Michelle Malkin has an ongoing series of posts about subprime meltdown/foreclosure sob stories and oh how I love these. I’m still trying to figure out if the reporters writing these things are mocking the people or trying to get us to feel sorry for them, and if the latter is the case, they’ve got a lot of work to do. doesn’t just take the cake, it takes the cake, runs ten times around the block with the cake, and then devours the cake in a ravenous binge.
Starts off with the “sad” part:
Foreclosed family’s last goodbye to home
Joann Gardner sat forlornly on her living room floor, waiting for the final step in her home’s foreclosure process. The lender’s representative was due any moment to give her “cash for keys,” a transaction in which she would deliver her family home vacant in exchange for an incentive payment.
“I’m glad it’s done,” Gardner said wearily. “I just want to sit down and have some Hennessy.”
Only days earlier, the house had been jammed with boxes and bags holding the worldly goods her family had accumulated during 54 years in the cramped Oakland bungalow.
Now it was entirely empty, the possessions in storage or donated to the Salvation Army. Gardner’s elderly parents, both suffering from dementia and other ailments, had moved a week earlier to a local board-and-care home whose cost would be covered by their Social Security and pension checks. Gardner, who has been her parents’ full-time care provider for the past 18 months, planned to move in with her boyfriend in Vallejo and look for a job, perhaps something at Costco.
Does it have you? Are you crying for these poor forlorn and weary folks? Don’t, just don’t. If you caught the “54 years” part, you probably already figured out what these morons did:
Joann’s parents, Johnnie Gardner, 87, and Estelle, 88, bought the two-bedroom in the Sobrante Park neighborhood in 1954 for $11,500. His salary as an electrician at the Oakland naval shipyard allowed them to make the payments.
But in recent years, Joann and her brother refinanced it several times for increasingly larger amounts.
The final refinance at the end of 2006 left the family owing $454,000. The monthly payments of $3,362 exceeded the household income of $3,144.
What happened to the money from all the refinances?
Gardner can’t quite say. Some went to paying off credit cards; some was eaten up in huge loan fees. What is clear is that the family has not made a mortgage payment since December 2006.
The only sad thing is that these elderly parents raised such stupid, stupid, stupid children and are now suffering for it.
I have yet to come across a single foreclosure story that inspired anything but scorn in my heart, and I’m a pretty empathetic person. It’s just that every single time, it turns out these people have screwed themselves by making extremely bad decisions and I am so freakin’ SICK of hearing about it. All I want to know is how much of my tax money is going to go to bailing them out. Assholes.
Preach it, sister.
I don’t think the term you were looking for was “stupid children” … I think it was “venal thieves”
reminds me of my brother-in-law and his wife … same sort of greedy wastrels … who also happen to be born-again christians. I’m hoping that their beliefs pan out (God and heaven and all that) … since I’ll be srsly happy with their “just rewards”
So what does $450k+ buy you when you didn’t spend it on another house and you don’t still own the original one? I’m thinking lots and lots of Hennessy.
And what dreamers these people are! Costco! My dream career!
For my friends who are having kids, I tell them “You have to have more than just one. What if the first one is an idiot?”
Looks like those poor Gardners raised two idiots.
Then washes it down (wearily) with a $40 bottle of cognac.
Seriously, $450,000? And they don’t know where it went? Do they not get that “credit card debt” is not some unaviodable financial burden imposed by the cruel government, that they are not victims of a terrible injustice, that what that debt is due to, plain and simple, is LOTS OF SHIT THEY BOUGHT FOR THEMSELVES? And really, is there any penalty other than having to forlornly, wearily, move a few boxes of crap out of their parents now-exhausted gold mine?
How can you buy a house for 11 and half thousand dollars in 1954 and not have it paid off by 2008? Why wasn’t that house paid for in 1984? I’ve never owned a house and admittedly don’t know much about real estate transactions, but how in the world can you not be rolling in money if you bought a house in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1954? That area is real estate gold. These people are fuck-ups. They didn’t fuck-up once they fucked-up multiple times. The parents didn’t raise two idiots…they raised two leeches. Sucked them dry.
Rachel, I know people who are even worse, but think of themselves as victims. It reminds me of a TV add some few years ago that featured an idiot who told about the car,house, golf club membership etc. then Announced ” I can hardly pay my bills, wont somebody help me?” Of course, the add was from some dipshit lender. They deserve each other.
How can you buy a house for 11 and half thousand dollars in 1954 and not have it paid off by 2008? Why wasn’t that house paid for in 1984?
It’s worse than that… I’m pretty sure that the max limit for mortages in ’54 was AT MOST 20 years. We didn’t have 30 year mortages until the 70s
bluesincebirth – The house WAS paid off and the parents owned it outright. That’s how the kids were able to get those “easy, low-interest loans” to finance a lifestyle that their dream-job at Costco wouldn’t cover (if they even had a job while leeching off their parents).
What happened to the money from all the refinances?
Gardner can’t quite say.
Uh, I can:
“I just want to sit down and have some Hennessy.”
Only days earlier, the house had been jammed with boxes and bags holding the worldly goods
Look you drunken slob, get off your butt and get a job first.
There are some good things about all these foreclosures, I’m buying one for about a third of the value of the property!
These stories make me nothing but angry. How did we get to the point where instead of ridiculing these assnuggets for their sheer stupidity and lack of responsible spending, we use tax dollars to bail them out. Is there some provision in the Constitution that says you have the right to be a complete and utter festering yambag, and society will rescue your stupid ass?
I’ve worked in and around direct sales people for most of my working life. The #1 rule is you get the results you pay for. If you want to sell more of product A than product B, you pay a higher commission on A. If you never want to sell C and always sell A or B, you slash the payout for selling C to the point where you’d have to be an idiot to sell it.
This works for more than just sales. When the government bails these irresponsible people out (or the lenders that loaned them the money – same effect), all they are doing is enabling MORE irresponsible behavior, and encouraging LESS responsible behavior.
So to all of us hard-working (well, not me, but the rest of you I’m sure), mortgage-paying, tax-paying citizens, congratulations. You not only get the privilege of paying your own bills, you now get to pay the bills of deadbeats and idiots.
Just like the government (pick one – local, state or federal), these folks seldom think to reduce their spending or live a more basic lifestyle. Instead it’s Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! And then they’re the victims of those bad people who loaned them all that money and gave them those credit cards. Boo Freakin’ Hoo.
unh, nicki? yes there is a provision in the constitution that says you have the right to be a complete and utter festering yambag. it is the elastic clause (..and promote the general welfare…) whioh the dimmicraps have re-interpreted to be “…and put everyone on welfare…”.
at least that is what it looks like to me.
but then i have made a career out of being wrong
sounds like my wife’s brother in law,who lately has been singing the blues because the mean old bank is taking his house away.Never mind that ten years ago,he had it damn near paid off,but refinanced it several times,and then decided NOT to make the payments……gee,MY house payments are ALWAYS current,and I ALWAYS pay extra-and this on half the income that numb-nuts has…go figure…..
I read this yesterday over at Michelle Malkin’s, and it made me furious. It’s just as well the parents have dementia, maybe they don’t realize how their children have betrayed them.
How on earth does a person get nearly half a million in loans and not know where the money went?
Yeah, I know — world-class stupidity.
P.S. — There’s an ad for Dianetics on your site now. Huh.
You think foreclosure is bad? You can now get a visa or mastercard leveraged against your retirement account. That’s right, if you have an IRA or 401K, you can now apply for a credit card using your retirement money as collateral. Why wait to spend that money when you can spend it today! Step right up, folks. Step right up.
What is this freakin “incentive payment” these assholes are getting? Am I to understand that if (a) I take a loan for more money than I’ll ever be able to pay back, (b) refuse to make payments on that loan for more than two years, but (c) in the interim spend that money, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, on things I want but haven’t earned, that I get rewarded with an incentive check if I leave the property empty of my shit? WTF?
sing it:
10,000 bottles of Cognac on the wall, 10,000 bottles of French Cognac. Take one down, pass it around…
JW
LOL!!!
One small problem, the clause actually says, “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;” not provide for the general welfare of dimwitted douchebags who can’t keep control of their finances. How taxing the rest of us into poverty to rescue numbnuts who would rather guzzle Hennessy than stay out of debt is good for the “general welfare” of the country is beyond me.
Steph,
This will probably upset you, but that payment is reward for NOT trashing the place. A minority of people, angry with the bank for not letting live in a house they don’t own or pay for, destroy the walls, rip out plumbing and electrical equipment, crack tiles, break windows and perform various other petty acts of vandalism.
These people are emotional children, so it’s easier to bribe them to be good than to clean up their messes.
Amen, living in the Washington suburbs we get these sob stories almost daily. One illegal immigrant bought three houses which he crammed with other illegal immigrants. When home construction dried up here they all moved on and he lost the three rental houses and his own home. I’m supposed to bleed for this guy and bail him out. How much money did he bag while this scheme was going on.
too slow …. everyone’s taking the words out of my mouth
Can we all say …..Elder Abuse
This is criminal and these adult children need to be prosecuted and sent to jail.
But in recent years, Joann and her brother refinanced it several times for increasingly larger amounts.
The final refinance at the end of 2006 left the family owing $454,000. The monthly payments of $3,362 exceeded the household income of $3,144.
You can’t refinance a house that you don’t own. They coerced their parents into giving up their ownership of their own home and then proceeded to rape the equity of their parents’ biggest asset. They stole the safety and security of their own parents retirement years. You can bet your bottom dollar that the elderly and vulnerable parents reaped none of the benefits of these multiple re-financings.
This makes me feel sorry for the parents because they were robbed and hoodwinked by their own children. On the other hand they did raise the little cheating criminals.
we had 18 solid months of super scary financial times during which we fell almost 4 months behind in paying our mortgage. But, we talked weekly to our mortgage people, keeping them in the loop on what was going on with us. As such, they were willing to work with us. And, as of August 1st, we’re caught up!
I feel bad for people who are experiencing financial hardships that cause them to lose their homes. I feel less empathy for those who bought outside their budget, or who did like a girl I know and kept taking out loans against their mortgage, and are now in huge trouble.
I felt bad for us, too. But, I stopped all frivolous spending, started paid blogging, did some freelance web design, started being way more careful financially, and would have taken a second and third job if necessary to not lose my house. Being behind is scary and stressful. I am so relieved to be caught up.
WB: Yay for financial maturity and responsibility! glad you’re out of the hole.
And no, the offer (~Paules’ comment) to use my Roth for collateral on a credit card in NOT tempting.
As others have pointed out, there’s your clue right there.
The comments in the Chronicle are similarly unsympathetic including lots of “This comment violated SFGate’s Terms and Conditions, and has been removed.” Heh.
Hey, where’s the reporter from the big, famous newspaper doing the story on all the financially responsible people who control their spending and pay their bills? Why can’t we get any articles telling us how hard it is for them?
“Mr. W. sits down forlornly on his living room couch in from of his TV. ‘I’m glad I got my bills paid and mailed in,’ he said wearily. ‘Means I get to keep the power on in my house for yet another month.’ He stares at his 5 year old TV, looks depressed. ‘I wish I could afford a big-screen right now, but I’m saving up for it. With my budget, I should be able to afford it in four months.”
Yeah, Pulitzer prize winner right there…..I wish.
Sputter …. aarrgghh!
This human interest sob-fest makes my blood boil!
Let’s see — they stole a house from their parents, stole at least $200,000 (the home sale couldn’t possibly cover the mortgage arrears) from the mortgage companies and stole from the taxpayers (Social Security and a Pension will cover the cost of a skilled facility in California? — that’s bullshit).
SO WHY aren’t they being PROSECUTED!?!
Instead, they get a $1,500 pay off and a sympathy feature in the paper.
Boo-boo? BOO-FUCKING-BOO!?!
Whoever called them emotional children earlier NAILED IT!!
pant … pant … ohhhhmmmmmmm. oohhhhmmmmmmm.
EDIT: I watched the video (that was DUMB) and it turns out she was getting PAID to stay home and care for her parents, too, as they qualified for an in-home care assistant and she “gave up her job” so she could be home with them … un-freeking-believeable!
This bitch was triple dippin’ — mortgage company, state government for assistant wages, feds for her parents’ social security/pension — and she still lost the family home and ended up at LEAST $454,000 in debt!
I must be economically retarded, not having credit cards, a mortgage or a car payment, but could someone please tell me HTF this is even possible from a lender’s persepctive?? I’m confused as to how a company would keep funneling money into a woman who so obviously divided by zero and became a cash-sucking hole to Hennessyville.
Anyone?
Skullberg – yes, that upsets me even more. Somebody’s getting paid not to vandalize property. Great.
You’re right, they are children emotionally. But then, they shouldn’t get their allowance, should they?
wRitErsbLock – I too feel sorry for people who fall upon hard times. There but for the grace of God go I. But I don’t have a lick of empathy for criminals who rip off their parents, rip off the system, … hell, rip ME off ’cause I’m the one paying for these miscreants and the shit they do.
Hey, want to feel really great about this story…? These morons will probably vote in November, and each one of their votes counts the same as the ones each of us will cast.
At least they don’t live in Chicago, where it would count 3-4 times as much…
What everyone else already said.
:)
Ladies and gents, here’s the actual in all its glory.
Be sure to use the zoom tools on the photo to check out your “half-a-million dollar” ‘hood.
14 karat sez:
I eagerly await the demotivator..
14 karet – I believe that’s a Mercedes in the driveway. Hmm, ya think that’s where some of the money went?
God, I’m glad I don’t own a gun, otherwise I’d be putting the Lugar Theory of Social Justice into practice.
The part that I think some of you are missing is not just the travesty of what happened, and not just that we the taxpayers will pick up the tab for the loss on that house, but we the taxpayers are also going to have to pay the increased cost of assisted care for this elderly couple. My guess is we will end up paying many times over the $400,000 that ‘the kids’ screwed the parents out of.
Did you see the prices of the comparables, 160-200k. Hmmm, how did they manage to rack up 450k.
Oh, and now poor widde Joann will have to get a job! The horror.
That thing was mortgaged for $454,000? And only sold for $170k?
*incredulous look* Just. Wow.
I think my dogs have bigger (and nicer!) kennels than that, ummm dwelling. I guess there is something to be said for not living in an area where house prices are insane, after all.
There’s definitely at least 100 potential demotivators in that picture!
It’s one thing to have hard times. It’s another thing to bring them on yourself. At least their parents are taken care of; there ain’t enough jail time for people who steal from their parents.
It’s times like this when I’m convinced that the gene pool needs a whole truckload of chlorine.
These nimrods make me want to puke. There’s a story somewhere that I read during the dot com bubble days. Two brothers bought a penny stock (around $1.50 at purchase time) and it took off. As the price went up, they started using the earnings to leverage buying power for more stocks. They kept on doing it. At the peak price of the stock, which I cannot remember, the value of all the stock, owned and leveraged, was around $2.6 million dollars. This from a purchase price of around twenty grand. Anyway, both guys and their wives promptly went on a long sailing cruise, with no way of being contacted. While they were gone, of course, the stock finally started dropping. Margin call after margin call occurred while they were incommunicado. When they finally arrived back at the dock, they were on the hook for a shitload of money from the margin calls. To meet the call, one of the brothers was forced to sell his house. Now both families, with their 5 combined children, live in a 3 bedroom house.
Greed + epic stupidity = crash and burn. And no, I didn’t feel any sympathy for those douchebags, much like I feel none for these turds.
Wow.
Hennessy. Mmmmm.
I’ve been warning people for 8 years that the real estate market was a bubble that would burst sooner or later. I was mocked for it and now these same people want me to feel sorry for them?
How about a nice big cup of go F&^% yourself? =P
Yep, that’s a Mercedes and a new Ford Crown Vic in the parking lot. Well that accounts for about 50k of the money.
Oh wait I forgot the Hennessey. $50,040 of the money.
It’s hard to imagine anyone dumber than these people, oh wait a minute there is. The lender.
That house is worth $170k, sure I’ll lend you $450k on it.
What could possibly go wrong?
What’s ironic is that I’m willingly trying to get RID of most of my worldly goods. I hate getting loaded down with crap, and am trying to fulfill my self imposed goal of fitting everything I own in the world (minus furniture) into just two boxes.
eBay’s loving me right now. =D
I hate these fuckers and most of the other “victims” of the sub-prime mortgage “crisis.” Now we’re supposed to feel sorry for them because the mean old lenders tricked them into buying shit they couldn’t afford with their horrible predatory lending practices!
Uh huh. I’m sure the lenders were holding a gun to their heads to get them to sign the contracts. Morons.
I just want to bitch slap you.
I have a hard time understanding. I have a 15 year, fixed mortgage. The mortgage is the only debt I have. I pay the entire balance on my credit card (just have one) every month. All my life, if I wanted something that I could not buy, I just did without until I could save enough money. Do people not do this anymore? I must not have got the memo.
wRitErsbLock writeth:
Congrats! That’s great.
I’m three months behind now. Got laid off, then got sick. Had surgery and am now recovered. Looking for a job like crazy. I’ll scrub toilets at McDonalds before I lose my house.
The house is worth $170K now, but two years ago was worth at least twice that. My house (20 miles NE of Oakland) has lost over $200k in value in the last two years. Lucky for me I can do math and did not spend the equity.
Every boom is followed by a bust. Why can’t people remember that?
I have ZERO sympathy for these people. Not only did their greed and stupidity completely mess up our economy, but now our federal gubmint (through its passage of that infuriating bailout bill) has decided that the rest of us taxpayers who acted responsibly and lived within our means must now pay for these idiots to stay in homes they can’t afford. And I’m still renting!! I think purely evil thoughts when I contemplate this.
Darn it. I created some posters but they keep disappearing …
I has a sad! Sorry!
The Hennessey was a nice touch. I like it that Rachel didn’t bold it since she must have known we’d pick up on it.
I read a similar article on Yahoo! News that I passed on to Ms. Malkin a while back. It was about people having to sell some or many of their possesions to keep their houses. I had the same reaction to that story as everyone is having to this one.
The “stuff” that these people had on hand to sell was often of considerable value, and tells volumes about where their priorities were. The best one was about the woman who lived in a double-wide, and was selling off her DVD players (NOTE: PLURAL), TYs, computers, etc. Plural everything in a little double-wide. What. The. Hell? Was she running a fencing operation? Multiple high-end consumer items? Granted, in today’s global economy a lot of this stuff can be gotten at moderate prices, but multiples of them?
14 Karat
Demotivators: Ur doin it rong!
(Tee hee)
WIN!!!!!!
Every boom is followed by a bust. Why can’t people remember that?
It’s the Hennessy. It helps you forget about the worries.
Here’s another side to this one, from her loan officer:
Dunno about y’all, but I’m getting more and more sympthay for Joann every minute…..NOT.
Let’s try this …
and this … can anyone tell me how to make a screenshot of that house? I have a good one for it, really I DO, but I can’t seem to make it a static image. Thanks in advance.
Edit: maya’s right.
Hennessy screams for a “u r doin it wrong” …. THX maya!
This scares me:
“Gardner’s elderly parents, both suffering from dementia and other ailments, had moved a week earlier to a local board-and-care home whose cost would be covered by their Social Security and pension checks.”
I wonder how much money those SS and pension checks add up to. And how much care you can buy for that. My guess is that they’re going to be warehoused and nothing more.
Doesn’t say about the mother, but the father’s check was:
Man hennessy is even more expensive than I thought! Thanks for the educational info, 14k! (heh. Golden Shower: ur doin it rong)
I have a hard time understanding. I have a 15 year, fixed mortgage. The mortgage is the only debt I have. I pay the entire balance on my credit card (just have one) every month. All my life, if I wanted something that I could not buy, I just did without until I could save enough money. Do people not do this anymore? I must not have got the memo.
Some of us do. My wife and I have always made it a point to spend less than we earn. It’s amazing just how simple that is. Our house, both cars, and my airplane (40 years old) are all paid for. We have not paid a penny in credit card interest in years. Our only debt is a rental property and the tenants pay that mortgage while we get the deductions. Sweet!
14k-I’ve got a screenshot of the house, how do you upload images into the comments? Or I can send it to you via email. It’s not great quality, but it should work.
Hmmm… the father’s pension/ss check is magically the same amount as the “family income” that wasn’t enough to cover their mortgage…
Air kissing you for this story.
Sick of hearing people whine about how they can’t afford huge houses AND luxury cars AND closets full of designer clothes AND private school AND whathefuckeverelse they want to purchase on incomes that barely justify “middle class” status.
When I bought my home 5 years ago, certain family members kept saying, “But you can afford a bigger house! Why get such a small, inexpensive one?”
Uh, ‘cuz I have a time horizon?
If you bought more house than you could afford – under ALL reasonable circumstances – and now you’ve lost it? Too bad. Stop whining. No more excuses. And you owe me an apology for being so irresponsible that I and other taxpayers now have to bail out your greedy, worthless asses.
And if I hear any more crap about how these unfortunate people are generally undereducated, or easily duped, or simply couldn’t understand the contractual language, I will pop a vein. This is common sense – NOT formal education – territory.
These people shouldn’t buy a frickin’ Happy Meal without adult supervision, much less a residence.
((((((Fume))))))
Nevermind, I uploaded it to my . I’ll delete it when you’re done.
lucy, thanks so much, you are awesome. I got it, and now I just have to wait for ImageShack to some back up …
This is even better…
Okay Joann. Here’s a little test. I loan you $250,000. The following week you tell me you need to refi that loan for $450,000. I agree to the refi and give you a check. How much is that check for? $450k or $200k? Think hard Joann!
Hmm, a monthly payment of $3300 on a $450k loan means the interest rate on the loan is a little over 7-percent. That’s hardly a HUGE fee on the fourth refi in 2 years.
That is not the Joann Gardner I thought I knew.
I have to confess that I understand the bribe. I worked for a real estate appraiser in the early 1980’s. When we would go appraise a foreclosed house, we would almost always find it totally trashed. I assumed it was vandals, until we would talk to the neighbors and they would almost always tell us about the jerk owners massively trashing it the night before they left.
It would cost the mortgatge companies thousands of dollars to fix the damage. And the level of evil among this type of sub-human idiot has gone way down hill since the early 1980’s.
There should be an idiot test required before a mortgage is issued…
14 Karat,
I’m glad you got your mojo working. Those were great.
Am I the only one creeped out by the examination glove Joann Gardner seems to be wearing in “Evil Mastermind”? I mean, if you’re doing something nasty enough to require a glove, why are you putting it up to your face?
dfwmtx, what’s the source for the loan officer’s statement? I wanted to link to it, couldn’t find it in the comments at the article (tons o’ folks shouting “elder abuse” and “idiots” over there, too, as well as several bleeding-hearts who want us all to sing “Kumbaya” and send those poor people money — or at least feel sorry for them).
Feh.
JT, the loan officer’s bit is from the comments in the original SF Chronicle article. There were only 7 in there when I first looked, and now late in the day it’s blossomed to 311 (ah, the Internet), so you may need to look.
Fuck, I should’ve done a screen-capture to save for posterity.
Loan officer statement dubious, at best, since it is unattributed and located in in the .
Kim Jong Il likes Hennesy too.
Your scorn and outrage makes the sun shine brighter and the rest of us work harder at keeping a straight face when we talk to idiots like these. Keep up the good work.
It’s a pity that society is too civilized to weed out these window-lickers by natural selection.
I once saw a guy on the Jeremy Kyle show (look, fellow Brits – I work evenings and so only catch daytime TV, and at least it’s better than Loose Women. That’s my excuse, anyway!) who was 5000 quid in debt with no job, and no way to pay it off.
Guess what he’d spent it all on? He spent most of the day calling premium sex lines, and only ever ate takeaway food that he ordered by phone. Apparently he’d never heard of Tesco, bread, baked beans, or toasters.
You know you’re getting old when you start shouting at the TV screen…
I hadn’t heard of either …
And you’re not getting old when you shout at the TV.
You’re getting looney-tunes.
Or just pissed off by what you see on TV. Then you know it’s time to get Netflix…..unless you’re trying to save money because you squandered it on Hennesy,
Rachel – is this an appropriate time to drop the “C” bomb? Because after the story that loan officer told, I’m REALLY itching to pull the pin on that one!
I see someone’s already linked to the SF Chronicle article. Love the comment from the loan officer…
these people basically lived off the equity in the house for the last 20 years. the media is only mentioning it (and others) because they are trying to steer an election. bad economy stories are good for obama. Ahhhh….the age of entitlement.
I’m 5 years into a 30-year fixed-rate FHA loan at 6 percent. I pay about 66 bucks a month for an insurance policy that will pay my principle and interest every mont for up to a year if I lose my job. Of course, I’ver lost my job before, and tried to get that insurance kicked in, but in the at least 8 weeks it takes for them to get it started, I usually find a job again.
Still, my last day at this job is August 29, and thanks to the thieves at Chase Manhattan, I am caught by surprise. I had top pay off a credit card balance that wiped out most of my savings because Chase decided that I wasn’t a good enough person to only pay 8 percent on my credit card balance any more- they decided that because I was carrying a high balance, I was to pay 29 percent instead. So I took care of that. And it took care of my savings.
As a result, I’ll be in foreclosure on a note that I’ve never even been late on a payment for , in about 30 days.
Chase has a way of screwing people. One of my good friends had a mortgage with them. Tjhney sold it to some off-color mortgage house, but neglected to tell my friend, and they also neglected to stop the automatic payments from being taken out of my friend’s bank account every month. So my friend made all teh payments automatically, and Chase never forwarded them, and the first time my friend knew he was in trouble was the day they hung teh foreclosure notice on his door. He lost a house he’d been making payments on for 7 years- on a 15 year note, to a criminal outfit that did it on purpose.
There are people out there that are being totally screwed. And they aren’t ALL idiots.
‘Course, me, I’m 100 percent an idiot. But still…
Drop it like it’s hot … squee …. !!!
See YOU next tuesday!!!!!
I’ve worried about that possibility myself, but the fairy that lives inside my left shoe assures me that I’m quite sane. And the leprechaun that lives inside my washing machine.
I’m just jealous because the voices aren’t talking to ME!!
I haz a lonely place in my head … needz invisible friend.
Ya’ll are a bunch of typical crackers. Education, hard work, deferred gratification, and financial responsibility are soooooo middle class. So you’re all a bunch of bourgeous crackers at that. Not every community embraces your values. What’s the point of all that hard work when all it makes you is middle class? In da’hood the ideal is to live large. And not only that, it’s important that everyone else knows it. Why settle for the adequate when you can have the best? It doesn’t matter if you live in a crap house in a crap neighborhood as long as there’s a Benz in the driveway. And if you can’t afford the car, buy the bling. Never underestimate the influence that social status has on consumerism. Each social class has its own set of values. Am I a racist for stating the obvious? Actually, no, I discriminate based on social class. But, Mr. Paules, does that mean you hate poor people? Ummm, yes. I hate the values of the underclass: promiscuity, lawbreaking, scamming, grifting, irresponsibility, sloth, profanity, ignorance, violence and addiction. Do I make the case for eugenics? We need a nice euphemism: accelerated Darwinism.
14 Karat, I’ll be your friend. Although I’m already an invisible friend to someone else, and he might get jealous. His name is Colin.
As for the voices, have you tried taking off the tinfoil hat? It definitely worked for me, and suddenly I’m not so lonely any more.
Ad banner for “Foreclosure Relief” at the top of the page, Hillarious.
I watched a story on TV here recently where a family were being foreclosed. They lived in a large McMansion that was being paid for by the hushand’s overtime. When the overtime dried up they couldn’t afford the house any more. So they re-financed and re-financed and borrowed more money and…well, you know the drill.
When the reporter asked the woman why they kept borrowing more money her response was “because they kept giving it to us”. So, apparantly it was all the bank/finance company’s fault because they kept lending. These two supposed adults didn’t seem to grasp that they could have simply said “no”.
The whole story was supposed to be about predatory lending practices but this was just a family who wanted a house they couldn’t afford and then kept borrowing long after a sensible person would have sold up and downsized.
And you want my sympathy? Nope…none will be forthcoming.
Most of the time 14K’s demotivaters make me laugh. However the complete stupid of subject matter of these ones has so completely demotivated me that I am just kind of sad. And mad. How much “financial knowledge” does it take to understand that spending>income=debt?
Sorry, snarky, me too.
And those posters? Well, they didn’t come from a fun place. They came from rightously pissed the snark off. So not necesarily funny. : (
It’s all George Bush’s fault, the greedy bank doesn’t even own the note, and the greedy bank has overcharged the poor home owners. Isn’t this terrible. We must elect a liberal Democrat to fix this terrible injustice.
If you do not continue to read the 31 paragraph, 1257 word article onto the continuation page, that is what you will think. But if you read on past the 621 words of the first 15th paragraphs, you will find out the following interesting facts:
I bet that changed your mind about the Wellmans. They are not the victims, they are the perps. They have horsed the bank around for 12 years. Little children have started school not knowing how to read and have grown to their full height and graduated from high school in that time. The bank is the victim, and the Wellmans deserve to loose their house, and to be dope slapped.
14Karat – it’s ok. Somethings we can’t change and the best we can do is try to sweeten the medicine with a little humor! People are such sponges though. I had a posting in my Freecycle group the other day from a woman who was in “dire need” of a DVD player for her son’s room. Blerg!
Thanks, dfwmtx and 14Karat. Rats, I was hoping I could use the quote from the loan officer to make a point, but there’s no telling if the comment is genuine. I did read through all 300+ comments earlier this afternoon, clean missed that one. Must have been in too big a hurry.
Ed R, ditto the “Chase is a bunch of jerks” comment. We had our mortgage with them up until three years ago, when I asked for a home equity loan to do some improvements. The jackass on the other end of the phone haughtily informed me that what I wanted to do was “deferred maintenance” and I couldn’t have a loan. So we refinanced and took our mortgage elsewhere.
A few months later they cancelled our BP/VISA card saying we had “unpaid debts.” I had no idea what they were talking about until a few months after that, when I found out someone had stolen my social security number and was using it to open credit card accounts, a signature loan, and a bunch of other stuff. Sure would have been nice of Chase to tell me what was going on, rather than kicking me to the curb without so much as a “By your leave.”
Okay, there was a banner ad for “Diaper Cakes” at the top of the page just now. WTF?
