New Whistleblower Describes How Bank of America Flagrantly Lied to Consumers Seeking Mortgage Modifications

New Whistleblower Describes How Bank of America Flagrantly Violates Dual Tracking, Single Point of Contact Requirements in State/Federal Mortgage Settlement « naked capitalism.
Bank of America trained its employees to outright lie to customers who have applied for mortgage modifications according to an eye-opening whistleblower account the above article recounts.  Even more interesting is an affidavit of Simone Gordon, a former Bank of America Employee who states under oath the following:

“We were told to lie to customers and claim that Bank of America had not received documents it had requested, and that it had not received trial payments (when in fact it had). We were told that admitting that the Bank received documents would “open a can of worms” since the Bank was required to underwrite the loan modification within 30 days of receiving those documents, and it did not have sufficient underwriting staff to complete the underwriting in that time.”

I have heard these accounts for years from my clients who consistently complained that the mortgage company lost their paperwork, gave them different answers each time they called to check on the status of their loan modification and more or less jerked them around for months until their property was put into foreclosure.  The affidavit goes on to state:

• BOA ordered their employees to hold financial documents submitted by borrowers for at least thirty days so that the documents could be considered “stale” and the homeowner would have to reapply for the modification;
• BOA rewarded employees with bonuses and gift cards when they placed accounts into foreclosure even if a modification was pending.
• BOA employees who were caught not carrying out the delay strategies or admitting the borrower was entitled to a modification were disciplined and sometimes fired without warning.

The sad thing is that BOA has gotten away with this corporate fraud.  Litigation is pending now, however, I am not very confident or hopeful BOA will every be reprimanded harshly enough to change their harsh treatment of consumers.  This is now the industry standard.