Household HSBC Watch

TS in Ohio sent this report. If you studied the Countrywide case regarding fees added during bankruptcy you will see the same is happening at HSBC. Read this report carefully. Compare it to what attorneys are saying about Countrywide adding additional fees when the bankruptcy court is handling the payments. Here is a report from a homeowner in Ohio:

“I answered a phone call in 2001 from Beneficial promising to save me some money on my bills. Today, I have caller ID and do not answer unless I know who is calling because of this. I have been miserable since. They, within the blink of an eye, refinanced my home with a second mortgage with little/no explanation (my error). Me, being the naive/trusting person I am, thought everything would be legitimate. The payments were more than I could handle, working 12 hours/day, 7 days/week. Upon advice of Consumer Credit Counseling, I filed bankruptcy, but again made another big mistake filing 13 instead of 7 because I wanted to keep my home.

The one good thing that resulted was the $22k second mortgage was removed because they had appraised my home at $140k when it was only worth $100k. After bankruptcy was completed, I had left my job and was in school (a few months from being done) and a modification was done saying I was to surrender my home because I was unable to pay. I didn’t know this had been done until a year and a half later, so my home went into foreclosure, and I got help from Acorn Housing with reduced payments and interest for 6 months. (though Beneficial sent payments back and so on just as in other cases I’ve read). Then afterwards, they kept threatening to foreclose on my house if I didn’t pay all these “fees” from when the home went into foreclosure.

I would send payments, and they would apply to fees (their attorney fees) and say I owed them more. Then, I started receiving statements showing huge amounts of deferred interest on top of the balance. (now over $20k) I asked my bankruptcy lawyer what this deferred interest was, and he told me it probably had something to do with when I was supposed to surrender my home after the bankruptcy. (this is when I found out I was supposed to surrender my home a year and a half earlier in modification). He told me to ask Beneficial what the deferred interest was from, which I did on several occasions. The best answer I was given that made sense explained that it was accrued daily in between payments, and that $13k accrued in between lump sum payments made by the bankruptcy court when I was making weekly payments to them.

I told this to my lawyer, who explained that “these situations are messy and he is no longer retained to help me.” I offered to pay him to find out if the deferred interest accrued while I was in Ch. 13 was legal, and he never responded. I wrote the bankruptcy court asking them if it was legal, they told me I had to see a lawyer. I went to a different lawyer and he told me to walk away from the house. This is where I am today. I failed to mention that my interest rate is 10.89% and no one will refinance me because the deferred interest puts me owing more than it’s worth. I have made several attempts to Beneficial to negotiate the deferred interest because I know they are going to be out more money if they have to foreclose, and I don’t won’t to ruin my credit all over again, but that’s what I’m probably going to do because no one will return my call. I haven’t made the last 2 payments. Any suggestions?”