Ocwen IS A MONSTER WE NEED TO FILE SUITS NOW TO PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS! Orlando Florida

From: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/303/RipOff0303985.htm


Folks, look at what this company is doing. Horror story after horror story! It is time we banded together somehow and filed a class action suit against these clowns. Especially now, during this political year where 'subprime, predatory lending' is part of the political hot-topics. Especially now, since the subprime crisis in this country has finally opened the ears of legislatures.
For YEARS, Ocwen has been destroying people's lives. It is part of their business plan. Look, right here, on this website alone, we have over 1300 horror stories. What percentage of Ocwen's total customer base do you think that comprises? And what about the thousands of individuals who have been ruined but who haven't come to this site.
I am willing to join ANY legal action against Ocwen. ANYthing!!
They attacked me about 5 years ago. I had refinanced my home in April. Two months later, the lending institution sold the loan to Ocwen. And immediately, the nightmare began. False reporting, service reps living in India taking my calls...and hanging up on me as a regular protocol. I paid on the first of every month beginning the very month Ocwen notified me that they were the new servicers of my loan. 6 months later, it was brought to may attention that they had been reporting the loan deliquent 90 days EVERY MONTH SINCE THEY TOOK IT OVER!! My credit went from 700-someting to the mid-500's. My house started getting threatened with foreclosure!
One day, one of the reps from India called me up at 5 pm and said, 'If you don't pay $8000 by tonight, we are going to foreclose on you.' I panicked! It was too late to go to the bank, but I figured I could do it the next day. He said 'No.' As I was trying to explain the TIME DIFFERENCE to him, he hung up. I called back all night long..and he or other reps kept hanging up on me.
The next day, in an absolute panic, I went to the bank, got $8000, and sent it to them in a Moneygram (the only type of payment they will accept when you're 'delinquent,' by the way).
The nightmare continued long long long after that. For two full years! I finally got a company who understood Ocwen's tactics to refinance me the hell out of there!
But their service and the trauma they put me through I have never forgot.
If there is a lawsuit out there, I will join! I will START one if a lawyer contacts me.
Ocwen needs to be put out of business! They need to be made Public Enemy #1 and ridiculed on the front of every magazine.
Look what a group of New York Legislatures did to Signature Compounding Pharmacy. When the Steroid scare in the major leagues became a household buzzword, these legislatures went into Florida and all but burned Signature to the ground. They have the power to do so. We need to get them doing that to Ocwen. This company has to be made an example of, an example that says, 'THIS IS AMERICA! And the minute it becomes your business practice to harass and terrorize our citizens, your business is going to be hammered into complete non-existence.
I am in! Just lead me in the right direction.
ThomasSaginaw, MichiganU.S.A.

Ocwen, Allegations of Fraud, Malice, Misrepresentation and Manipulation.

