Anna May & Greg Jones, REALTORS

What better way to learn what a customer/client has to endure than to roll up my sleeves and explore the situation myself?

This week I decided to go through the process of exploring a loan modification on my mortgage just as a colleague of mine is doing. We both have Bank of America loans. My colleague and I are 4 days apart from when we made initial phone calls to our bank. The race is on!

After being transferred several times, here are a few of the questions I was asked by my bank:

Bank rep: “What is your social security number?”

Me: “Same as it was the last few times I gave it to you.”

Bank rep: (Silence. I relented and gave it to him again.)

Bank rep: “Are you behind on your mortgage payments?”

Me: “No. I answered that question already. Twice.”

Bank rep: “Is your net worth more than a million dollars?”

Me: “No! Would I be calling you if I was worth that much?”

Bank rep: “What is your ethnicity? You don’t have to answer ma’am.”

Me: “Green!”

Bank rep: “Irish?”

Me: “No! I wish I HAD more green! Dollars! Green dollars!”

(My colleagues in the office are snickering. I tried not to let the bank rep hear me laughing too.)

Bank rep: “What is a good date of birth for you?”

Me: “Are you kidding?”

Bank rep: (silent)

Me: “Your records should reflect my date of birth.”

Me: (I’m feeling sorry for the bank rep — DOB given.)

(Colleagues still snickering as they overhear my conversation.)

Bank rep: “Will you authorize Bank of America to run a credit check to ensure that you have not recently made any large purchases?”

Me: “I wouldn’t be that stupid!”

Bank rep: “Do you have several months of reserves to pay for housing expenses?”

Me: “Yes.” (This guy doesn’t sympathize with me, I can tell. This is why I never bothered until now to pursue a loan mod.)

Bank rep: “Have you tried to do a short sale?”

Me: “I don’t want to sell. Right now I’m pursuing a loan modification with you.”

The bank rep apologized about the government questions (I wondered what country I was transferred to — the bank rep had an accent.) He said the paperwork would be Fedex’d to me.

(They can afford to Fedex me the paperwork?)

Will keep you posted…