classaction@auroraloanvictims.com


FOR CLASSACTION ARTICLE, GO TO PG 2.  FOR CLASSACTION HELPFUL HINTS, GO TO PAGE 3.

Hi.  My name is Joy Schmidt and I live in Northern California in a suburb east of San Francisco.  I have never been a fighter, or a political activist or an advocate for victims.  But you hurt families and take their shelter, strip their hope, deprive them of their sense of well-being, rob them of their life savings, and pillage and plunder their safe haven.....well, there is going to be a backlash.  So watch out Aurora.  We are joining forces and telling our stories - our nightmares, our plights, our struggles, our ordeals - and we will reveal the web of lies that we were told by you over and over again as we vigorously attempted to work toward your imaginary loan modification.  But while we were jumping through your hoops, meeting all of your demands, making our monthly payments, you were marching toward foreclosure and designing your game plan to rob us of our homes on court house steps. Watch out Aurora,  We're MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE. 

I am just beginning this new battle. I've contacted two law firms, both of which have been involved with class action lawsuits against loan servicers such as Ocwen, Aurora etc. I am hoping to have something on their desks the week of Dec 20, 2009.  Yes it is Christmas week but if you had lost your home to vultures, you would begin your fight during any season.

My Story:  My home is in Northern California so to my dismay, it is upside down.  I live in a newer subdivision which quickly lost value when the economy tanked.  I bought in 2002 so i thought I was pretty safe that the value would not dip below my purchase price.  Wrong.  But, i was willing to stay and pay my mortgage in spite of losing $100,000 equity. Aurora had other things in mind.  They rather foreclose and sell it for a $187,000 loss.  Makes no sense. 

January 2008 I contacted Aurora to ask about a loan modification.  I had been successful in helping my clients negotiate loan mods and, if necessary, short sales.  So I should be able to do it for myself. Right? Wrong.  All I wanted was to negotiate from my adjustable loan to a fixed loan and lengthen the term of the note to 40 years, resulting in a lower fixed payment.  But Aurora told me I had to be 3 months late before they would discuss a loan mod. Not wanting to ruin my stellar credit or my consistent on-time payments with Aurora, I decided I could squeak by, use the remaining of my savings and continue to make my monthly payments.  But by the Fall of 2008, I was beginning to panic because my interest rate inched upward.  Again Aurora said once I missed 3 payments I could apply for a loan mod. So I missed Sept, Oct, Nov 2008 and the beginning of December they slapped a Notice of Default on my property (adding $2000 of fees).  The nightmare of the loan modification process began.  They said after I make 3 regular payments, they would put me on a forebearance plan or 3 mo trial payment with a lower payment.  They drew up a document and told me I had to sign it, even though it showed the 4th payment was a balloon payment of $18,000.  They said to "just ignore that; it's just corporate policy to put that in there but we don't make you pay it." They promised at the end of the trial period and reviewing my financials, they would complete the new loan mod if I showed I could make 3 consecutive on-time payments.(Always had paid timely for 4 years, until they told me to go late)186 phone and nine months later, I was on my 3rd or 4th "trial" payment arrangement, all of which I paid on time. But Aurora never would perform. They kept losing paperwork or saying "that prorgram is not longer available" and I would have to apply for a new one.  Little did I know my late fees and penalties were mounting and that they had paid my property taxes and my insurance, which I had already paid, without even informing me. My fees and penalties were soon to be $40,000!! and still no loan mod. There was never an accounting sent to me of these mounting fees. There was never an accounting of how my payments were applied or to what my payments were applied. There was nothing sent to show me the terms of this new payment or what the interest rate was. I believe this is a violation of the Truth In Lending disclosure law.  Many more phone calls later, I pushed it to the supervisory level because each representative I spoke with contradicted what the prior one had.  I was told to make my payment, then within hours someone else would say skip your payment this month. But the supervisors were impotent too.  After I told them I complained to the Office of Thrift Supervision in Washington D.C., I was finally given the decision about my loan mod. DENIED.  This nightmare had gone on for 14 months.   Supposedly my "debt to income ratio" was too high.  But the loan mod department was still calling me trying to set up another 3 month trial. Who knows why.  I was denied in the morning and in the afternoon another representative called me and said I made too much money so they would need to triple the amount of my payment.  In the mean time, a Trustee's Sale notice had been taped to my front door - November 12, 2009 - and my house was going to auction. Now I was panicked.  I made that emergency Congressional complaint to the Office of Thrift Supervision in Washington D.C.  I begged for a postponement of the sale while something gets figured out.  Well now Aurora was ticked because I had reported them to D.C. I was granted one 14 day postponement of the trustee's sale while Aurora put together their response (defense) to OTS.  They took the entire 14 days - right up to the day before the 2nd scheduled Trustee's Sale - to provide a letter of lies.  They gave me less than 3 hours to form a rebuttal and said MAYBE they would postpone the Sale scheduled for the next day if they received my rebuttal.  I got the rebuttal in and they just ignored it and went forward with the Trustee's Sale.  That was December. 17, 2009.  A week before Christmas I was stripped of my home.  But before my home went to auction, they sent out a realtor who, without permission, walked around my house and went into my backyard  shooting pictures from every angle. He also went to my neighbors to snoop and ask questions.  There goes my privacy.  I called my attorney friend and he said to call the police and have him arrested.  I called the OTS and they said the same thing.  So once they "rape" you, they kick you while you're down and squirming.  So I'm sitting in MY HOME, which is now Aurora's house, waiting for the eviction notice. This is my Christmas present from Aurora.  This is what I get for making all my payments on time, except when they told me to "go late".  All I asked for was a fixed rate and I was fraudulently led to believe they were going to modify, all the while processing the needed paperwork for a foreclosure.  That's why they tell you to go 3 months late.  Day 91 they can file a Notice of Default.  Then it's all over. You've entered their web of deception.

