Consumer complaint received 2017-06-23
Product: Mortgage — Other type of mortgage
Issue: Incorrect information on your report — Account status incorrect
Company: BB&T CORPORATION (MD)

A little more than 10 years ago, we had a loan with BB & T that was used to purchase a lot of land in a community in North Carolina for my husband and I to hopefully retire to one day. It turned out those loans that BB & T originated for this community ( XXXX at XXXX XXXX ) were the subject of several class action lawsuits against the bank, the developer and the appraisers involved for colluding to inflate values so they could sell lots and get loans. As mentioned earlier, I had the loan in question for over 10 years and had paid religiously on it and have always had spectacular credit. My husband and I got to the point where we could no longer afford to make payments on a piece of property we bought for {$150000.00}, that 10 years later was assessed at {$15000.00}! It was either try and save for retirement and kids college or continue making payments on a fraudulent loan for a property that would never be worth anything. So we decided try and negotiate some sort of settlement with BB & T, because we heard from other property owners as well as legal counsel that BB & T has been doing that for these particular loans. When we talked to someone in their customer service about it, we were told that we would not even be able to start the process of negotiating with their Loan Recovery team unless and until we were delinquent. This was also confirmed by our legal counsel down in NC. So, in order to " trigger '' this process with BB & T, we did not make our XX/XX/XXXX mortgage payment. After XX/XX/XXXX of that month, we started to get collection calls, at which time we advised them that we would not be able to continue making the mortgage payments and that we would like to speak to someone in their Recovery Team to negotiate the terms/balance of the loan. Sometime in XX/XX/XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX, after several more of the same calls from their collections people, we were told that someone from their Recovery team would be contacting us to begin the process of negotiating. Our assumption based on that was that someone on the Recovery side was now working on our situation. It took BB & T 2 more full months until we finally heard from someone on their Recovery Team ( we were actually just recently informed that their Recovery team had picked up our file on XX/XX/XXXX ). We were finally able to successfully negotiate with BB & T on the balance of the loan, only to find out that during that time that we had thought we were in a negotiation with BB & T, they had reported me late on the mortgage, not once or twice, but 3 times!!. So, my once stellar credit has taken a severe hit with a 30, 60 and 90 day late mortgage payment reporting from BB & T. I completely understand having been reported for the 30-day late, because after missing the first payment, it is only normal for that reporting to happen, but after having had conversation with them since then and letting them know the situation and being told we would be contacted by the Recovery Team, I am thoroughly confused as to why BB & T would continue reporting to the credit bureaus. We believed based on all correspondence with BB & T that we were in a negotiation cycle with them that would have begun sometime in XX/XX/XXXX. So basically BB & T sat on our file for a couple more months and did nothing with it, but yet continued to report me as being delinquent. Truly frustrating and now because of this, I am unable to refinance my house or do anything from a credit qualification perspective because of this. I tried contacting BB & T to resolve this on my own. I reached out to XXXX XXXX, one of the VPs that had done a loan modification for us some time back, but she was unable to help but our email was picked up by XXXX `` XXXX '' XXXX, who put us in contact with XXXX XXXX in the Complaints Resolution department. XXXX did the obligatory information gathering and listened to our complaint, but did nothing in the way of resolving it or making things right. I had to escalate the matter higher and finally was contacted by XXXX XXXX XXXX, Complaint Resolution Manager, VP at BB & T. We got about as far with XXXX XXXX as with the previous folks, which was no amicable resolution at all. The last we heard from XXXX XXXX, she informed us that our issue response currently has a due date of no later than XX/XX/XXXX, and is being handled by a manager within Special Assets. 5 days later, we got a letter from a XXXX XXXX XXXX with BB & T Special Assets basically telling us " you were late, BB & T is in the right, case closed ''. They completely overlooked the whole customer confusion scenario that was created by the lack of any sort of standardized process in dealing with these situations. Bottom line, I do n't think it 's fair for BB & T to be able to treat customers this way and do business in this very ambiguous manner and then leave the customer to clean up the mess that the bank has made of my credit because of the sheer lack of communication about what to expect and what to do about it.