GMAC Mortgage: The Gulags Would Be Too Good

So a couple years ago, going through a divorce, I did a refi on the house.

My note got sold to GMAC. And then the trouble began.

Keep in mind, prior to this I'd had my share of bill troubles, all the way to and through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but I'd never had troubles with a mortgage like this.

And yet, the irony was, I was paying. On time. Without fail.

Yet right after they bought the note, I was getting notices that I was in foreclosure. Their lame excuse was it takes time to get the paperwork caught up when a note is sold. Okay, then quit pretending it's my fault you can't get your paperwork done. Sequester newly purchased paper until you can tell the rabbit shit from the dog food.

The shenanigans included GMAC telling my insurance company that I wasn't living here. The insurance company canceled my policy and sent me a refund. When I called (and waited, as usual, a half hour or more on hold for customer disservice), I was told that they had field agents who check to make sure the note they bought relates to a real property with people living in it. On the surface, this makes sense as an anti-fraud measure. Spot checking, anyway, to make sure someone isn't selling you notes on homes that don't even exist. But when I insisted that my house was very obviously there and very obviously lived in, GMAC Mortgage insisted it could not possibly be because their supposed field agent had made a mistake.

So now they were calling me a deadbeat and a liar.

When I called my agent to get it reinstated,he drove by my house to see, and his response was, 'I don't know who they think is feeding your dog. Looks lived in to me.'

Personally, I doubt any agent from GMAC actually was out checking properties. They might have a token employee or two with that job description, but more likely, their computer simply assumes the home is abandoned if it's in foreclosure. This makes sense, again, if you just look at the face of it. I've noticed houses on my street get foreclosed in the past few months, and nobody waits until the bank comes to throw them out. You typically don't even see the moving van, you just notice one day that a house that used to contain neighbors is now empty and dark. No real estate sign in the yard, no sign of utilities being on.

I can totally understand that the bank foreclosing on such a property wants to get the locks changed and take measures to secure the property so they don't lose any more resale value than they have to. Why they care if an insurance company still has homeowners policy in force is beyond me, though. If I had been in foreclosure and had vamoosed, I don't know why the mortgage company would care if I continued to pay premiums to insure a home I no longer lived in. It's not like taking a life insurance policy out on a stranger, it's just a loose end.

So tonight I get yet another call. This time it might be the fault of the company that takes my half-payment debits and forwards them. My payment apparently went up and nobody told me for awhile.

I lost my rag a little, because the first impression I got for why they were calling sounded as if they were saying I was almost a whole payment behind. Turns out, they were telling me that I had almost a whole payment made, they were wanting $135 to 'get me current and avoid any more late charges.'

At which point I really lost my rag: I've been paying like clockwork, perfectly on time, never even a day late for two years. Late fees are not even up for discussion. I asked for a supervisor and after waiting on hold, was told the supervisor was unavailable but could call me back.

Now my eyes flash green and my clothes rip as I transmogrify, but alas, you can't pick up a car and throw it at someone on the phone even if you had an accidental overdose of gamma radiation.

You called me! This is not something your supervisor can address at his leisure. You interrupt him, take the phone to him in the bathroom or whatever, but I'm not at your disposal.

I think there were some cuss words in there, too. I didn't get a supervisor, but eventually she did tell me she could do me the enormous favor of waiving the late fee I shouldn't have owed anyway as a 'one time courtesy.'

So they tell me I can straighten all this out, and I can do it over the phone. For $12.50. When I asked what exactly I was paying $12.50 for, she came down to $7.50, but insisted she couldn't do better than that. Or I could pay it for free at the web site.

So I get off the phone and fill out the registration for their web site and once I'm in I try to pay the shortfall, but no matter how I go about it, it tries to also deduced the regular monthly payment that has already been deducted from my checking account.

And there is no provision in the web site to correct his in any way. Assheads. Playground strafers.

Whatever Vice President made the decision (and this was definitely a decision that was made) to understaff customer service and to be sloppy about defaults, he doesn't deserve to have a job. Of course his job, unlike people in honest trades, is not to make customers happy. His job is to make shareholders money, and because his 'customers' are basically hostages, he can do so without providing anything like actual service.

Tell me one other business, aside from government, where you can pay like clockwork and have them harassing you and you can't even take your business elsewhere.

I really do think I'd refinance the house just to get my note out of GMAC's greasy hands. But with my luck, they'd turn around and buy the refinanced note and I'd be right back in a Kafka story.