Vampire Forecloses on Bank!

Patrick Rodgers

This guy Patrick Rodgers in Philadelphia was being sucked dry by his bank.  They had force-placed insurance for a million dollars on his house which was worth under $200,000.

Force-placed insurance is where you lose your homeowners insurance for some reason (usually nonpayment of the premium, although it can be because your insurer drops you and you don't react fast enough) and due to a clause in your mortgage the bank then gets some for you, but usually it's a pretty bad deal, and the insurance is often through some affiliate of the bank.  The whole force-placed insurance thing is a breeding ground for scams and abuse.  Commonly the insurance is overpriced, but sometimes on top of that the bank "sells" you inappropriate amounts of it and gets a huge commission for doing so.

Having his house way overinsured was making all kinds of fees for Rodgers to pay that he should not have had to pay.  He tried complaining.  His bank (Wells Fargo) wasn't replying to his letters and calls.  So he researched RESPA, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.  This Federal law governs how real estate closings should go, so that banks don't rip you off with hidden charges; also if they have a relationship with say, the title agency or the insurance company, they have to reveal that. 

Under RESPA there is a certain way to write a complaint letter, called a Qualified Written Request, and if you deviate from that certain way the bank can ignore your letter.  But if you get it right and the bank still ignores you, you can sue for damages.  So he went online and figured out how to write one. He even went and read the law, and made sure he got it right.  He even went to banker's forums and read where they were bragging about how they'd managed to ignore this letter or that on a technicality, and made sure his letter was perfect.  He sent his letter.  Wells Fargo continued to ignore him, so he sued in small claims court and won a small amount of money, which they paid.  But they still didn't change his insurance, so he went back and got a sheriff's levy on his local branch of Wells Fargo.  The sheriff went into that branch and did an inventory, told Wells Fargo they weren't allowed to remove anything from the premises, and gave Rodgers some posters he could put up around town.  I'm sure that finally got their attention.

The punchline of the story is, apparently Mr. Rodgers actually fancies himself a vampire.  He wears fangs.  But no matter what your hobby, you shouldn't let yourself be victimized by financial institutions, the REAL vampires.

Here's the story:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/how-to-foreclose-on-your-bank.html