16 ms·

I know how to handle these dumb fucks. (I had a Mortgage with them, that makes me an expert) I had a problem with them coughing up an escrow refund check, alth

I know how to handle these dumb fucks. (I had a Mortgage with them, that makes me an expert) I had a problem with them coughing up an escrow refund check, although there is much more to the story that would have most of you boiling. I filed complaints with a total of 3 agencies and received my check via FedEx Priority overnight not long after. Suck it, BofA. * Filed complaint with CFPB * Filed with Texas State Attorney General's Office (Insert your state here) * Filed complaint with Office of the Comptroller of Currency (HelpWithMyBank.gov) Trust me. If you file a very well articulated complaint to each of these entities, they will feel the heat and resolve it. I hope this information helps you alienchow, and many others.

wyldfire 10y ago
CFPB was just called out [1, 2] by Rep. Jeb Hensarling as unaccountable and a "rogue agency". The head of CFPB responded in an interview this morning [3]. Mr. Jiang, you'd better get your complaint in now before they're disbanded! [1] http://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/522756745/head-of-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-faces-lawmakers-this-week http://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/522756745/head-of-consumer-fin... [2] http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/516983751/rep-jeb-hensarling-calls-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-a-rogue-agency http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/516983751/rep-jeb-hensarling-c... [3] http://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522826544/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-chief-responds-to-republican-critics http://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522826544/consumer-financial-p...
- dmix 10y ago
  It says they want to replace the head guy and restructure the agency. This is why: > A 2013 press release from the House Services Committee (HSC) criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the HSC alleged a lack of financial transparency, lack of accountability to Congress or the President, and expressed particular concern about excessive travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters that was more costly than "the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings". Of course it sounds bad that they want to shut down a 'consumer protection' agency. But those sound like legitimate concerns. At a minimum a restructuring sounds like a good thing.
  - undersuit 10y ago
    And then we look at the chairman of the committee, Jeb Hensarling, when the report was released: >A vocal critic of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he has received $183,400 from the payday lending industry since the beginning of 2013 (directly and through his political action committee), according to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform. Why does Wikipedia mention his bribes from the payday lending industry? Because the CFPB is trying to make payday lenders not knowingly put their customers in inescapable debt[2,3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Hensarling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Hensarling [2] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-examines-payday-lending/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-f... [3] http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-financial-protection-bureau/why-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-is-in-danger/ http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-financial-protection...
    - dmix 10y ago
      How surprising. Not sure if that disproves the entire contents of the study done by the bi-partisan committee, but it's not adding any credibility. Which saddens me as there are legitimate problems in many of these regulatory agencies, but sadly the guys who fight against this stuff are often merely pawns for the interests of mega-corps. Rather than the interests of the general public and small/medium businesses owners who are most affected by bad policy. There's a reason only 6 mega banks are left following the 2008 crisis and hardly any small regional banks any more :/.
      - metaphorm 10y ago
        its not even a little surprising
      - liber8 10y ago
        The reason there aren't more regional banks is precisely because of all the regulations. I have represented numerous small banks over the last decade. Every single one of them has been sold to larger banks because they cannot compete due to the regulations, which require at least one, and more typically two compliance officers just to deal with the red tape created by the CFPB. These people don't contribute anything to the bottom line. The only way to become profitable is to get big enough that these compliance costs can be spread over more borrowers/account holders.
