Tempelton Group criminals, Scam artists, liars, Westbury New York

so, here's the story.....some of which you already know.....

backstory: Chase "modified" our mortgage back in September 2011, resulting in a payment about $185 HIGHER than it'd been before......by law (well, the way the law was written THEN.....who the f**k knows NOW??!!), after a modification, no matter the outcome or resultant payment, a mortgagee is not elibible for another loan modification for 12 months (THANK GOD....cuz who could afford to be "modified" like that any more often??!! hahaha...don't be concerned, it's actually a joke, not the forerunner of a mind gone mad.....or maybe......)

anyway......

as per the law, we re-applied in September of 2012 and, though the decline letter was "lost in the mail" I finally was able, around December, to extract from Chase that a final decision had been made and we were declined. So, and you guys know this I think.....we hired a firm by the name of Tempelton Group in Westbury, Long Island whose business it is (I'm begging you to shoot me) to obtain loan modifications for mortgagees, no matter whether you'd been turned down by your bank in the past. We filled out all of the paperwork and submitted the package to Tempelton around January 5....our salesperson, Barbara Yonenson, assured us two or three days later that "you're 'all in'.....meaning, the bank had been sent all our paperwork. Now, it's just a matter of waiting, said Barbara. It'll probably be three months and it'll all be done." (Does anyone know if I wear out the quotation mark key on my i-pad, can I go somewhere to have just that one replaced.....let me know, will ya?)....So, because we are not newcomers to this loan modification game, I didn't contact Barbara for a couple of months. In March, I got a little antsy and called her.....her answer was "you're with the underwriters and it's only a matter of days." p.s......long about right now, you should know that, about a month ago, I discovered that THE BANK DID NOT RECEIVE ANY OF OUR PAPERWORK UNTIL MID-APRIL.....and, no, the "Firebomber Wanted" ad on Craig's List IS NOT ME......I swear..................

Shortly thereafter, Barbara stopped answering her phone.....stop pretending to be shocked...my ego is bruised enough!! I contacted Alex Lee, who, Barbara had said, was her "assistant"....He also said that "you're all in....it's truly any day.....YOU ARE SOOOO CLOSE." And so, I waited some more.....Alex contacted me in April to say that the Bank requested "updated information" (paystubs, bank account statements, utility bill).....having been through the process for THREE AND A HALF YEARS the first time, the request was totally in line with what we'd experienced in the past and so Bill got new paystubs (poor guy....he's not drooling yet, but how far away can that really be?) Little did I know, Alex had apparently figured out that NONE of the paperwork had been submitted to the Bank and it was all too old at that point, so he simply told me that the Bank requested up-to-date info AND I BOUGHT IT.....So, I faxed all the stuff to him and, once again, was told that it was all sent to the Bank. Next time I tried to contact Alex, I was told that the Tempelton Group "reorganized and Marchelle Jackson was now assigned to our account.....spoke to Marchelle and she told me that Chase denied having any paperwork from us and so she needed to re-submit everything....(author note: it's a deeply disturbing thing that happened to my common sense during this process.....it flew the coop.....I seek it out still...) So, she re-submitted the paperwork and assured me that it'd be a week at the most before we received a determination....until she called me to say that the Bank would not speak to her because she "was not authorized to discuss our account" and Bill (mortgage is in his name) needed to fax authorization to Chase in order to facilitate Marchelle's communication with them. And, by the way, she said, "ask your husband to use the name Jennifer Routhier because that's me as well".....

WARNING, WILL ROBINSON.....WARNING!!!!!!!!!

.........water break (Fran & Kink, wine for you)


ok.....took about a week to smooth out that little bump and I kept in touch with Marchelle almost daily....it was probably June 15th or so that Marchelle called to say that Chase declined the loan modification because we were granted a loan modification in the past and were not eligible....I called Chase for verification and was told by them that they couldn't discuss it with me because the original letter that Bill sent to them authorizing me to access account information had "expired".....even though Bill had not attached any such expiration date to my access.....be that as it may, he faxed another letter of authorization to Chase in order that I may pursue my insanity......

