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HN in Wisconsin said: “We originally had a $60,000 mortgage through another company; however it was not a fixed rate mortgage and when they raised our payment we looked to refinance. Beneficial HSBC contacted us via mail, and when I spoke to them they seemed very helpful and willing to work with us.
At the time my husband had just started a motorcycle repair business and I was working at a new job making a whopping $8.50 an hour. My husband’s business was draining what little “extra” money we had, so how Beneficial managed to come up with figures substantiating giving us a $100,000 loan is beyond my understanding, but they were convincing, assuring us that, despite a low credit rating, paying off our credit card debt would free up money to afford the $867 a month payment.
We were desperate – and they were very convincing. They even sent me some blank checks, telling me I had a credit limit of $11,000, failing to tell me that this was not part of the mortgage, but a separate loan.
Yes, I blame myself for not being more knowledgeable about the situation, but they were extremely convincing and we could not afford a lawyer to go over the paperwork at the time. It seems to me that Beneficial has a habit of preying on low-income customers.
In June of 2007 my husband’s business fell apart, without ever making a profit. I had gotten a raise and was now making $9.50 an hour, but this was our total income. We were unable to make the mortgage payment, pay utilities, homeowners insurance, taxes, etc., so we routinely robbed Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. I contacted Beneficial to explain the situation and they agreed to let us skip one month’s payment, which they said they would add to the end of the mortgage.
By now both our daughters were grown and in college; we put the house up for sale but received no offers at all. I managed to scrape up the money for the next month’s payment and tried to pay over the phone, with a withdrawal from my checking account. They agreed to this, but said it would cost me $15 to do this. I told them I felt this was an outrageous fee and instead sent my payment via mail, and subsequently got hit with a late fee.
Winter was coming and heat bills would soon be added to our already dwindling supply of money. I found out about Beneficial’s “Hardship” program and attempted to talk to someone there who could help me; that was a fiasco! I was shuffled from one person to another; the first person to actually seem like they knew what they were doing gave me a list of documentation needed and told me to write a letter explaining our situation and fax everything over to him. I did so within a couple of days.
No response. I attempted to call him and was told that he no longer handled hardships and was directed to another person, who told me that they had not received my documentation and that I needed additional items and should fax it to yet a different fax number. Again I did this.
A month later I received a letter from Beneficial telling me that my request for “Hardship” had been denied because they had not received proper documentation!
I called them, telling them that I had sent the information twice now; I said I would send it again, but could they PLEASE confirm receipt. I was told they did not do this.
By this time it was January 2008 and I was frustrated. I received another letter telling me I had been denied.
I called and talked to a very nice woman and I thought we had finally straightened things out; she assured me that we had been accepted into the hardship program and would receive the information in the mail shortly.
The next day we were served with foreclosure papers, and in addition to the mortgage amount, their attorney had added a judgement from something entirely unrelated which had been paid the year before, in full.
I called the woman and told her that we had been served and she said it was a “mistake”; however the judgement for foreclosure still shows up on our credit report and on the circuit court records.
We finally received information stating that we had been put on the Hardship program through December 2008 and our payment had been modified to $562 a month. This was difficult on my earnings, but I made the payments on time. In September of 2008 I made my payment and a week later began getting collection calls from Beneficial. I explained over and over to their collections department that we were on the hardship program and that I had made my payment.
Some of these people were downright rude; none of them were professional OR helpful. I began receiving collection calls dozens of times a day; they started calling my work number and despite being told that I was not allowed personal phone calls at work, they continued.
In October I received my statement and it showed that they were “holding” my September payment and that it had not been applied because “I hadn’t made a complete payment”. When I was finally able to get hold of someone, they told me that they had paid my taxes and added a monthly “ancillary” charge of $487 to my mortgage payment. Now my payment was over $1000 a month.
Since that time I’ve tried to work with them and with Acorn, but have received no assistance.”
This article, Another HSBC Beneficial loan not as it appeared, is just one of our articles from Bank Horror Stories, HSBC Secrets
Bank Horror Stories monitors banking problems and customer complaints and has done so since 1999. Writers hold no stock positions. Some material is used under the fair use copyright act.
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