By Rodney Anderson
Meet the homeowners who foreclosed on their bank!
This is one of those ‘Too Big To Fail’ tales. A story of a couple who, instead of getting foreclosed on, turned around and put a lock on the bank doors!
This happened to a Bank of America branch, and it serves as proof of a number of things, one of which is: Don’t trust ANYBODY to count your money for you unless YOU are counting right alongside them!
Yes, in this case, the bank was guilty of, at the very least, sloppy record-keeping. And maybe the couple was as well … because this case actually went to court … ending with the sheriff’s deputies foreclosing on the bank.
Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple but there was a problem: the couple didn’t owe a dime on their home. They’d paid cash for the house. They owned it outright.
The misunderstanding was so out of control that, again, the case actually went to court. Now eventually, the homeowners were able to prove they didn’t owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay.
So this is a case of some bad bookkeeping and some costly bookkeeping, because of course it’s the taxpayer – that’s you and that’s me – who has to foot the bill of such a silly trial. The judge eventually agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners.
That seems more than fair … And that should’ve been the end of this sordid story of bad bookkeeping.
But no. After more than five months after the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the ordered legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners.
He seized the bank’s assets.
In to the bank parking lot rolled the Sheriff’s deputies, and the movers, and the couple’s attorney. They showed up at the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to begin removing the desks and confiscating the computers and carting off the copiers and the files and yes, even the cash in the tellers’ drawers.
Suddenly, immediately, as you might imagine, it took a matter of moments before the bank manager showed up and – finding himself padlocked out of his own bank — handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.
But here’s the kicker – beyond the chuckles – as it applies to all of us: The lawyer involved says he sees this all the time in court, the banks making errors because they didn’t investigate the foreclosure and it becomes a lengthy and expensive battle for the homeowner. … and the taxpayer.
This isn’t a specific indictment of Bank of America. It is, however, an endorsement of finding the finest financial technology on the planet to prevent this from happening. Records obviously weren’t properly kept and to a certain degree, you can’t trust the bank… simply because the bank makes errors, too.
We recently conducted a Moneywise meeting in which we met a young woman named Jamie who works as a bank loan officer. She told us the story of the elderly lady who was made to realize that a certain amount of money was leaking out of her account for over two years. Every month, a leak. Every month, $3000.
Was she crazy? Ridiculous? Naïve? Or just not quite attentive enough? Yet I tell you, it happens every day. When you don’t have enough money and even when you DO have enough money (because then maybe you don’t examine your statement), too many Americans don’t have a handle on their accounting, their transactions, their budget, their credit, their plan.
This is among the many reasons I’ve agreed to serve as the national spokesman for Moneywise. All the transactions charted individually, all in one place, all your accounts. Identity protection in place, and an accounting process in place. The bank won’t wrongly foreclose on you because you can simply show them you are Moneywise. The ID thieves won’t get you because Moneywise offers you a $1 Million Protection Guarantee.
I would encourage bank customers and anyone interested in their money to investigate Moneywise. And to be frank, these are two cases where it looks like the banks themselves might want to sign up for Moneywise, too!
