates especially since the sub-prime fiasco has made banks even more credit score driven. In essence Countrywide through their feeble response of we will work out a repayment plan has made the customers "Mortgage Hostages" since they now have no other avenue open to refinance their loans since Countrywides actions have dropped their credit scores by about 100 points.

Dear Mr Brian Ross... Let me tell you our Countrywide Mortgage nightmare... One many others damaged by Katrina also endured...

Something in my gut (God) told me to not take them up on the offer of *3 months of grace*... hubby and I didnt loose our income and we continued to pay our note faithfully... We owned more of the house than CW did...!!!

THEN when we had to sue the insurance company to get money to make repairs... Countrywide had a lawyer there to represent them... We only were offered 1/2 of our damages... and the insurance wouldnt get right with us any further... Then, inspite of never having missed a payment... Countrywide DEMANDED our mortgage be paid off from the proceeds... By the time the lawyer and CW was paid we had a whopping $5,000 to repair our home... We had $200,000 worth of loss... house, furnishings and clothing...

Thus we had to seek other financing to get money to make repairs with... futher delaying them getting started... Nothing to buy new furniture or clothes with... We have spent 2 years living in one bedroom of our house while the rest had no roof at all for 6 months and then was only stud walls for 2 years after a tornado in Katrina took the roof off 3/4 of the house...!!!

Now we are being bombarded by CW to Re-Fi... as they call it... On email... snail mail... phone calls...etc... making my blood boil... I recently called their 800 number and told them to LOOSE my name... my address... my phone number... my email... and forget I exist... I would never consider them ever again... for as I see it... when I was down and needed a hand up... they stomped me and kicked me in the ribs...!!! The man I was speaking to even chuckled... but he said he was removing me from all their records...!!!

I PRAY they go belly up and the government does NOT bail them out... I know their good employees will find other employment... but the ones at the top need to be punished for being so greedy and inconsiderate of folks struggling for the very essence of life and food in the immediate aftermath of Katrina... They have NO clue what we all went thru with 2-3-4 weeks with NO electricity to keep food or drink... If not for neighbors who had generators to keep their food cool and to cook with I dont know where I would have been by now...

God spared our lives the day the tornado took the roof off with 8 of us in this house... 20 miles inland from the ravages of the water... only to be abused by government... insurance... and mortgage companies... Depression is already rampant just from what people lost that day without having to endure all the other that didnt HAVE to happen...

I sincerely appreciate your time hearing/reading my story...
Thanks again,
Regenia Gay

I never dealt with that company and am heartbroken to hear your horror stories. May I suggest that you get your money back from them by opening up a stock trading account and short sell their stock. Thats what I am doing. Their CEO has sold most of his stock over the last year. Thats says a lot. They will go bankrupt within a year IMHO. Well hope things get better for you in the future.

My wife & I were told the same as the people in this story. We then started receiving notices and phone calls threatening foreclosure if we didn't come up with the money. They (Countrywide) then refered us to their "Loan Workout Department" where they wanted us to refinance our loan, or add the "late" payments onto our current payments. We were finally forced to refi or be foreclosed on. If anyone knows of a class action law suit against Countrywide, please let us know.

Gene’s got it right. Every one of the Countrywide Katrina victims affected by this are now locked in to their loans because Countrywide has, more likely than not, already reported every one of them to Experian, TransUnion, Equifax and Innovis as in various forms of default on their loans. And until either the matter is legally cleared up or seven years passes every one of them will have this following them whenever they try to apply for credit anywhere.

There is a class action lawsuit against Countrywide.

Same thing happened here. We were given 30 days to pay over $14,000. We had to refinance went to another company and now struggle to make $400 a month higher payments. Guess what Countrywide bought our loan so now we are back with them.

Countrywide is also holding mortgage customers hostage by demanding people insure up to mortgage value vs. replacement costs. They debit their escrows and purchase the unnecessary insurance at 4 to 5 times the market rate from their insurance division, Balboa insurance. Customers have no choice because they can't sell or refinance because the housing market has tanked (Due to Countrywide) and they are upside down in equity.

