Consumer complaint received 2019-01-04
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MD
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC)
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
Dear CFPB : This is now the second time that my wife and I have had to file a complaint concerning Bank of Americas Heloc Loan Modification process for the same loan. We started our Heloc Loan modification process in earnest in the month of XX/XX/2018. Hence, it has been approximately 1 year of faxing Bank of America some 300 plus pages of financial documentation to assist Bank of America underwriters to make a determination of whether we qualify for a Heloc Loan Modification. Our last and final submission that BOA required us to submit was submitted on XX/XX/18 ; it was my latest pay stub, which also displayed year to date earnings. My wife and I are very confident that we do qualify for a loan modification considering that our income has decreased substantially over the past two years. Therefore, we decided to be proactive and seek a loan modification through bank of America in order to avert a financial loan crisis. 
I am sorry to report that BOA has subjected us to a humiliating process. We fax the requested documents to BOAs underwriting department only to have a customer relationship manager opine that we need another document because the underwriter is unsure about this or that. On several occasions, BOA asserted that the time had expired for sending documents, but we knew that we had exercised great diligence in keeping our file active and up to date. I really disliked having to advocate so vigorously when speaking to a customer relationship manager especially when they would undermine the integrity of what I sent them and suggest that it was never sent or incomplete. I had no choice but to stand my ground and argue otherwise. I stood by the integrity of every document that I sent them. 
Within the last three months, BOA asked me to revisit a year to date business profit and loss statement that I had submitted for the period XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/2018. They asked me to revise my business profit and loss statement and differentiate what portion of my payroll expenses belong to me by illustrating a line item for my net wages and personal payroll taxes. Please forgive my superior confidence, but I did so with utmost detail ; please see attached documentation. They also wanted me to correlate this P & L statement with my most recent payroll stub during that same time period. Hence, I  was able to do this easily. Within the past three months, BOA also verbally requested that we supply them with a monthly accounting/projection of my personal household income and expenses. I did submit a thorough accounting. However, I distinctly remember the customer relationship manager admonishing me to refrain from using a business-like format. He also requested that I leave out the fact that I pay my personal Heloc loan every month because they already have record of that information since my loan originated with them. I said to myself then, Thats ludicrous, my personal Heloc-mortgage loan is a legitimate expense. I felt that his counsel was quite misleading. I started to suspect that this was a deliberate request to delete a significant household expense, which can significantly offset ones personal income. Needless to say, I did not heed this advice and submitted a full accounting of my personal household expenses. After submitting these documents I was sufficiently grilled by at least two different customer service representatives who suggested that I had declared some business expenses in my personal accounting to the underwriter. This infuriated me because they seemed to insult my integrity. My accounting was spot on ; therefore, I asked them to point out exactly what expense or item did they consider illegitimate. The underwriter speaking through the medium of a customer relationship manager could never give a cogent or specific answer. I recognized the exchange for what it was, it was just another attempt to undermine the painstaking process that my wife and I had embarked on. 
I have enclosed an interesting letter from BOA dated XX/XX/2018. In the What You Need to Know section it says, Were pleased to let you know that youve provided All of the documents we requested when you began your application. Our records reflect that your submission is complete as of XX/XX/2018. Even though youve provided the items that we originally requested from you, our review indicates that additional information, or corrections and/or clarifications to those items is still needed before we can begin your evaluation. 
Hmmmh interesting??? 
The attached letter went onto to say that, You provided a copy of your profit and loss statement, which indicates you receive salary or draw. A signed and dated letter of explanation is required. The letter must include the following : business name and an explanation of what salary or draw amounts are paid to you. 
Please see my detailed and thorough documentation submission for XX/XX/18 to finally resolve this matter. Please note that either my wife or I signed every page. I do believe that any time that you sign a document it is the equivalent of putting your hand on the XXXX and saying that you attest to the full integrity and accuracy of that which you are signing. Signing documents has legal and moral implications. Therefore, my wife and I take this process very seriously. 
The final letter that we received from BOA dated XX/XX/18 ( see attached ), stated that we did not qualify for a 1 ) Repayment Plan, 2 ) Balloon Modification Program, 3 ) Extension Program, 4 ) Deferral Replacement Modification Program, 5 ) Non Owner Occupied Modification Program, 6 ) 40-Year Amortization Modification Program, 7 ) Non Owner Occupied End of Draw Modification Program, 8 ) End of Draw Modification Program, or 9 ) Home Equity Repayment Term Extension Program. So what was their reasoning for such a denial of 9 legitimate programs ( at least by appearance )? BOA said on every count that, Were unable to verify your qualifying income. I would like to note the exhaustive list that they outlined ; the likelihood is that they were trying to discourage my wife and I from ever embarking on the process of loan adjustment/modification again. Note very critically that BOA never said that we didnt submit sufficient or appropriate documentation because that would be a blatant error. So now after submitting 300+ pages of documents over the span of just shy of one year BOA can not verify our qualifying income and they never asked us for any additional income information. Initially I thought that BOA was displaying sheer incompetence. But, I now see that BOAs underwriting department has elected to engage in what I must term as, Financial Profiling. That is BOA has deliberately elected to deny the reality of the income that they were presented. They have arbitrarily elected not to acknowledge the modest/ meager income of my wife and I to avoid the constraint of acting on this critical financial information that has been categorically presented to them. Its a self-serving denial that does not follow any legal rubric or guideline. Their decision is purely capricious in nature and is not based on objective financial review but based on BOAs desire to avoid entering into a modification agreement. In the same letter BOA states how to request a re-evaluation. They say, If you believe our decision is incorrect, you have 30 calendar days from the date of this letter to contact us at XXXX and provide any information requested above to show why our determination of eligibility was in error. Please send us your information by fax to XXXX. 
The appeal process is also a flawed process given the fact BOA never asked for any more information to be sent to them in this same letter. Of course, how could they? They cant. They know that everything that could be sent to them has been sent to them in the sum of 300+ clear  and accurate pages. Therefore, their so-called right to appeal would just amount to another circular, dead end process. Its pretense with lousy customer service. Sad to say, BOA has not extended any real olive branch of resolution. 
Dear CFPB, given the egregious nature of this reprehensible BOA Heloc modification process, my wife and I would respectfully ask that you formally escalate and report our complaint directly to the Federal Trade Commission for a thorough review and investigation. 

Thank you sincerely,

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation