Executive Jerks

Now I’m sure that it comes as no surprise to my readers that banks are fallible. I’m sure most of us have been hit with crazy charges, or had to deal with miscommunications within the bank.

This information is not new, nor fun. But when it comes to something as serious as bankruptcy or foreclosure, we’d like to think that the bank would take measures to perform their duties as accurately as possible.

We’d like to think.

But just ask Dr. Alan Schroit. The retired professor returned to his vacation house to discover the power shut off, the locks changed, and 75 pounds of salmon spoiling.

Schroit, his wife and some friends arrived at the house Oct. 31 to prepare for about 30 guests to arrive the next day for a party, Schroit said.

When Schroit’s wife tried to unlock the door, the key wouldn’t work, he said. They noticed a poster with the message that the house had been seized by Bank of America in a foreclosure.

“We have nothing to do with Bank of America,” Schroit said.

Schroit called an emergency number on the poster and got a recording advising him to call back during normal office hours during the week, he said.

Schroit said he suspects the bank was really after a house with the same address number on the next street.

Agents working for Bank of America cut off power to the property by turning off the main switch in the lower part of the house, according to the lawsuit. They also changed the locks, so Schroit was unable to reach the switch to turn the power back on, according to the lawsuit.

The Schroits called the police and finally managed to get into the top part of their house, only to be hit by an “overpowering putrid smell of rotten fish,” according to the lawsuit.

The power had been off for about a week, Schroit said.

The Schroits had planned to grill some of the fish for the party.

“It was the most unbearable stench,” Schroit said. “It was so unbearable the police officer asked if we could leave the house so he could take the report; it was absolutely horrible, a gooey mess.”

The Schroits returned to Houston and told people they had invited that the party had been canceled.

“The property sustained water damage, potential mold contamination arising from the standing freezer residue, water, heat and high humidity conditions during the time the electrical power was off,” according to the lawsuit.

Schroit said he kept doors and windows open for days to try to rid the house of the foul odor. Cleanup efforts were substantial, he said.

The floors had to be cleaned, as did the joists of a lower-level ceiling, through which fish blood seeped, and some painting had to done to get the house back to a “preinvasion” state, according to the lawsuit.

Although Bank of America said it would investigate, it did not aid the Schroits, according to the lawsuit.

Schroit currently has a lawsuit pending against Bank of America.

And what is sad is that this isn’t the first time for this to happen with the big banking firm.  A Kentucky man with no mortgages under Bank of America came home to find his locks changed. In his case, Bank of America refused to pay any damages to the property – the only exception was that they did pay for the changed locks.

Bank of America really needs to man up in these cases. If they can’t handle seizing the correct property, then they owe it to the rightful owners to pay for every scrap of damage sustained by the wrongful seizure. And then feel lucky that they aren’t being sued for the outrageous inconvenience sustained by said owners.

But I guess they just want to be jerks about their own mistakes.
UPDATE (3/15/10):  Bank of America is at it again. In Pennsylvania, a women returned to her home to find the doors padlocked, the house vandalized and her beloved pet parrot kidnapped. All this done by the local foreclosing company that Bank of America hired. It took a week, and a four-hour round trip,  for the women to have her parrot returned after it was wrongfully stolen from her home.

NY Daily News has the whole story here.