Litton Loan: Unsatisfactory to the BBB, good enough for Mayor White*
Did you know that Mayor White recently teamed up with ACORN, and some financial institutions to hold a "Foreclosure Prevention Fair"? The Houston Press' Richard Connelly dug up a stunning tidbit about the event:
One of the participating financial institutions: Litton Loan.
That caused some raised eyebrows at the Houston chapter of the Better Business Bureau.
"We [moved to] revoke their membership some years ago, and they have maintained a high volume of complaints with a lot unanswered and unresolved," says Stacey Fletcher, BBB's senior director of dispute resolution.
When the agency notified Litton of the action it intended to take, the company quit the BBB. (Take that!)
Litton has maintained "a consistently unsatisfactory rating" at the BBB since June 2005, Fletcher says.
The problems aren't limited to Houston. Nationwide, Litton has faced an avalanche of complaints, with consumers saying they have been charged late fees for on-time payments or even when a consumer sent his mortgage check to his old bank just after the bank sold the loan to Litton. (There's supposed to be a 60-day grace period for such payments, but Litton tends to lack grace, apparently.)
Fletcher says the BBB is baffled as to why the Mayor's office chose to have Litton as a participant.
"The Bureau is not going to recommend a company to help people for the Mayor's program or otherwise if they choose not to meet our basic consumer complaint standard," she says.
Mayoral spokesman Frank Michel says Litton is exactly the kind of business that should be participating at the fair.
"The whole purpose of the foreclosure fair is to help fix the mess made by some of the lending industry's most-problem[atic] practitioners. That's why we have to have some of those companies at the fair," he says.
Say what??? That has to be one gigantic misquote. It is not possible that someone could think it was a good idea to team up problem lenders with folks facing foreclosure. That's insanity! City-sponsored insanity!
Litton Loan undoubtedly found some new victims, courtesy of the City of Houston. Maybe Annise Parker will soon start a new initiative to help folks harmed by the city's foreclosure fair!
*In the forum, Buffalo Bob expresses concern regarding my post title. No problemo. I have changed the title to ease his "words matter" concerns.
Old title: City invites problem lender to foreclosure fair
One point: Litton Loan is more than a "servicer." Litton Loan BUYS loans. Certainly the homeowners who have had problems with Litton Loan would not be comforted to know that Litton Loan is just a "servicer."
Now, maybe we can get to the actual substance of the matter -- why in the world the city thought it was a good idea to team up problem loan companies with folks potentially facing foreclosure.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/17/08 08:25 PM | Print |
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