- cmurf 10y ago
  Republicans increasingly find these government ombudsmans as rogue. Companies should get to accost their customers, and if the customers don't like it, take business elsewhere. If a contract is violated, hire a lawyer and sue. Good people have money and can hire good lawyers. If you don't have money, get in line for a pro bono lawyer. It's completely reasonable and fair to have to wait years for this; afterall rich people are better, and therefore they shouldn't have to wait their turn for justice, they can simply buy it. Justice is a product. That's basically where Republican ideology is at right now. It's openly hostile to anti-trust and anti-fraud law. Without those things, trust burns down. And that leads to dark places. But pretty much I think Republicans are that short sighted and stupid. They're totally consumed by the pursuit of money and exploitation, and are drunk on it.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    It's not just Republicans, it's all the Christians they're in league with, and who vote for them. The philosophy you describe is modern Christian theology. It's called "Prosperity Doctrine", and basically boils down to "God rewards those he loves the most", so rich people are better people than the rest of us because obviously God loves them more and has bestowed gifts of wealth upon them. Go into any American megachurch these days and this is what they're preaching. It dovetails very nicely with Republican trickle-down economics.
    - rrauenza 10y ago
      That's a pretty wide brush you're painting with, there. There isn't just "one" modern Christian theology.
      - thebooktocome 10y ago
        Name a modern American denomination that rejects prosperity theology.
        vkou 10y ago
        Catholics.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Yep, with the way things are going now, you can expect consumer protections to disappear and for companies like BofA to be able to steal your money left and right. (this isn't sarcasm, sadly)
- pbarnes_1 10y ago
  It's only "rogue" because it actually helps people.
nikanj 10y ago
How to handle this: 1) Get your story on the front page of a mid-large news aggregator. 2) Wait.
tmaly 10y ago
This is totally the way to go. The cost for their compliance department to deal with a set of complaints will far out weight the money they owe you. Also, switching to a smaller regional bank if you have the possibility is a good choice. Remember Bank of America is the bank that took all the farms from the farmers during the Great Depression.
- instaheat 10y ago
  I received several phone calls from their Regulatory complaints/compliance department. Played phone tag with them for a few days, until I finally just left them a message instructing them to refer to the resolution on my complaint. They actually give you a field to fill out on the agency websites: "What would you like to see happen as a result of this complaint?" Basically just said send me my money. They held onto it for more than 6 months. What is laughable is before I got fed up dealing with lower level employees and managers, I had them telling me to consult legal counsel - over an $1,800 check. Yeah pay an attorney $1,800 to represent me .. to receive $1,800! Makes sense of BofA! Why didn't I think of that?
brightball 10y ago
It's amazing how well that stuff works when dealing with big companies. Years ago I had an issue with Dish. Spent hours on the phone getting passed around to different people who would give me their left pinky to avoid resolving the issue. Finally filed a complaint with the BBB and within a week got a phone call that the issue was being resolved (and the person making the call was not happy about it).
amorphid 10y ago
The CFPB is pretty awesome. I will try that next time I need to resolve something. Here's a trick I have used in the past to deal with a large USA financial company... - call corporate Headquarters - Ask for the Chairman of the Board's office - When they ask why, just say you only need to leave a message with their executive assistant - when you get the EA on the line, say you'd like to complain, and have made a good faith effort to go through normal channels, but now your are pissed that the company has <thing that could get bad press if it got picked up by the media> - that has gotten my stuff fixed twice, once to get debt a shady debt collector off my back (2009 was a rough year), and another to get an unpaid invoice paid Basically, when a company screws up by taking your money, they don't want to draw the wrong kind of attention. "<Financial institution> makes mistake it can't (can't, not won't) fix" projects incompetence, which is a direct assault on the reputation of trust, stability, and prestige. No bank could survive if the proverbial fine print included "most of the time, we don't lose your money!"
- instaheat 10y ago
  Submit to all 3. That is what worked for me. (That is, if you are dealing with a Financial institution.)

