Man kills himself over mortgage

[bara]

Link

Quick recap since the article is long.

Couple makes payments.
Bank Loses payments.
Couple provides proof of said payment.
Bank keeps screwing up while foreclosing.
2 years later with pending lawsuit against bank man snaps and kills himself.

The page also has a link to some court documents.. 30 pages of them. Normally reading such a thing would make me go into a coma.. this just pissed me off.

[crashhelmet]

Before i clicked on the link, I just knew it had to be either BofA or Wells Fargo. Ugh... It's for reasons like this and my own personal experiences dealing with them that I really hate banks, especially loan lenders.

I hope the widow sues them for all that she can get.

[AdminAssistant]

Fiance worked for a mortgage company for a while, handling mod requests and, later, complaints from the AG and BBB. He had been trying to work on a modification with a woman who wasn't providing the proper paperwork and generally being difficult. She called him one day, "I have a gun to my head, and if you don't save my house right now, I'm going to pull the trigger." He was on the phone with her, as well as his supervisor and the president of the company, for three hours. He came home *shaking* because he was so upset. That was an incredibly shitty thing to do to a person, to make him a participant in her suicide. (ETA: She didn't kill herself and she got her mod approved, but then, again, didn't provide the proper paperwork in time and lost it.)

Wells Fargo didn't kill this guy. They kicked him and his wife out of their home after they pulled some shady crap. That happens, and it's terrible. It's not murder.

[crashhelmet]

They may not be the ones that pulled the trigger, but their attitude of "it's impossible for us to be wrong, so you must be" certainly helped him do it.

Even when they were provided with indisputable proof that they were wrong, they continued to dick over this couple for over a year. According to the article, they even claimed at one point that they were current with their payments, only to start up with the harassing again.

This Link was tacked onto the end of the original article. it goes into more detail about what the bank and the loan officer did.

[Rageaholic]

I wouldn't blame them for him pulling the trigger.

However, I would blame them for being greedy, incompetent bastards who make others pay for the mistakes that they make. For that, someone should be reemed out accordingly.

[Andara Bledin]

Before i clicked on the link, I just knew it had to be either BofA or Wells Fargo.

Considering that they tend to hold a lion's share of them, that's a pretty safe assumption either way. Wells Fargo is the one that bought mine. However, it's worth noting that the bank that received the payment was actually a Wachovia branch (acquired by Wells Fargo), and thus there's likely an integration issue.

However, it's crap like this that is part of why I don't use cashier's checks for payments. I want to be able to track the transaction out of my bank to my mortgage account from both sides.

By the way, the writer of the article needs to brush up on his research: It is absolutely possible to reverse a cashier's check. It's a difficult process and you have to be willing to declare it being lost or stolen or destroyed or similar, but when you're dealing with a large enough amount, it's worth doing.

Link to eHow article

Actually, looking at that second article, the homeowners should have absolutely and immediately gone back to the bank that issued the cashier's check and confirmed whether it had been paid out or not, and if not, then declared it lost, gotten the funds back, gotten a new cashier's check and a letter declaring the acquisition of the first (to show that they made payment in good faith and it was the lender who screwed up, so no late fees should be applied), and just re-made the payment.

It's the lack of full information about how cashier's checks work that gets people in trouble. They're not nearly quite so guaranteed as people think they are.

^-.-^

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

The link says: "Wells Fargo has blood on its hands."

Well, actually they don't. Not legally anyway.

A corporation is not legally capable of committing murder or any other violent act. No one in the company will see a day of prison time over this.

[crashhelmet]

But Mitt Romney and the Supreme Court say that Corporations are people. Certainly, they should be held accountable for the same things that people are.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Man I just read the summary and that is some seriously messed up stuff.

It's amazing that the actions of this bank are becoming increasingly common of a system that Republican politicians want us to believe is not only not broken, but needs to be even LESS regulated.

Oy.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

But Mitt Romney and the Supreme Court say that Corporations are people. Certainly, they should be held accountable for the same things that people are.

They are only people when it's convenient for them to be.

[jackfaire]

But Mitt Romney and the Supreme Court say that Corporations are people. Certainly, they should be held accountable for the same things that people are.

It's rare that a person would be held accountable for another person deciding to commit suicide so that is a false point.

In most cases of suicide no one is going, "Well they were under stress because your accusations were going to put them in jail so now your going to jail for their death."

So saying the corporation should be held accountable like a person would doesn't make any sense.

[crashhelmet]

It's rare that a person would be held accountable for another person deciding to commit suicide so that is a false point.

In most cases of suicide no one is going, "Well they were under stress because your accusations were going to put them in jail so now your going to jail for their death."

So saying the corporation should be held accountable like a person would doesn't make any sense.

They may not be held accountable criminally, but they can be civilly. As in a "Wrongful Death" lawsuit. If OJ can be found guilty in a wrongful death lawsuit after being acquitted in a criminal trial, so can this bank.

[Hyena Dandy]

OJ was found on a Civil Suit and not a Criminal Suit because the two have different standards.

A Civil Suit requires Preponderance of the Evidence (in other words, >%50 that it was their fault) while a Criminal Suit requires Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.

But I doubt you can file a wrongful death claim. For one, suing Tobacco companies when your relative dies of lung cancer doesn't work, and they have a better reason to believe they're doing something wrong.

And the thing is, I think that for there to be a wrongful death suit, there needs to be some reason to believe that the person involved either knew or had a damn good idea that what they were doing was going to cause someone to die.

Banks fuck things up ALL THE TIME. They had no reason to believe that this time, someone would die from it.

All sorts of things can push a person over the edge. In this case, it's a horrible bank. In some cases, it can be an argument with a neighbor, or something that should be really small. It just has to be something that pushes someone to say "I give up."

The bank shouldn't be held liable for someone killing themselves. They weren't malicious* and they didn't have any reason to believe this would be deadly.

They fucked up, big time, but really I think holding them accountable for wrongful death is just... Silly. It's an emotional reaction that doesn't have much grounding in reality.

*And by malicious, I don't mean they weren't rude/aggressive, what I mean is their goal wasn't hurting someone, it was getting money

[crashhelmet]

OJ was found on a Civil Suit and not a Criminal Suit because the two have different standards.

Naturally. That's why one is criminal and the other is civil. But the court and jury still found OJ "responsible" for the deaths, even if he couldn't be convicted of them.

A Civil Suit requires Preponderance of the Evidence (in other words, >%50 that it was their fault) while a Criminal Suit requires Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.

All they would need to prove is that he wasn't suicidal prior to all of this happening and that stress of it all pushed him over the edge.

But I doubt you can file a wrongful death claim. For one, suing Tobacco companies when your relative dies of lung cancer doesn't work, and they have a better reason to believe they're doing something wrong.

And the thing is, I think that for there to be a wrongful death suit, there needs to be some reason to believe that the person involved either knew or had a damn good idea that what they were doing was going to cause someone to die.

NFL Faces Wrongful Death Lawsuit in player's Suicide

Student Suicide Results in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Gay student's suicide triggers wrongful-death lawsuit

Wrongful death suit against Va. Tech settled

[Hyena Dandy]

The NFL suit relies on the man having been caused brain injury by playing in the NFL, and being inadequately protected.

The suicide suits are both a case where, as I said, there was malice. People took actions intended to harm.

And Yang Xin did not commit suicide. Yang Xin was murdered. It's irrelevant.