Now, mind you, at this point, having had a Decline Letter issued, I began asking, as per the contract, for our $4400 back from the Tempelton Group.....Marchelle said that I "had to speak to the owner of The Tempelton Group to request a refund" but, (please don't mock me) she wasn't sure of his name....so, she transferred me to his assistant, Jennifer (not sure of the last name, but I'm gonna guess it's Routhier....just a guess.) Jennifer said she needed to speak to Chase to verify the decline and, not wanting to piss anyone off at this point, I didn't push. 

Chapter 84

Just so happened, about a week or so ago, we were contacted by a Bill who, he told me, was our new Customer Service Representative at Chase.....unlike the previous DOZEN OR SO (seriously...probably should look into replacing the parentheses keys as well) Customer Service Representatives that were assigned, this one actually seemed (and continues) to have a functioning brain...he confirmed that a Decline Letter did go out and that he would be happy to speak to Jennifer at the Tempelton Group to facilitate a refund from the Tempelton Group(he also explained how the law had changed in such a way that we were not eligible for a modification, but I'll save that for another day.....). He did finally get in touch with Jennifer who was....please attempt to contain your shock.....nasty and abusive to him. She told him "this is not over and we are going to pursue this further." The contract with Tempelton says "refund after exhausting any and all attempts blah, blah, blah" so, of course, they want to keep pursuing the loan modification over and over and over. Knowing from Bill that he'd finally been able to have a conversation with Jennifer and confirm with her that, in fact, we were not going to be approved for any sort of modification, I called Jennifer to say, in effect, 'ok, you heard it from the source, now refund our money.' All of a sudden (seriously, wasn't it insulting enough to go through this once....now I'm rehashing the whole thing AND I'M OUTTA WINE....not funny), Jennifer tells me that the person who writes checks, Mark Soonen....the ONLY person that is authorized to write checks, is out of the office until after the Fourth of July break.....

Meantime, I had a brainstorm.....

the Tempelton Group's telephone system is set up in such a way that if you call their office....no matter whether you're a new customer responding to an ad or if you are an existing customer attempting to contact your customer service person.....your phone number is captured in some fashion and goes into a "pool".....this pool is "chum" for the sales force and they use all the those numbers for cold sales calls....needless to say, and as you can imagine based on the number of calls I've placed TO their offices....I have been rewarded by MORE SALES CALLS THAN I CARE TO DISCUSS.....but, day before yesterday, I installed a "record your call" app on my phone and I decided to play along when I received a call from a sales person, Darryl.....I, of course, pretended to be a newbie, and asked him all sorts of questions about the program....he told me he was a trainee and put his boss, Dea Buckly on the phone....I went through all of my questions and, when I got to the part about their fee, was told "we are going to save you so much money, our fee doesn't really matter." I told her that I had to sell this whole loan modification process to my husband (shut up) and so I really needed to have a feel for the out-of-pocket expenses.....she FINALLY conceded and told me that the fee is 1% of the mortgage balance, once again, emphasizing the unimportance of the fee in light of the eventual savings. I told her that we'd been turned down by Chase in the past and that I was worried that we may be turned down again....I asked what would happen in that case....and her answer was "you will receive a refund of the entire fee no matter the reason that you were declined." I went through the whole thing again with her and once again asked what would happen to our out-of-pocket should we be declined...once again, she confirmed "you will receive an immediate refund of the total fee." I asked if we would have to wait any period of time for our refund and she told me "no, a check  will be sent to you immediately." Please note here that this conversation was AN EXACT DUPLICATE of the original conversation I had with Barbara prior to signing on the dotted line.....but now I had it on tape....or so I thought...

back away from the CSI episode.....these "record your call" apps often don't work....and much to my dismay, neither I nor Verizon could get the thing to play back.....

Back to Square One

I forgot to mention that, oh, several conversations ago, in a feeble attempt to engender sympathy, I told Jennifer that I couldn't talk to her because my husband has just been diagnosed with Lyme or erlichiosis (which is true) and I had to take him to the doctor (not exactly true).....

I believe this is the appropriate place to mention that:

(a) criminals DO NOT have a conscience and, understandably, really don't GIVE TWO S***S IF YOU OR YOUR SPOUSE DIES....in fact, it'd be quite convenient if you BOTH croaked

and

(b) I am an idiot


YOU SHOULD KNOW I AM LAUGHING RIGHT NOW AND THAT FRIGHTENS ME MORE THAN I AM WILLING TO ADMIT........