Friday, July 06, 2007

Georgia Department of Banking and Finance Issues Consumer Alert on Mortgage Payment Increases

Commissioner Rob Braswell today issued a CSBS/AARMR consumer alert urging homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages –- especially those with nontraditional mortgages—to plan now for the scheduled “recasts” or “resets” of interest rates in the year ahead.

The advisory urges borrowers to:

• Seek information on the characteristics of your mortgage

• Budget accordingly

• Contact your servicer for assistance, if needed

• Inquire about the terms of any prepayment penalty

• Ask about possible solutions if payments are past due

The advisory notes that nontraditional mortgage loans and many subprime loans frequently feature a recast (or reset) with a significant payment increase.

The Department also issued a CSBS/AARMR industry letter encouraging mortgage servicers and providers to reach out to consumers to provide information on their loans and to work with consumers to avoid foreclosure. “Servicers should provide information on when the recast will occur and how much the monthly payment will adjust,” said Commissioner Braswell. “Should the loans go into default, servicers should consider workout

arrangements to prevent foreclosures,” he said.

Commissioner Braswell noted efforts by the NeighborWorks organization, which has established a hotline (888-995-HOPE) to reach struggling homeowners with strategic solutions.

mortgage fraud

1. The resets are ominous.  Piled atop the subprime mess, this combination could be lethal in the coming year.

   The con men will come out of the woodwork to cash-in on this condition.

   --Jack Payne
   www.sixhrs.com

   Posted by  on  07/08  at  12:49 PM

2. The lack of ethics seems to be a problem in almost all Business.  I now doubt that new laws could solve the problem.  Fewer Laws may actually help in solving the problem by letting Consumers use Counter Tactics against the Crooks by Playing The Exact Same Games that the Crooks play.  ( An Example Of Playing The Same Games Is to send 1000 pages of small print in a letter to one of those Boiler Room Operators, and put a short clause at the twenty third line of the seventy seventh page of that letter, stating that by not responding within 3 days the reader voluntarily gives up all Fourth Amendment Rights and can be Searched By Government Authorities at any time without notice ).  If they can play those games so can we. *** Here is more to make my point about dirty tricks played these days by unethical business people.
   If a Salesman can prove that you received a message from him, and that message contained certain language, you may have accidentally given that Salesman permission to keep selling you products services memberships and subscriptions, and automatically charge you, even without any action at all on your part.  You don’t have to say yes or no for that to happen.  The Salesman only has to prove that you had the opportunity to read the words in his message to you.  Failure to respond gives him permission to rip you off.  To slow down or stop that Salesman you have to sue him, but it takes time and money to sue him, and the likelihood that the Authorities will solve your problem is unknown.

   A long time ago BUYING was a deliberate intentional willful act that required a decision on the part of the person doing the buying, but now PASSIVE BUYING is all too likely to be ruining the financial security of many Consumers.  Sales And Marketing Professionals now are more like Con Artists than ever before by the way that they invent Consumer Traps that can suck a person’s cash and credit away in an instant.  Those Intellectual Mobsters in Sales And Marketing use a combination of Creative Writing and Psychology to create confusion in the minds of Consumers, but those Predators also just rush in and interrupt people while they are already too busy with their own lives.  Sales People don’t want to give people any leisure time to just relax and unwind.  It is a form of assault in the way that they deprive us of our space and our time.  It is like a back alley mugging, but it can happen to you in your own living room.

   I’m looking for an organization similar to yours, but it would be focused on problems that go far beyond mere Privacy Protection and Utility Company and Energy Price Issues.  Perhaps you may know of such an organization.  The problem is that it is getting too easy to accidentally buy things without knowing it.

   Aggressive Marketing is out of control.  There are too may Sales People, and they all seem to be competing with each other to sell things to only one very unwilling customer.  As a customer I like to be the one who decides what I will buy and where I will buy and when I will buy.  I like the way shopping is done in a department store or supermarket where I pick what I want and then pay at the counter and then leave with what I purchased without being mauled by predatory stalking cajoling commission sales people such as the ones found at automobile dealerships and in furniture stores.

   Now those predatory sales people keep you in their clutches electronically if they know your account numbers, and they are perpetrators of what I believe to be out right Fraud.

   There was a time when one would have to say “I Agree”, and place a signature, in order to seal a contract.  Now it is far too easy to seal a contract while doing absolutely nothing.  Ignoring the notice of an offer now means acceptance of that offer?  Then if the vendor knows an address that he can send a bill to, or if he knows your credit card number, he can sell thousands of dollars worth of junk to you while you sleep, and you will know nothing about it until you wake up.  A person can now go on a shopping binge while in a Coma.

   CONTRACTS AND AGREEMENTS NEED TO BE SHORTER AND SIMPLER AND NEED TO BE LIMITED TO ONE AND ONLY ONE PURCHASE OR TRANSACTION PER CONTRACT.  Buying one song that was performed by “The Beetles” should not imply an agreement to also buy everything that hit the air waves from now back to ancient times.

   The horror of finding out that I am buying things that I did not want totally without my knowledge or consent.  Actually the notification often has been buried in a small clause in an obscure part of the agreement.  The notification may have been too ambiguous, but anyway the notification is easy to miss.  I don’t have enough time to sit and read every piece of junk mail that I receive, and it is ENOUGH that I have to read the details of every billing statement that I get because even those statements don’t just GET TO THE POINT.

   Posted by  on  11/21  at  08:55 AM