May 12, 2010: Even as I was taking Ms. De Laura’s (214) 626-2671 “courtesy” call from the Chase Home Lending Executive Office, an e-mail from the Wall Street Journal was waiting in my in-box, with a comment from Chase. Per the reporter:
“Here’s the response I got from Chase re your situation:
Chase communicated to the customer in the summer of 2009, in March of 2010, and in May of 2010 that the customer would not qualify for a loan modification because the analysis showed a negative net present value.
Is that correct?”
Was this another test? I composed my thoughts and replied:
“That is not correct. I have two written letters from Chase. The first denial, dated August 25, 2009, states in one sentence: “Your property equity exceeds our program guidelines.”
The second written communication dated March 5, 2010 states “We are unable to offer you a Home Affordable Modification because we are unable to verify that you do live in the property as your primary residence”.
The case was reopened once I provided my voting records and residency was proven.
There is nothing in May of 2010, indeed Shawnte Trowlsdell told me on 5/10/10 a letter was to have gone out on April 30th but it did not; she could not see the letter and did not know what it said or why it was not sent. My mailman has come and left today and there are no letters from Chase. The phrase “negative net present value” has never been used nor do I really know what it means…
Two minutes ago Chase called to tell me they were composing a written response to my letter to Mr. Lowman.”
I was beside myself. I now had an answer, whatever “negative net present value” meant, because this was the first time I’d ever seen those four words in a sentence, and the sentence came from Chase via The Wall Street Journal. There was nothing in writing from Chase about this, nor had those four words ever been expressed in any of my hundreds of calls to Chase.
I didn’t know what it meant but I did know that the response from Chase was curiously worded in such a way as to imply I’d been told all this before, which was simply not true. There were really two sentences in the quote, strung together with the word “because”, only the “because” had never been shared with me.
The Wall Street Journal needed to know this so I faxed the reporter copies of my two denial letters. I also sent a shout-out to my banker and broker friends to learn the meaning of “negative net present value”.
I spoke with my broker and another broker and a banker I knew – all were mystified by the term “negative net present value” and thought there must be some kind of mistake since I was not underwater in the loan, indeed; I had some equity, as evidenced by the August 2009 denial. The banker said she would dig deeper and get back to me. This was the same banker who had helped me prepare my monthly expenses spreadsheet; she was familiar with my situation and eager to offer assistance.
Finally I sent an email to the Wall Street Journal reporter and expressed my frustration over not knowing what those four words meant and anger at having never seen them before. They seemed like more bank-talk designed to confuse and obscure, why couldn’t the guidelines and the formulas be transparent?
His reply was chilling:
“What they mean, I believe, is this: It isn’t in the best financial interests of the owner of the loan to give you a modification. I believe they mean this: the net present value formula shows they would be better off either collecting payments from you under the current terms or foreclosing.”
I hoped he was mistaken but I knew at that very moment that Chase had been playing games for with me for over fourteen months; they had only provided a clear answer when backed against the wall by the Wall Street Journal.
Was this the new American way, or just the Chase way? It seemed to me that Chase was continuing the predatory loan practices devised by Washington Mutual, and they were even better at playing the game.
Filed under: Chase, Home Loan Modification, JP Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual | Tagged: Chase Home Lending, Chase Home Lending Executive Office, Chase loan modification, David Lowman Chase, home equity, jp morgan chase loan modifications, loan modification, loan modification answers, Loan modification denial, predatory lending | 7 Comments »
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