wyldfire 10y ago

CFPB was just called out [1, 2] by Rep. Jeb Hensarling as unaccountable and a "rogue agency". The head of CFPB responded in an interview this morning [3]. Mr. Jiang, you'd better get your complaint in now before they're disbanded! [1] http://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/522756745/head-of-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-faces-lawmakers-this-week http://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/522756745/head-of-consumer-fin... [2] http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/516983751/rep-jeb-hensarling-calls-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-a-rogue-agency http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/516983751/rep-jeb-hensarling-c... [3] http://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522826544/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-chief-responds-to-republican-critics http://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522826544/consumer-financial-p...

dmix 10y ago
It says they want to replace the head guy and restructure the agency. This is why: > A 2013 press release from the House Services Committee (HSC) criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the HSC alleged a lack of financial transparency, lack of accountability to Congress or the President, and expressed particular concern about excessive travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters that was more costly than "the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings". Of course it sounds bad that they want to shut down a 'consumer protection' agency. But those sound like legitimate concerns. At a minimum a restructuring sounds like a good thing.
- undersuit 10y ago
  And then we look at the chairman of the committee, Jeb Hensarling, when the report was released: >A vocal critic of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he has received $183,400 from the payday lending industry since the beginning of 2013 (directly and through his political action committee), according to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform. Why does Wikipedia mention his bribes from the payday lending industry? Because the CFPB is trying to make payday lenders not knowingly put their customers in inescapable debt[2,3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Hensarling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Hensarling [2] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-examines-payday-lending/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-f... [3] http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-financial-protection-bureau/why-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-is-in-danger/ http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-financial-protection...
  - dmix 10y ago
    How surprising. Not sure if that disproves the entire contents of the study done by the bi-partisan committee, but it's not adding any credibility. Which saddens me as there are legitimate problems in many of these regulatory agencies, but sadly the guys who fight against this stuff are often merely pawns for the interests of mega-corps. Rather than the interests of the general public and small/medium businesses owners who are most affected by bad policy. There's a reason only 6 mega banks are left following the 2008 crisis and hardly any small regional banks any more :/.
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      its not even a little surprising
    - liber8 10y ago
      The reason there aren't more regional banks is precisely because of all the regulations. I have represented numerous small banks over the last decade. Every single one of them has been sold to larger banks because they cannot compete due to the regulations, which require at least one, and more typically two compliance officers just to deal with the red tape created by the CFPB. These people don't contribute anything to the bottom line. The only way to become profitable is to get big enough that these compliance costs can be spread over more borrowers/account holders.
cmurf 10y ago
Republicans increasingly find these government ombudsmans as rogue. Companies should get to accost their customers, and if the customers don't like it, take business elsewhere. If a contract is violated, hire a lawyer and sue. Good people have money and can hire good lawyers. If you don't have money, get in line for a pro bono lawyer. It's completely reasonable and fair to have to wait years for this; afterall rich people are better, and therefore they shouldn't have to wait their turn for justice, they can simply buy it. Justice is a product. That's basically where Republican ideology is at right now. It's openly hostile to anti-trust and anti-fraud law. Without those things, trust burns down. And that leads to dark places. But pretty much I think Republicans are that short sighted and stupid. They're totally consumed by the pursuit of money and exploitation, and are drunk on it.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  It's not just Republicans, it's all the Christians they're in league with, and who vote for them. The philosophy you describe is modern Christian theology. It's called "Prosperity Doctrine", and basically boils down to "God rewards those he loves the most", so rich people are better people than the rest of us because obviously God loves them more and has bestowed gifts of wealth upon them. Go into any American megachurch these days and this is what they're preaching. It dovetails very nicely with Republican trickle-down economics.
  - rrauenza 10y ago
    That's a pretty wide brush you're painting with, there. There isn't just "one" modern Christian theology.
    - thebooktocome 10y ago
      Name a modern American denomination that rejects prosperity theology.
      - vkou 10y ago
        Catholics.
Arizhel 10y ago
Yep, with the way things are going now, you can expect consumer protections to disappear and for companies like BofA to be able to steal your money left and right. (this isn't sarcasm, sadly)
pbarnes_1 10y ago
It's only "rogue" because it actually helps people.

nikanj 10y ago

How to handle this: 1) Get your story on the front page of a mid-large news aggregator. 2) Wait.

tmaly 10y ago

This is totally the way to go. The cost for their compliance department to deal with a set of complaints will far out weight the money they owe you. Also, switching to a smaller regional bank if you have the possibility is a good choice. Remember Bank of America is the bank that took all the farms from the farmers during the Great Depression.

instaheat 10y ago
I received several phone calls from their Regulatory complaints/compliance department. Played phone tag with them for a few days, until I finally just left them a message instructing them to refer to the resolution on my complaint. They actually give you a field to fill out on the agency websites: "What would you like to see happen as a result of this complaint?" Basically just said send me my money. They held onto it for more than 6 months. What is laughable is before I got fed up dealing with lower level employees and managers, I had them telling me to consult legal counsel - over an $1,800 check. Yeah pay an attorney $1,800 to represent me .. to receive $1,800! Makes sense of BofA! Why didn't I think of that?

brightball 10y ago

It's amazing how well that stuff works when dealing with big companies. Years ago I had an issue with Dish. Spent hours on the phone getting passed around to different people who would give me their left pinky to avoid resolving the issue. Finally filed a complaint with the BBB and within a week got a phone call that the issue was being resolved (and the person making the call was not happy about it).

amorphid 10y ago

The CFPB is pretty awesome. I will try that next time I need to resolve something. Here's a trick I have used in the past to deal with a large USA financial company... - call corporate Headquarters - Ask for the Chairman of the Board's office - When they ask why, just say you only need to leave a message with their executive assistant - when you get the EA on the line, say you'd like to complain, and have made a good faith effort to go through normal channels, but now your are pissed that the company has <thing that could get bad press if it got picked up by the media> - that has gotten my stuff fixed twice, once to get debt a shady debt collector off my back (2009 was a rough year), and another to get an unpaid invoice paid Basically, when a company screws up by taking your money, they don't want to draw the wrong kind of attention. "<Financial institution> makes mistake it can't (can't, not won't) fix" projects incompetence, which is a direct assault on the reputation of trust, stability, and prestige. No bank could survive if the proverbial fine print included "most of the time, we don't lose your money!"

instaheat 10y ago
Submit to all 3. That is what worked for me. (That is, if you are dealing with a Financial institution.)