Banks vs. Consumers

The press has been hard on banks as they pre-emptively raise credit card rates in the face of coming legislation that will regulate the practice. And though they're under pressure to do payment workouts to mitigate foreclosures they rarely do. Sometimes it's too easy to write this off as other people's problems but yesterday I had an unusual conversation with my mortgage servicer Wells Fargo.

I received a tax bill from the town for about $4,000 so I contacted my closing attorney who said that the mortgage company had known about this at closing and had collected up front monies for it. He explained that it was the difference between the taxes for the unimproved property and the increase that would be demanded after the certificate of occupancy was issued. I explained this to the CSR at Wells Fargo and her response was, "Nope this must be paid out of your funds, not the escrow account."

So, again, back to my attorney who contacted the town and received what had been paid and what was due. After comparing that to the Escrow Account Disclosure I was given chapter and verse the exact accounting and exactly how to justify my claim that this should be paid out of escrow. The WF response was that It would leave the escrow short when they made the first payment in the new year. I suggested that they pay the $4K, do a new escrow analysis, and bill me for the shortage. They agreed.

So, I was left with these facts.

• The only reason there was any kind of shortage was because the bank's estimate at closing was wrong.
  
• Escrow was short only by half the amount that was due so they could have easily volunteered to pay half out of escrow.
  
• Throughout the conversation their only response was flat refusal and, if I had not had the experience of dealing with other mortgages, they would not have settled the matter through this standard procedure.

The ultimate question is, Why antagonize the customer for such a trivial amount of money? If they had held onto my money until the next escrow cycle it could have earned them what, $40?