From:http://www.msfraud.org/Articles/The%20Ocwen%20Story.htm

Voice of the People

Ocwen, Allegations of Fraud, Malice, Misrepresentation and Manipulation. Ocwen Financial Corporation ("Ocwen") is a vertically integrated multi-billion dollar, publicly traded (NYSE: OCN) financial services holding company, engaged in a variety of businesses related to mortgage servicing, real estate asset management, asset recovery and technology. Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida,Within a 12 month period this company has lost two major lawsuits alleging fraud, malice, misrepresentation and manipulation totaling $14.5M. Other allegations have been made by former and current employees including the intentional destruction of information, and document forgery.Why do so many people claim that Ocwen is ripping them off and wrongfully foreclosing on their homes?Is Ocwen really the bad guy?Or are their customers failing to meet their obligations and looking for a quick court buck?This is the first in a series of stories about this company, Ocwen services sub-prime mortgages. This means they service mortgages for people that have had trouble paying their bills in the past. And Ocwen services a lot of these, nearly 400,000 customers. As part of this investigation we decided to review a typical Ocwen customer, and a not so typical Ocwen customer. We will call them Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones (these are real Ocwen customers) who have ask to not be identified because of pending legal action.Mr. Smith just had the loan servicing rights acquired by Ocwen in August of 2005. Mr. Smith has homeowners insurance through Prudential, his premiums are paid and current. In September of 2005 Mr. Smith paid his regular monthly bill to Ocwen with his old account #. Mr. Smith had not received his new payment information from Ocwen and did not want to be late on his payment. Ocwen cashed this payment and on Sept 22nd sent him a letter (to the wrong address), stating he was late on house payment this letter did not contain his new account and payment information.Mr. Smith contacted Ocwen numerous times in writing and on the phone trying to resolve this matter. Many times Mr. Smith would be routed to customer representatives that spoke very poor or unintelligible English or would be disconnected.In October Mr. Smith still had not received his new payment information and again sent another payment to Ocwen, which again they cashed and again sent a letter, this time threatening foreclosure.In November of 2005 Mr. Smith finally received his payment information, the statement showed he was 4 months behind (yes 4 months when he had only been a customer for 3) in his payments and fees had been added that he did not understand, such as homeowners insurance and legal fees and late payment fees, totaling almost $2600. Mr. Smith made another payment in Nov 2005 which was returned by Ocwen stating they could not accept partial payments.Mr. Smith was now receiving nearly daily calls from Ocwen collections, and Mr. Smith responded in writing trying to rectify the situation. In December Mr. Smith received another statement again with a promise of foreclosure and new fees added in order to become current Ocwen now claimed he had to pay a sum of almost $3600.Now these fees were different from the statement he had received the month before for the same items. Homeowners insurance went up $120, legal fees increased by $277 and the house payment itself went down by $38.
Mr. Smith wanted to refinance, but it appears Ocwen has already contacted the Credit Bureaus and reported him being late, he can’t get refinanced.How is this possible?A former employee claims he knows exactly how it’s possible. “The RealServicing software used by Ocwen and the Nightly Processing that reconciles the loan accounts doesn’t work and hasn’t for several years. That’s why customers get different payment information from month to month. It was a running joke in IT on how long the system would be down everyday when it ran. This whole process generated huge error logs that no one ever reviewed and it had been clear to everyone involved in the process that it has major problems”.Ocwen has sued a former consultant that performed a review on this software claiming he has posted confidential information on the Internet and reported this information to Government Agencies and this consultant has already testified in a case against the company in which Ocwen was hit with a $3 Million verdict in Guzman V. Ocwen. This testimony was specific on the problems with Ocwen software and account reconciliation. We contacted this consultant for comment and were informed that because of an Injunction granted to Ocwen he could not discuss the matter, and was prevented from testifying in another case in which he was listed as a witness and the jury awarded the plaintiff $11.5 Million in damages in Davis V. Ocwen. However a hearing was being set to Vacate the Injunction that prevented the consultant from discussing the details of his work at the company. Other former and current employees have confirmed this information and noted that Management has been aware of these issues at the highest levels inside the company. Two employees have even tried to get the company to take action to resolve the problems but have not been successful.WOW. If the company is aware of these problems why haven’t they done something to fix it?Ocwen has not responded to these specific issues yet but has commented and currently claim that they are not intentionally foreclosing on homes. The CEO William Ereby has stated publicly that the company doesn’t make money on foreclosures that their profit comes from servicing the loans themselves.If this is true then why are their an overwhelming number of reports freely available on the internet that confirm the Mr. Smith experience with the company?Why are there so many lawsuits pending against Ocwen?Next month we will continue this series on Ocwen and report on Mr. Jones a very unusual Ocwen customer.

