Deborah Crabtree, Widow, Sues BofA After Being Overwhelmed With Automated Payment Requests

Robo-signing practices have wreaked havoc across the housing market for some time now, allegedly even leading to wrongful foreclosures. In Hawaii, though, a recent bank-related incident could best be described as robo-dialing. Bank of America reportedly pestered a grieving widow with up to 48 calls per day over a missed mortgage payment after her husband died, according to the Daily Mail. Deborah Crabtree of Honolulu, Hawaii, is now suing Bank of America for what she says were computer-generated calls from the bank as often as every 15 minutes, including during her husband’s wake, according to the report. That despite her explaining that she would make the payment once she received her husband’s life insurance pay out, according to paperwork filed in the lawsuit. Crabtree’s complaint is only the most recent automated mess in the financial industry. Take, for instance, the case of one man who was threatened with foreclosure for failing to pay an overdue balance of $0.00. Also common is confusion over the mortgage modification process, with some being foreclosed on even while they were in the process of negotiating one. Outside of the mortgage industry, banks have gotten themselves into trouble for technical errors, such as when Bank of America sent $30,000 worth of Social Security payments to the wrong person. Or consider that Chase reportedly had a man arrested for a check that they themselves had issued him. The automated phone calls for Crabtree remind of the aforementioned robo-signing practices, shorthand for a number of ways in which banks expedite the foreclosure-filing process. It’s recently been made aware that the robo-signing practices date as far back as 1998, causing more than a few errors along the way. Goldman Sachs, for one, recently agreed with a federal regulator to end robo-signing practices all together, on top of compensating some homeowners for wrongful foreclosures. On Tuesday, it was reported that major banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, have been offered a liability-limiting deal to settle claims of wrongful foreclosure practices — specifically robo-signing — in an exchange for an undetermined multi-billion dollar settlement.

Read more:

Deborah Crabtree, Widow, Sues BofA After Being Overwhelmed With Automated Payment Requests

Posted by on September 7, 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.