HSBC Watch News Release Forum Index
Forum Name: - Opinions
Topic Title: Household Employee Slap in the Face
Thu Jan 27, 2005 4:31 pm
For those who didn't see the Household - HSBC Watch announcement on this subject, here it is:
This afternoon, January 25, 2005 we received a comment in these forums. It asked how a person can lose their home after the $484 million nationwide settlement. The comment came from Household International, behind the company firewall, on company time. It, and our reply, is reproduced here:
Payment miester wrote:
Why was your house taken? Didn't you make the payments?
How can they take a home if you make your payments?
How can they take a home if you make your payments?
Looks like a simple question from someone, correct? Not exactly. This is the IP address information for this poster:
Record Type: IP Address
IP Location: United States - Illinois - Chicago - Household International
Reverse IP: No websites hosted using this IP address
IP: 63.111.163.13
On company time at 2:56;54 pm, here is more information:
Operating System Microsoft WinXP
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Connect 1.0)
Time of Visit Jan 27 2005 2:56:54 pm
Last Page View Jan 27 2005 3:11:17 pm
Visit Length 14 minutes and 23 seconds
Page Views 25
OK Household Employee, posing as "Payment miester." This is a slap in the face to all who experienced your nationwide $484 million settlement. Please refer to this post to see actions taken relative to the settlement. The action you took here just motivates us even more to get nationwide attention for those hurt by your company. Your IP address and actions are duly noted.
Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:40 am
A tactic that HSBC (Household) uses is to take a mortgage from a person who has credit problems. Then they do not require an escrow account. Just as HSBC expects, the borrower cannot pay real estate taxes when they come due. So after there are penalties and fees accessed, HSBC steps in and pays the taxes. (To protect their interest by avoiding the property being sold for taxes or so it would seem) Then they charge an enormous amount of interest on those fees. And if a borrowers asks what the interest rate is, they are told the mortgage rate not the rate on the fees.
When a payment history is received, it is impossible to tell what has been posted to what. They could be posting a debit or credit to the borrowers account but the payment history is confusing, only their people know exactly what is going on. If only we could get former employees to testify to what they saw and did.
HSBC have all the records and will not give them in a way that is understandable. THAT IS THEIR INTENT.
When the borrower is in too deep to pay HSBC steps in and forecloses on their home.
Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:43 am
Guest wrote:
A tactic that HSBC (Household) uses is to take a mortgage from a person who has credit problems. Then they do not require an escrow account. Just as HSBC expects, the borrower cannot pay real estate taxes when they come due. So after there are penalties and fees accessed, HSBC steps in and pays the taxes. (To protect their interest by avoiding the property being sold for taxes or so it would seem) Then they charge an enormous amount of interest on those fees. And if a borrowers asks what the interest rate is, they are told the mortgage rate not the rate on the fees. When the borrower is in too deep to pay HSBC steps in and forecloses on their home.
Thanks for this informative report. It provides great insight into that can happen. Combine this tactic with inflated appraisals by appraisers who are in Household - HSBC's pocket and it is a nightmare. As anyone with a Beneficial or HFC account can tell us, statements and application of payments, plus daily interest on second mortgages can be confusing at best. Second mortgages accrue interest like a credit card. The balance, when one opens the statement at the mail box the moment it is received, is higher than the balance one reads on the statement. That is because of interest added while the statement was in the mail system.
One pays the balance shown, mails it in, and the balance due is even higher by the time the payment is processed by HSBC - Household. If one lets the full monthly cycle take place, the balance may go down by $10 when the full payment was made. Again, this is due to daily interest and the billing cycle. For first mortgages the example is slightly different and interest is figured differently.
Again, thanks for this great insight. I'm sure it will help others. With regard to the orginal "Payment meister" Household - HSBC Watch wrote to "Sir" John Bond. The letter can be seen here and our commentary can be seen here
We monitor customer trends for possible violations of Regulation Z and other possible illegal actions.