Last week, Chase Bank (apparently of Manila) contacted me with the message that they were calling in "An attempt to collect a debt." They alleged that they did not receive my mortgage payment. The payment is an electronic transaction that is set to occur monthly through my credit union (of course I'm not foolish enough to have an account with a bank). The first idiot was adamant that I needed to wire payment immediately, and that I had obviously not sent it yet. Up a level to a supervisor who told me that the electronic payment I had been making monthly was actually sent by my credit union through the postal service, and that the postal service probably lost it. I was told that it was absolutely not received. I was a deadbeat upon whom any allegation of payment made would have to be proved by me.
Upon checking with the credit union and their third party bill payer service, the payment was not sent through the postal service, but electronically, and there was a verification of receipt. The guy in Manila who said that my payment was sent but not received through the postal service was dead-wrong. Why this guy in Manila thought he knew that my payments were being mailed monthly to a lock box in Arizona, I can't even guess.
The bill payer company started a problem file and asked me to contact Chase Bank and inform the bank that they would be in contact. I called the Manila brain trust again, did my security dance to prove that I was me, and got put on hold for ten minutes. Finally my new Philippine friend informed me that the payment had been received on the day it was due. No further explanation.
Well, it's a new month, and a new risk of a call from Chase of Manila. We often complain about the inefficiency of banks in the areas of short sales and foreclosures. To me, my experience has been almost positive, in that I know that banks don't just screw up foreclosures.
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