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The Hitchcock Horror Story: Sucks to not be a "Friend of Angelo" with Countrywide.

Submitted by Ironman on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 09:52
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We've read all about how much it helped to be a "Friend of Angelo" when one borrowed money from Countrywide Mortgage.

Even Chris Dodd, who swears he didn't get a sweetheart deal on his interest rates, admits he got "enhanced customer service". (We still haven;t seen what special notes were scraled on his loan documents, have we?)

Well, that's NOT what Dodd's own constituents get when they borrowed from Countrywide and fell behind on their payments. 

The Hitchcocks of Farmington, CT are living a horror movie befitting ole Alfred Hitchcok himself.

See, they bought a house from Mr. Hitchcok's siblings which has been in the family for generations. Then Mr. Hitchcock got sick, couldn't work, and now they can;t make the payments. No McMansion bought with a fake appraisal or bogus application. Just the ordinary hard luck story the mortgage business has dealt with since its inception.

So, Countrywide should've let them sell the house and accepted the proceeds and called the mortgage even.  Didn;t happen.

    Lenders and mortgage servicers say they have added staff to deal with short sales, but they are flooded with requests they must review, painstakingly. Susan Hitchcock said she learned her offer was one of 150 that sat on a desk at Countrywide for two months before it was looked at. 

Guess the Hitchcocks got  "unenchanced customer service".

So Countrywide instead of accepting an offer for $185,000 decided to spend thousands in legal fees to foreclose on the Hitchcocks...and the bid came in at $183,850.  Brilliant economic decision, guys

Having Chris Dodd as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee didn;t do the Hitchcocks any good, now did it?

What's worse from a policy standpoint is while we see "remedies" to the foreclosure problem which are ineffective like Dodd's 2008 initiatives, or have horrendoes moral hazard consequences like mortgage cramdowns; the simple, tried and true ways to deal with defaulted loans like short sales aren;t being implemented by banks even when they are TARP recipients.  

Maybe the solution to our economic woes might be simply giving ordinary folks the same "enhanced customer service" Senators get.  

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Comments

Where have conservatives been?

Submitted by skayne on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 19:00.

Conservatives actually pointing the finger at a Democrat for a corporate alliance? Really?

Republicans are so far into the pocket of corporate donors, you might as well say that they run the party.

Endless tax cuts, subsidies, tax loopholes, and law changes to benefit special interests and you're now realizing we have a special interest problem because a Democrat has one?

Corporate democrats(e.g. Evan Bayh, Blance Lincoln) team up with the corporate republican party to pass all the boondogles that come out of congress.

For 30 years they've been stealing from you, and now you notice? I guess you people pay attention only when a democrat is shown to have one of these corrupting alliances, huh?

well, maybe it's why Jim Bakker got treated worse than Madonna

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 01:48.

Everyone sorta expects Madonna not to be the most morally forthright person when it comes to hmm, "relationships".

But guys like Dodd preach against "sin" and then we find out they are even bigger lechers than their opponents.

You think two months is long?

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 15:42.

WTF dude?