And that's unfortunate.  Because we need to get mad!  We need to take our country and economy back from "the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang rape the American dream".

Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 19 pounds; result happiness.

Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 21 pounds; result misery.

A past client of ours is now considering a refinance since rates have dropped and he sees an opportunity to eliminate the mortgage insurance he incurred when he purchased the property.  We suggested as a first step a review of his credit.  Much to his and our chagrin the current mortgage holder was reporting a loan balance that was higher than the original starting balance.  This was an amortizing installment loan.  Typically this situation would only occur if you were late and fees and interest were piling up.  That wasn't the case.  Everything had been paid as agreed and on time.

The lender, Fifth Third Mortgage Company confirmed this fact in several phone conversations.  But our client relates that the lender refused to change it.  The customer service person they spoke with said that it wasn't their department and he couldn't do anything about it.  He instead suggested that the borrower should contact the credit reporting bureau and “dispute” the balance.  He further suggested that it would be faster than trying to get it corrected by the lender who was reporting it incorrectly.  There's more...

The borrower now wanted to see where this would go.  Still desiring a refi he wanted to get his credit report corrected to obtain any benefit from the presumable higher credit score.

At our suggestion he went to the web site for the free credit report and found that it did not provide credit scores, only the reporting itself.  So he went to one of the free credit reporting services and looked for a way to dispute the info.  Our client is well versed in the Internet and world wide web.  He maintains several web sites for his business and a number for others.  He's no dummy.  But he could not easily find the information to seek relief.  After nearly a hour half of searching through numerous pages he came upon a link for disputes.  After clicking on that page he was taken to another page where he was bombarded with offers and services costing money to protect his credit.  Finally, after many more minutes of sifting through additional info he was able to register his dispute.

After filling out the requisite information of name, social security number, account information, etc, he was given the opportunity to describe the problem in the narrative form.  He typed in the fact that the balance of his current mortgage was being reported incorrectly and the circumstances surrounding it.  After hitting “enter” he was abruptly told that he was limited to 100 characters.  Only 100!  “Thank goodness,” he thought that he didn't have his identity stolen and had to explain that in only 100 characters.

All this effort did result in a change.  But it's hard to believe.  Upon being notified that the creditor had acknowledged the dispute he went back on-line to find that the balance was now being reported even higher than before!  There was surely a change but it was more incorrect than the original.

Two thoughts come to mind based on this story.  One, lenders today do not care about customer service.  They don't want your loan to leave their books and will do just about anything to prevent it.  Two, the privatization of certain services for profit has lead to a reduction in the integrity of the individual and their rights under law.