One of my biggest issues that I want to disclose to you is what I believe is one of their many questionable, illegal practices.  Aurora changed the terms on my original NOTE.  Please let me know if any of you have experienced this.  When they told me to "go late", my interest rate had adjusted upward to 5.375%.  Aurora calculated my trial payment at $630 less than my regular payment and thus I was negative.  So I told them I would pay my regular payment.  They refused to accept it because they were putting me on a forebearance plan.  A few months later, my interest rate dropped to 3.875% and then again to 3.175%.  Although my "real" payment was now $1,000 lower than at the time I asked for a modification, they continued to calculate my "trial" payments based on my higher interest rate and thus they showed me going negative $630 every month for 9 months.  I was actually only going $20 negative while at 3.875% and when it adjusted to 3.175%, I was paying $283 over what my payment was according to my Note.  But Aurora refused to apply my adjusted rate, in spite of sending me form letters showing my new lower interest rate and lower payment. Why didn't I get out of the forebearance plan and trial payment plans?  Good question.  They made it impossible.  I was unaware of all their fees and penalties until the total had grown to $20,000 and after 9 months had mounted to $40,000!  They trap you and they know it. It's a web they intentionally weave.

To summarize - if we all have the same complaints, i.e. being told to "go late", getting contradictory responses to our inquiries, being led down a path to make us believe we were getting a loan mod all the while marching toward foreclosure, changing the terms of our original Note, charging exorbitant  fees and penalties supposedly attached to foreclosure costs, not giving us any accounting of how our payments are applied or what the fees and penalties are, and in the end taking our homes when they may not even be the legal owner of our Notes, then I believe we may have a very strong class action case.

I will be updating this site daily. I'll be posting some helpful hints what to do.  What everyone needs to do is start submitting complaints to: your attorney general, your congressman, the FTC - the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau, Consumer Affairs, even your governor. This is so important and maybe eventually Aurora will be audited and investigated.   I will list the attorneys I'm talking with, and will print a list of questions that you can briefly answer in your summary.  What is requested is name, address, contact, and a summary of your ordeal if your interested in joining the class action suit.  We need to have a common thread or similar complaints in our summaries.  PLEASE SEND TO MY EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE.  I will respond to each one of you.