If you are a Bank of America, or a former Countrywide, mortgage holder and have been trying to get someone on the phone, things may be getting better. The company has recently hired 2,000 more employees for the default management department.
What is truly amazing to me is how many calls they get a day. The reported number of calls the Bank of America mortgage department takes is 100,000 every single day. That is indicative of either a real mess or incompetence. My guess is both.
And with 60 percent of the people answering calls in the default management department being new hires in the last 18 months, odds are it is not the most competent group. There is lots of learning happening on the other side of the phone right now.
But it sounds like they are addressing the problem. Next one to tackle for Bank of America is their short sale department.
The lender now has more than 18,000 workers in “default management,” a 60 percent increase since January 2009, Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America’s home-loan and insurance unit, said in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing on U.S. housing policy tomorrow. Those workers handle 100,000 calls a day, she said. Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. home lender, Bank of America and other companies have hired thousands of employees or shifted staff from other departments to work with borrowers who have lost jobs or experienced declining incomes. Banks repossessed a record 257,944 homes in the first quarter, 35 percent more than a year earlier, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc. More than a fifth of U.S. mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth, Seattle- based real estate data provider Zillow.com reported last month.
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That is bull.. I have been trying to call them for a week now because they sent me out three diff packets for modification after they had me make my first payment! I need the interest paid for 2009 and all you get is diconnected. This is the worst company to deal with. They dont know what they are doing and I for one am seeking legal counsel as well as I turned them into the Attorney Generals Office yesterday for breaking fed laws….on my modification. They were telling me to send in another cashiers check or they would continue collections. If anyone knows of anyone I can call and talk to there please feel free to email me. what a joke