First Horizon Home Loans Oh! Did I step on someone's sore bunions? Irving Texas

Dear Lommers from Irving,

Nice to hear a voice from the "other side". It is unfortunate that in your rebuttal you have decided to use the tactic of misinformation and deception, instead of providing any kind of firm defense of First Horizon's position in this matter. A German proverb comes to my mind: "Getroffene Hunde bellen" (i.e. stricken dogs bark). In other words, my original complaint has apparently hit a sore spot and your rebuttal would only confirm that you are trying to defend a lost cause.

Countering your (foolishly incorrect) remarks, one by one, I wish to point out that I could not have been a former employee of First Horizon, since before coming to the US in March 2003, when all the issues started, I was living and working for my present employer at its German headquarters, and believe me, First Horizon does not have offices in Germany ... (now that's very interesting, isn't it?). They would not have been in business longer than 2 days with their fraudulent practices, if they had even tried to open an office there.

Concerning your second remark as to the closing that might have been on a Friday, I am afraid its a "strike two", just to use a typical baseball expression (Oh! I'm sorry. I forgot that being an "alien", I am not allowed to use American expressions so liberally ...). April 30th, 2003 was, in fact, a Wednesday. The fact that First Horizon waited until May 2nd (Oh! But this was a Friday ...!) to open our loan account with the money that was already deposited with their loan officer on March 17th, was actually the cause of the issue of the first payment due date, in the first place. Sure I understand the "30-day" rule that would have made the first due date shift to the 1st of July instead of the 1st of June, but then maybe First Horizon's loan officer should have known it too, or am I wrong? The title company had nothing to do with the fact that First Horizon's loan officer failed to open the account on time. Your attempt to blame the title company is just as foolish as most of your other remarks.

Next, I wish to point out the fact that the escrow money was also part of the funds that we brought with us from Germany and were delivered to First Horizon's loan officer on March 17th (i.e. about 6 weeks before closing!). I still have the receipts signed by the loan officer, with the date of March 17th, 2003. It is the loan officer who is at fault here, not the title company!

It is my opinion that FH customer service would not be able to see anything that goes beyond the standard procedure, let alone fix a problem caused by the late opening of an account by one of their loan officers. My two words here are: "Company Mismanagement". Another question that comes to my mind is: what did the loan officer do with our deposit money all this time? Hmmm, I wonder ...?

And finally to destroy your last poor remark about the foreclosure process, please take note that First Horizon started refusing payments long before we even met the conditions for foreclosure, or in other words, the fact that First Horizon refused payments was actually the CAUSE of the foreclosure. My filing for chapter 13 court protection came as a consequence, when trying to save our home from First Horizon's greedy fingers, after they failed to remedy their mistakes. I can be totally responsible for my own finances, but I am sure as h*ll not responsible for the incompetence of those who are being paid with my money to manage my loan account and fail to do their job of taking my payments.

If being proactive in resolving problems means that I have to take over the job of those who are actually getting paid by me to do the job as a service to me, then I may well take your advice and decide to go into real estate financing in the future. In that case I could possibly even become an employee of First Horizon. But then maybe better not. I could get fired for being overzealous and complaining about all the things that are done wrong in that company. I'll stick to embedded software development. Microprocessor programming is a far more precise environment, and one where any errors in performance are bound to be my own, not someone else's.

Best Regards.

Maurizio
Lyndeborough, New Hampshire
U.S.A.