Of course, not long after shelling out cash to the banks, I am sure momma government is wishing they had given some thought ensuring the money actually got USED to make the economy better, right? I own a small, beat-to-hell business that is suffering, and let me tell you, the problem is NOT my mortgage rate. The problem is my unsecured lines of credit!
Is anybody LOOKING at these? Here is a perfect example – I owe money to Swift Financial (who gets their money from M&I Bank). M&I just went to the feds during these hard times and got 1.7 BILLION dollars. BILLION. OK, my business owes them x,000. THOUSAND. They’ve heard my complete story about 5 times: losing my biggest customer (their parent went bankrupt to the tune of 3.2 Billion), about how I am going to try and cover payments from my personal income, about how I am trying to get my shopping engine back on line (and no, AuthorizeNET and IPayment have not made that possible yet, over a $25 balance that went unpaid… so I cannot collect what little money I am owed because of $25 – that is real SMART guys, thanks alot!), and yet M&I still calls me 1-2 times a day to try and squeeze blood from me.
Recently, even though I told them that my personal credit scores are important to my ONE PAYING GIG, they decided to put a 30-day late on my credit! So, with one hand M&I Bank is stashing 1.7 BILLION dollars of OUR PAID TAXES in their pocket, and with the other hand they are strangling those same tax-paying people that owe them thousands of dollars! They are jacking up their customer’s interest rates, charging late fees, and damaging our credit. Did anyone ever read them the story about KILLING THE GOLDEN GOOSE?
Does M&I think this is what will HELP THE ECONOMY?? Well, it is NOT helping me or my business! And if the government wants to look for opportunities to helps us little guys out (the employees and micro-businesses out there who are actually still lucky enough to be employed, still be paying taxes, and still trying to do our part to move through this nasty economic storm), maybe they look at some rules for lines of credit:
- Mandate that interest rates be capped at, say, 7.9% for a period of 12-24 months.
- Allow borrowers to set their own minimum payments, as little as 1% of the total balance due, during the next 12-24 months.
- Mandate that, although accounts can continue to accrue interest, there shall be no late fees assessed and no 30-day lates issued against a borrower’s personal credit file until further notice .
How many people would benefit from that? I would! I have some creditors with interest rates over 20%, which is killing my ability to make the minimum monthly payment, and causing them to punish me further!
In summary:
- Jacking Up Your Ability to Process Credit Cards… $25.
- Line of Credit…$x,000.
- Loss of Customers… $ -x,000
- The irony of M&I Bank using tax dollars to save its skin while screwing its tax-paying borrowers to the wall is…well… Priceless.
I would like to take a fluffy moment to thank American Express, because as a DEBIT card that is due in full, they have offered a repayment option at 5% interest.
M&I bank just denied paying a PERFECTLY VALID line of credit check I deposited for $10,000. It was well within the limit of $20,000. My credit is EXCELLENT at a 790 FICO. My payment record with M&I was immaculate, as it has been with every lender I’ve used since 2001. They simply said they can review the account upon receiving the check for any reason and they chose to lower my credit limit to $100 higher than my previous balance at $9,700. Now after googling tonight I find on your site and others that they received $1.7 BILLION in bailout money?!?!?! They are absolutely disgusting.
Wow – your story is scarier than mine. But, it is all in the fine print – my payments were late on 1 or 2 occasions and creditors bumped the interest into the 24-34% range. That kind-of blew my budget and began the downward spiral of my ability to pay. When I contacted the lenders, they said they have a right to adjust rates when they perceive an account it “at risk.” When I asked they lower my rates they flat out declined. I go back up to 8 years with them and have always paid – that is, until now.
Just a little update. After months of being hosed, Swift/M&I actually signed an agreement with me at 7.9 percent. This agreement has been in effect for a few months now, and they appear to be honoring the terms and I am making progress. Bank of America on the otherhand. . . .
M and I is really screwing with us!!!! We built a home for the intent to occupy the property, ok…market crashed we put our home as well as the new home on the market to sell because honestly we had more equity in the home we were in. M and I agreed to sell as a short-sale, but kept demanding us to pay back the balance, they also agreed that they would pay for the closing costs. NOT!!!! So when we signed the papers I did not sign anything that said we would pay back the balance. We honestly probably owe $65K, they keep calling us 2x per day, requesting that we pay late fees, interest, on and on, their amount is now at $131K. Our credit was 805 before this happened and all of our other bills our current and we have not every been late on anything else. Just on Wednesday they froze our equity line without notifying the individual branch or us. We are still not going to pay the balance, they are probably going to have to sue us to get the money. Wondering if they got already paid out on this loan?
Holy $%^& i thought my situation was bad. When they agreed to short sale, it should have been put in the contract that they agreed that was their total due (there’s a legal term for that…I would think a real estate attorney would be involved, though). Yeah my credit is fairly shredded now, even though I agreed to pay them back. Guess they need something in order to pay out bonuses, huh?
When I was working for a law firm, an M&I employee kept calling our office because of a debt owed by one of our employees. The M&I employee told me that it was for our employee’s business, and even disclosed the name of the business. I told this individual that I felt uncomfortable being made privy to this information, but that I would make sure that our employee received the message.
Over the course of several weeks, the M&I employee kept calling at least once a week to complain that our employee wasn’t calling back. Due to the nature of our employee’s position and his other business, our employee was never in the office when these calls came in, although I continued to give him the messages.
The last time I spoke with the M&I employee, he informed me that our employee had defaulted on his loan. I finally decided to send a complaint to M&I via its online form concerning these harassing calls and the disclosure of confidential financial information. I admit that I called the M&I employee a few childish names in my complaint – but I said nothing profane or threatening. Nonetheless, I received no response.
More than a week after my complaint, M&I’s security department contacted my employer, alleging that my complaint was a “security threat.” Instead of “inquiring before firing,” my boss chose to fire me on the spot.
Don’t complain about M&I without masking either your identity or the identity of your employer. Just look at what happened to me.
Wow, for real? You may have grounds for a wrongful termination. You should demand that HR or your employer explain the grounds for your termination!
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So, I know for a fact that more than one mortgage banker was making fraudulent loans at M&I Bank. I also know that they got rid of A LOT of their top mortgage bankers and mortgage district managers. I agree with all of you…all of these creditors only care about one thing and that is their money. Their money…not their employees, not their shareholders, not their country or their countrymen’s money, but theirs. I think all Obama needed to do was lower everyone’s mortgage rate to 4%; lower credit card debt interest rates to 5-7% and refuse to allow these credit card companies to raise their interest rates to 25-29% on ALL debtors regardless of whether they were paying on time, more than the minimum, etc OR give their customers the choice to close their accounts. What good did this stimulus do? My 17 year old son and his friends understand economics better than our leaders do. Even they have come up with better ideas to stimulate the economy than the administration has. Anyone out there who knows how to make contact with M&I’s big wigs to discuss loan mods?