November 19th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
Has it been 3 weeks, 6 months or a year since you first applied for mortgage modification so that you could avoid foreclosure? Has your mortgage servicer lost important documents? Have they left you on hold for 30 minutes—an hour or “accidentally” dropped the line? What about the quality of information you receive about avoiding foreclosure? Is it correct? Timely? If not, it could be because the person you’re dealing with on the other end doesn’t have any experience working in the mortgage industry. A Star-Telegram article pointed out that many of the workers recently employed by the mortgage industry have absolutely no experience in the banking industry and definitely no experience helping homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Many new hires have no previous mortgage industry experience. Edwards, for example, worked in a Westin hotel before starting at Bank of America last year.
They want to save money! These banks have taken over $700 billion from the American taxpayer and now they want to save a few pennies hiring individuals who have no previous experience working in the mortgage or banking industry. How effective will these newcomers be in helping homeowners avoid foreclosure? If we look at how many homeowners have avoided foreclosure via the mortgage modification programs available we can safely conclude that – they are not very effective.
As of last month, about 20 percent of eligible borrowers, or more than 650,000 people, had signed up. But most signed up only on a preliminary basis for trials lasting up to five months.
I would be curious to know how many of those homeowners facing foreclosure, who were deemed ineligible, were deemed so by accident/error on the part of an inexperienced worker. This is not to knock those workers who simply want to earn a living, but homeowners facing foreclosure have a lot at stake and deserve to be serviced by workers who can help make them eligible and/or tell them what they can do to become eligible for mortgage modification programs that will help them avoid foreclosure.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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