I, too, am a disgruntled customer with Countrywide. Going through a divorce last year and being a single mother. I fell behind an my loans was 'reworked' in January and agreeing in writing (notarized) to pay $721/month. The following month I recieved my statement requesting $845/month with no explaination. I called and was told they would get it worked out and to pay my payment of $722/mo. I sent my payment. The following month my sewer collapsed and I notified Countrywide my payment would be late and I was told to hold my payment. I did and 30 days later recieved a default notice and finally a foreclosure notice. I had all of this documentation and a ton of phone calls between myself and Countrywide reps. FInally they agreed in August to a payment plan of $950/month for 6 months. I had to wire $1500 to them via Western Union to 'stop' the foreclosure as they threatened if I didn't they would foreclose. That cost me $55 to do that and they expect a certified check monthly or my payments will be rejected. I am a single mother and I told this from the start. My home cost $64,900 when I purchsed 7 years ago. Now, my mortgage is up to $75,000! They have made my escrow account a mess and my financial independence impossible! It's has come down to close family and friends donating food items to me, so I can keep COuntrywide happy.

My husband and I did not go through the horror of Katrina, but we have experienced the horror of Countrywide over the past 2-1/2 years.

I was the buyer of our townhouse, and Countrywide was not the original holder of the mortgage but bought it out. My mortgage was a standard 30-yr. fixed, not one of the subprime ones.

2-1/2 yrs. ago I suddenly became disabled enough not to work for a while but not disabled enough to qualify for Social Security disability. We have medical insurance, but it doesn't cover everything. After exhausting our savings and selling everything we could, our bills fell behind. Trying to work out a solution with Countrywide was awful - they do not publicize their Customer Service numbers where you can speak with a live human, and once you get a representative they may or may not give you the correct answers and procedures. By borrowing against everything we have left, we were finally able to bring everything current in August of 2006. Two Countrywide representatives assured me the amount we sent included $800 in legal fees.

In January of this year my husband had a heart attack and could not work for a while. I called Countrywide and explained our situation. The person on the other end said he didn't believe that one family could have two major medical crises in two years and we just needed to send the money (the two months past due plus the $800 in legal fees from before) or our house would be foreclosed on. After crying solid for two days, I contacted several realtors and found that our home had depreciated severely, and not only would I lose the $40,000 I put down but we would owe many thousands in realtors fees if we tried to sell. We had to let it go to foreclosure.

We are 50-ish Americans who have both worked all our lives. If you would have told us five years ago we would be facing all this medical stuff at our age we wouldn't have believed it. We are embarassed at losing our house, and very angry at the way we have been treated by Countrywide.

Sorry for length of post - felt good to hear that we're in the same boat as others..............

A coworker just told me about this story so I had to check it out. This story is too familiar to me, but it has nothing to do with Katrina. Our story is the same, but the hurricane was Ivan in 2004, which was a year earlier than Katrina. This makes me think that these problems are not mistakes by a few people, but instead it is an entire company that is trying to exploit a bad situation in people's lives.

After hurricane Ivan hit our house we got a letter from Countrywide stating that the government has made it possible for us not to pay our mortgage for three months, and it would just be added to the end of our loan with no fees or penalties. We thought this would be good because we needed that money to repair our house from the hurricane damage, and we had no idea when we would get the insurance money. We filled their paperwork out, and thought everything was fine. However; after a while we started getting foreclosure letters from Countrywide and no one would deal with us except the foreclosure department.

This was all very unsettling so we said forget your “so called help” and asked them how much we owed. They gave us an amount and we sent them a check right away. However; our story does not end there. We continued to get more threatening notices about foreclosure even though we paid all of the money. After many more phone calls and countless hours on the phone, they finally said we have your money but it sitting in some account and it is not being applied to anything. They said I sent the money in wrong???

