No fast fix here. Be prepared for a fight but you can try to fight it. Sounds like you fell into the temporary special forbearance agreement trap? Me too. Painful process. Lots of red tape. Lots of sleepless nights. Becomes like a part time job in itself fighting with them. Lots of confusion for consumers and servicers with the programs out there changing so much. Sometimes can take months to over a year as you found out. People really need to educate themselves on the process as much as possible including what it does to credit scores. Unless someone has no other choice and could face foreclosure I tell them to stay away from modifcations until servicers get it together.
How are they reporting you today? What is your late pay status? What does it say under the comments? What reasons did they give for the denial? So are you paid off and current now? You can try to goodwill them but slim chance a mortgage company will change the reporting unless you can really prove an error. Even under these agreements they seem to report you based on the original note terms during the whole time on the forbearance agreement or trial. In other words if you pay $2200 a month normally which is due by the 1st and under the agreement you get to pay $1000 due by the 20th they will still charge you late fees and show a late pay status especially if you started the program with missed payments to begin with. It seems unlikely they will change the reporting especially since you never got modified. Even in those cases they don't usually change the history of the reporting. Did you actually hit 30 days late when you started your trial? If so, that late status will keep growing and stay on your record each month until you are modified usually with the comments paying partial payment as agreed . If modified the comments change to show you were modified but it doesn't change the late status history. Check your written forbearance agreement that they gave you. What does it say about credit reporting in it? Does it say they will still report you late during the program? If it mentions nothing at all about how they report you that might give you a chance to fight it as well.
I'm sort of in the same boat with Wells Fargo. 1st special forbearance I had -700 on my worksheet. Worked hard to get debt paid off using tax refunds and increased net income. Made savings across the board. Got rid of all excess, stuck to strict budget, eliminated premium utilities, eliminated supplemental insurance, reduced 401k contributions for a while. Now at a surplus of $300 - $360/ month. I am starting a 2nd - 3 month forbearance trial this month based on the new numbers. My first one would just have ended up with a huge balloon payment at the end and was from loss mitigation department. This next one is from borrower counseling services and states in my agreement letter they promise to review me after for perm modification which may only lower my payment by $68/month, resets me to 360 months, brings loan current and rolls in outstanding balance to back of loan with a rate from my current 6.875% down to the FHA lowest rate of just a shy over 5% but it is still a crap shoot if I get it and my credit score could suffer for a long time.
Fighting how they report to the credit bureaus the last couple weeks as well. Working with a department at Wells Fargo that researches the credit reportings. Started with a fax to a resolution department. Yesterday actually had someone from that department on the phone that was listed in my follow up letter while we were trying to conference over the person that is working on my latest forbearance trial to see if they can freeze reporting me. It is really sketchy what they did in my case. We went over the spreadsheet with my payments and everything applied with a fine tooth comb and found a couple possible errors that may count in my favor. I think rarely they will freeze reporting but since I have a written dispute with them and what they did to me is pretty grey I have a slim chance. Basically they took a couple of my partial payments and decided to use them for the escrow deficit. For those two months they didn't count my payment at all even though I paid on time per agreement and the funds got applied to my account. I contacted them at 32 days late for a workout plan and now have 1 30 day 2 60 days and a 90. So four months late according to them even after I made my regular mortgage payment when my finances improved and not the partial payment. With the dispute on file FICO is not calculating my mortgage at all it seems. For now I have a temporary boost in my scores. Without that I am about 100pts lower. To top that off they promised to freeze any and all reporting until May. Trying to keep the reporting frozen until we can resolve this and during the next three month plan as well.
So in a nutshell:
1) Figure out if you have any grounds to dispute based on original written agreement. If they recorded calls, they usually do, and no one ever informed you about the damage it would do to your score that could be in your favor as well. You can ask them to pull the calls when they research. Even better if someone screwed up and said it would not impact your score that can give you grounds for dispute. I have two cases of that as well.
2) Find the department where you can fax a written dispute and clearly state the grounds for your dispute.
3) Sit tight and wait for response, escalate if you don't get one in a month. You can try the executive office of the servicer. Once you dispute they have to report consumer disputes comments on your reports which may temporarily give your score a boost while you fight it. In my case it states they won't remove the comments until I request them to remove it.
4) Don't dispute with EQ, TU, EX directly. Let them take care of reporting the dispute (they have to under FCRA) while you work on it.
5) When working on buying your new place you can probably show the dispute on your report if it is still not resolved and further explain the situation. I actually reported to Discover Card the situation after they slashed my credit limit. They reinstated it 50% of what the original amount was for now and said they would reinstate the full amount after the dispute is resolved.
Sorry to be so long winded. Hope this helps a little.
*Bought 1st Home on 7/11/07 thanks to myFICO Forums*
4/2013 - FICO: 685
Payment History: Great
Amt of Debt: Not Good
Length: Good
Amt of New Credit: Good
Goal for 2013: Pay down debt! Cross fingers housing market turns around so I can move further south!