Probably best not to think about it.
Than her kid is in dire need of a work ethic and gainful employment, methinks.
Thanks, snarky.
“How much “financial knowledge” does it take to understand that spending>income=debt?”
Quite a bit, if I gauge my answer by today’s federal government. The same disease has now afflicted our state (CA) government as well. REAL debt, as evidenced by this pathetic story, is clearly a bad thing, but SERIOUS DEBT, as governments routinely practice it, is called “compassionate.” Further, it gets you elected, time and again, which then gets you the best retirement package there is! I love Amerika.
I was born an idiot, myself.
14 Karat posted the Real Estate listing for the home.
It showed the last sale/refinance was 8 July 2008.
Does that mean they just got another payday from the shack just over a month ago??!?!
I cannot think of a better example of fraud….
no, kidding pete. Amen.
What really frosts me is that my wife and I have paid off our house and carry no debt…and will be paying for jerks like these “victims” and Rep. Richardson (D-Long Beach, CA) who defaulted on three (yes, three) houses to finance her campaign to gain her Congressional seat. And now Ms. Richardson is also claiming “victim” status.
She essentially paid for her congressional campaign with my tax money.
Talk about needing a Hennessey….
Rob Farrington.
You made my day.
Friendz. I haz them.
[doffs tinfoil hat. BRIEFLY!]
As long as we have these bailouts, nothing will change. You’d think this woman would be arrested for fraud and the bank should be held accountable to for doing the multiple refi’s. I have every sympathy for those who come under hard times that are out of there control and no issues with helping those who are truly in need. This nonesense only makes it harder for the deserving to get help, and those people are usually too proud to accept it anyway. Things will continue to get worse as the millinials bring their sense of entitlement to center stage as they begin taking on positions of greater authority. Why the hell am I working so hard and missing out on my two kids formative years? I wish I could be a loser and get shit I don’t deserve, but I’d suck at it.
I’m also enraged by the irresponsibility and sense of entitlement that these “victims” have. I purposely didn’t buy a house during the recent run-up in real estate prices because I knew I couldn’t afford it. What ever happened to taking responsibility for your own actions?
You shouldn’t pay people to not result to petty valdalism, you should simply whip (literally) those that do. Since they are such emotional children, such a physical, and immidiate punishment will ensure that they will only even vandalize once (they are obviously too stupid to beleive the consequences would be enforced).
Never have I encountered a more biased group of people than the ones here. I submit for your approval, a link that explains the “other side”. To summarize, I will also quote, “The newspaper found more than 10,000 people with criminal records were allowed to work in Florida’s mortgage industry from 2000 through 2007 and that convicted felons had bilked at least $85 million from lenders and consumers”. These numbers are just for the state of Florida. Now times that by the other 49 states and what do you have? What I want to know is WHO allowed these/this Continuing Criminal Enterprise to even exist? Where IS the Federal government over-sight? Please read this link that I will copy/paste.
Just so you know, not all of the people who lost their houses due to foreclosure had criminal intent. Just remember, “There but for the grace of G_d go I”. Sometimes there are valid reasons which have contributed to this scenario. May G_d bless you one and all and I pray you do not suffer some of the tragedies that have befallen some of these families. Our time here on earth is short. I daily walk amongst the least of these people and know that Jesus has promised them a better life. Perhaps not here, but in His kingdom.
Something big is missing from both Chronicle stories on this family: Where the hell is Joann’s brother in all of this? He didn’t help the parents move. He apparently didn’t help in trying to repay the loan — he wasn’t mentioned. They don’t say where he is or where he’s going to live. He isn’t even given a name in the stories!
I suspect that the reporter or the editor decided that if readers knew more about the brother they wouldn’t have as much sympathy for the family’s plight. Did he blow the money on drugs and bling? Is that his Mercedes in the driveway in the Google Earth street view? Did he take the money and then just disappear? Is he just too damn lazy/stupid to hold a job? As long as the Chronicle isn’t going to tell me anything about him, I’m going to assume the worst.
‘
And there it is. Wring our collective hands and prostrate ourselves before the all-powerful government, crying for intervention to save us from ourselves and our own stupidity. That is, after all, the reason we formed our government in the first place, right?
Heh.
Uh, you sure you want more Federal oversight? It was because Congress (i.e. Democrats) cared so much about the voters that the financial institutions were compelled to offer financing with hardly any restrictions. Almost as much a big win as The Great Society program which trashed the inner cities.