No matter what we were doing they keep giving excuses. I have never felt so terrified in my life. I felt like the corporate giant wanted my house, and they were going to try as many tricks as they could to get it. I really thought they were going to show up and throw my family out of our house even though we paid even penny we owed and we were never late with payments. I had a three year old son and a new born daughter at the time, so I was at a frantic mental state as their father. We had been through so much with the hurricane, and then to have this company exploit this situation was one of the worst things that I have ever been through. Even recalling these events has my blood boiling. In the end, our countless hours on the phone and the threat of legal action made them finally leave us alone.

I would strongly urge people never to use Countrywide. At the time Countrywide passed the buck from one employee to another, but I guess we all now know this was not incompetence at all.

James
Atlanta, GA

James - They told us EXACTLY the same thing with our check, and that WE had sent it in wrong (even though we sent it exactly the way the rep. told us to)!

We need to punish this mortgage company for these unscrupulous actions. It is a shame and very unpatriotic!!!

They denied the charges, but didn't deny that they made the offer and then backed down.

What gives?

I wish I could make a financial obligation, sign dozens of loan documents, only to not pay and life in a property I don't own (or make payments on).

Why do people expect free handouts? 3-6 months of DELAYED payments? That was 24 months ago.

Hurricane victims need to quit playing the martry. The hurricane was a horrible event, but time to move on. The mortgage company has it's own responsibility to the investor who was the one who LENT these people the money in the first place.

I also don't think we're seeing all the fine print or the full details. Just "big bad mortgage company wants to foreclosure on my house". Well that big bad company loses money too because ultimately borrowers bought a house that they can no longer afford. Life is tought, suck it up.

Hey Deadbeat. What was 24 months ago? The hurricane? I suppose that must be what you meant because what Countrywide offered was immediately after the hurricane.

I guess it must be nice to not have these worries, but if you were the one - 24 months later - still paying several hundred dollars more a month than prior to all of this, you would be singing a different tune. I promise.

No one is asking you specifically to have compassion, but the whole story is finally getting out there. That's the good part - not the negative.

As far as expecting free handouts, we certainly didn't ask for this from this company. It was offered - no, that's too mild. We were told that this is what was happening during dozens of conversations with them over that time period.

It made us extremely nervous and we tried on several occasions to make payments over the telephone to a representative only to have them say that our loan was essentially frozen for the time period and not to send anything until payments were supposed to resume. It would not be credited to our account.

You did not make these calls, you did not receive the sale date for your home. Really, just be glad that life is good enough for you that you are able to play conspiracy theorist and wonder what we're all trying to pull on poor, poor Countrywide.

the same thing happened to us with the three months no payments. unfortunatly we were strapped for cash anyways, because we are a single income family. we were forced to refinance our loan and ended up financing more that we even bought the house for. it was as if the first two and a half years we paid on our home were erased and didn't even count. we were very disgusted with countrywide and wish that we would have never accepted thier help in the first place. that's a sad fact.

I too have issues with this company but it is entirely unrelated to Katrina. I have had Countrywide as my mortgage company for several years-- not by choice but as a result of them taking over our original bank mortgage.

As a result of a divorce, my financial circumstances changed, and my credit ended up being less than favorable. I was told by one financial institution that I couldn't get a mortgage through them. Afraid that going to other banks would put more of a negative on my credit score, I went back to Countrywide. They came back and offered me a mortgage but never sent me paperwork until the day I made settlement. I had no idea I was being offered an ARM until the day of settlement. I was charged points, extra fees and pre-payment penalties that I had no idea were coming my way. I had to accept the agreement put forth that day or risk not being able to keep my home at all. So, what do you do? Sign.

Last year I fell behind when I was laid off due to budget cuts at my place of employment. I got a default notice. Fortunately, I got another job but I couldn't put my job in jeopardy by spending my day on the phone. I would call; wait for 1/2 to an hour on the phone and then get disconnected. It was impossible to get through to them! I even called some of the "re-finance" numbers from the offers sent to me and the people I spoke to never got back to me. It was a nightmare trying to deal with them.