Crazy Winter (and it's not over yet!)

[Jonathan Chase]

These last couple weeks have been an absolute nightmare, and it's not
over yet. Long story short, I live with my mom and little brother in a
house that my dad built and it went into foreclosure. We asked our bank
(Chase Bank) what we could do to save our home and they gave us a list of
things we would be required to do by the end of the year with an agreement
that they'd work with us to keep us here if we did those things. Mostly it
was doing a lot of work to finish the house, since my dad never got
everything done, and paying off a bunch of tax stuff.
Well we couldn't get all this work done on our own, and to make it worse
the contractor we hired ran off with some money and left us in a bind. So I
called around and the week of Christmas a bunch of people from the local
Autism community came to pitch in. Board members I work with, parents with
kids on the spectrum, and friends and family of those people who didn't know
me or my family or even the boards I work with but were there just to help a
family in need. In all we had about 20 people work during the Christmas
week and they got our entire house sided in that time, working 8 hours a day
in the pouring rain on the weekends. It was so sloppy I had to put 3 bales
of straw down just to soak up the water.
Well we got it done and, long story short, the bank decided we needed to
pay them a huge sum of money (related to the tax stuff) to go along with our
shiny new occupancy permit, and we'd have until Monday to do it or the house
would sell on Tuesday. We sold tons of stuff, made arrangements to borrow a
crazy amount of money from various friends, and I was setting up times for
people to come make bids on my basses. But I had this feeling that
something was off and I said we should call the lady at the bank before we
sold some of this stuff, and before we sent her this gigantic check. I
wanted to KNOW that we'd stay in our house if we did all this. On the phone
she said of course she wouldn't take our money if she couldn't work things
out for us to stay here. But I needed something in writing, I wasn't going
to trust one woman on the phone.
Well she called us back on Tuesday, a week before the sale date, with
the news that by Monday we needed to pay them well over twenty thousand
dollars (as we'd expected), give them the permit to show that our house was
completed, oh and by the way, we decided that we'd like an extra thirty one
THOUSAND dollars too. Give it all to us in cash by Monday or pack your shit
and get out.
You can imagine our response, it wasn't pretty. I believe these people
were going to have us finish the house, pay them all our money, and wait
until after the check cleared to hit us with that extra thirty grand demand
so they could keep everything and sell the house for a massive profit now
that we've finished the construction. Not only that but the woman on the
phone said the "committee" that made this decision is secret and nobody can
know who serves on it, she has no superior or manager, and there is nobody
else in the entire Chase Bank organization that has any authority over her,
the "committee" or our loan.
My mom was crushed but me, I got mad. Really mad. And now I'm fighting
back. I'm talking with local media, on Monday I'll be calling some other
people in positions of power, and I'm going to let everyone know how this
bank treated us. It might go farther than that but for now I just need to
show everyone what they've done. We're in the process of doing some legal
stuff to stop the sale on Tuesday, it might buy us some time or it might
wind up in front of a judge with my home on the line.
Anyway, that's been my holiday. Oh, and the one single thing that kept
me going was waiting for my beloved Ducks to go to the Rose Bowl, and when
it finally came they laid a huge egg.
There are a couple positive things. I went out driving the other night,
it was okay until I got pulled over just thirty feet from my driveway. I
guess they don't like it when you weave over the lines. I told the police
officer I wasn't drunk, I just suck at driving.
I met a really good local singer songwriter and it looks like my first
gig with her will be in a few weeks. Acoustic guitar / vocals, bass, and a
hand percussionist. Funky jazzy folk music, the kind of stuff you need
earth-tone tie-dye and dreadlocks to enjoy. It's fun to play original music
and having room to contribute. We've had two rehearsals and I've made it
through both of them without a single run through Mustang Sally, Funkytown,
or a "just play it like the record" lecture. I could get used to this!
-Jonathan

[1AB]

Is this one of the banks that you and I helped Bush AND Obama bailout?

[Benj]

On Jan 3, 9:29 am, 1AB <FRA...@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
> Is this one of the banks that you and I helped Bush AND Obama bailout?

Yeah it is. But Chase has been crap for a long time. They and I had a
go-round a long time ago which resulted in me telling them to pound
salt. I think Jonathan is doing it exactly right keeping the pressure
on them. If you don't they'll rob you blind. I can't believe it,
though, I just opened another Chase account! What was once the worst
bank out there is now one of the better ones! [They didn't get better,
everyone else went to hell!] I've got to go tell Key bank to pound
salt now. The latest is they've decided to charge me $3 a month for
sending me pictures of the canceled checks that they are too cheap to
return to me as proof that I actually paid someone with them. All I
get is a sea of funky charges and penalties! The financial community
is filled with crooked nasty business these days and the near-meltdown
didn't seem to straighten any of them up in the least!