Mortgage servicer Ocwen's practices raise ire

From:http://www.msfraud.org/Articles/Ocwen.htm

By Jeff Ostrowski, Palm Beach Post Staff WriterSunday, January 18, 2004Michelle Trott got a nasty surprise when she sold her home in Broward County last year to move to Jupiter.Ocwen Financial Corp., the West Palm Beach company that collected Trott's monthly mortgage payments, demanded that she and her husband pay $600 in late fees for monthly payments the Trotts say weren't late.Ocwen also charged her $200 just to tell her real estate agent how much she owed on her loan, Trott says.What's more, she says, Ocwen dinged her credit score by reporting her mortgage payments as late, forcing her to pay a higher rate on the new loan on her Jupiter home.And Ocwen pushed the couple to buy an expensive homeowners insurance policy, even though the Trotts say they already had coverage."(Ocwen) posted our payments late all the time," Trott said in a recent interview. "It's not fair. It was a very unpleasant experience. I wouldn't recommend anybody going with that company."Ocwen President Ronald Faris disputes Trott's claims. She made "dozens" of late payments, he says, and Ocwen forced her to take on a homeowners policy only because she let her policy lapse.Moreover, he says, Ocwen doesn't charge $200 to issue a payoff amount; the company charges $10 to $30 for that service.Still, Trott isn't alone in her gripes about Ocwen, a mortgage-servicing company that collects monthly payments from thousands of homeowners nationwide, most of them "subprime" borrowers with spotty credit histories.Ocwen faces suits from customers in California and Connecticut who make allegations similar to Trott's.The nonprofit National Consumer Reinvestment Coalition says it has 300 complaints about Ocwen, while the Better Business Bureau of Central Florida last year received 146 consumer complaints about the company, up from 42 in 2002 and nine in 2001.Firm: No financial incentiveAs borrowers' attorneys seek to portray a pattern of unfair practices by Ocwen, company officials say they've done nothing wrong.Investors seem to agree.In spite of the lawsuits, the company's stock (NYSE: OCN) recently shot past $10, up from $2.60 a year ago. Ocwen has no financial reason to gouge customers or to post their mortgage payments late, Faris says. He calls the suits against Ocwen "misdirected and baseless.""We don't make money off of delinquent loans," Faris says. "Our favorite customer is someone who gets their bill and pays it. We make a ton of money on those customers."As a mortgage servicer, Ocwen doesn't lend money to borrowers. Rather, lenders hire the company to service their loans.Attorneys and some industry observers argue that mortgage servicers have a good reason to post payments late: They get to keep late fees."Ocwen has a financial incentive to call a payment late so it can collect a late fee," says Jack Guttentag, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business who runs the Mortgage Professor Web site. "It does not have an incentive to push the borrower into bankruptcy, unless the borrower has so much equity in the property that it will cover all the expenses of foreclosure, including legal and other fees which can be a source of profit to the servicer."Faris denies Ocwen unfairly posts payments late, and he says the seemingly large numbers of consumer complaints sound worse than they are.Ocwen handles 350,000 home loans, so the several hundred complaints lodged by customers represent a tiny fraction of its clients, Faris says."We're not saying we never make a mistake," Faris says. "Mistakes happen on an individual basis."But, he says, the company tries to fix errors quickly. Its customer service representatives are readily available by phone or by e-mail, Faris says.That's not the experience of Trott or of Ocwen customer Eleanor Blackmer, who has three years left on the mortgage on her home in suburban Lake Worth."We've got a three-year sentence with Ocwen," Blackmer says.Both Trott and Blackmer say phone calls to Ocwen result in being put on hold 20 minutes or more, followed by conversations with Indian employees with difficult-to-decipher accents.Ocwen employs more than 1,200 people in India, where it has offices in Bangalore and Bombay."You try to call them and they don't understand and they don't speak English, because they're all in India," Blackmer says.Faris says Ocwen makes a point of hiring Indian employees whose English can be easily understood by Americans. "It's difficult for me to address the accent issue because I can't comment on someone else's experience," Faris says. "I've talked to many, many of our agents in India on the phone and I've never had a problem understanding them."Faris says that Ocwen's customer service is better than it's ever been. As a federally chartered thrift, the company's collection practices are closely monitored by the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, he says.The gripes about Ocwen are on the rise, Faris says, because the media have been covering the mortgage industry more closely -- CBS News last year aired a story about complaints against Ocwen -- and because plaintiffs' attorneys are looking for the next payday after Fairbanks Capital.That mortgage servicer last year agreed to pay $40 million to settle allegations it engaged in deceptive practices that victimized as many as 250,000 homeowners."I don't think there's increased complaints," Faris says. "There's increasing attention by the media and by the plaintiffs' lawyers. They saw what happened at Fairbanks Capital and are hoping they can find a situation similar to that."Analysts approveThe barrage of complaints against Ocwen comes as the company pulls off a financial turnaround.Its shares got a boost this month when an analyst at JMP Securities in San Francisco rated Ocwen a "strong buy" with a target price of $18 a share.After posting big losses in 2001 and 2002, Ocwen turned a profit in 2003, in part because it has cut costs by hiring customer service employees and software programmers in India, where wages are cheaper than in the United States.And the company last year won a contract to handle the foreclosed properties of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a deal that could bring in revenue of $95 million to $125 million over the next five years.Still, the lawsuits pose enough of a threat to Ocwen that Fitch Ratings, a corporate credit rating agency, warned last month it might lower its "servicer rating" on Ocwen."We're concerned," said Kathleen Tillwitz, senior director at Fitch Ratings. "Is it a pattern of mistakes that were malicious? Or is it just the one-off mistakes that happen in the daily course of servicing?"Fitch has yet to lower its ratings on Ocwen, however. In a statement last month, it lauded the company for "successful practices and procedures," "expertise" and "well-trained staff."Meanwhile, consumers' gripes keep coming and Ocwen keeps explaining.Jackson, Mich., homeowner RaeAnn Walker says Ocwen has unfairly posted her payments late and charged her legal fees.And one suit accuses Ocwen of unfairly charging borrowers $95 in legal fees for collection letters.Faris calls the charge a legitimate cost of doing business.mailto:jeff_ostrowski@pbpost.com