Will a $63 million FTC-CFPB settlement encourage Green Tree to turn over a new leaf?

I feel Green Tree, and any other deb collection firm which has been tagged with unfair and deceptive practices, need to review its practices for setting monthly goals and commission-based incentives for its debt collectors/account representatives and how they treat the collectors/representatives when they miss goals or are not performing. I have witness the pressure company managers places on the collectors/representatives; it creates a culture of berating the consumer in order to meet a company assigned commission goal and monthly numbers.

GT's major problem is it's own incompetence. What should take one phone call "please review my escrow account" instead takes months of letters, phone calls, and emails. One arm of the company can't communicate with the other 15 arms. In fact they don't even know each other exist. And just when you believe you've found an intelligent, responsive human agent on the phone, that person drops the ball and never floows thru on his/her promise to resolve the problem. The company needs a top down organizational shake up to put in place a commitment to it's customers, and deal with them fairly and responsively. Cultural changes like this MUST start at the top....GT's leadership should be ousted and replaced.

Green Tree is my mortgage provider that raised my mortgage by almost $600 after modification and they can't give me a good explanation why. When I called, a customer service rep rudely told me, "if I can't afford it you need to sell the house and that I can't get a modification just because they raise the mortgage". It's about time!

Who is handling the case? I've also had many ridiculous issues with Green Tree.

I had so may issues with Green tree when I tried to modify my loan back in 2009, Finally I was able to do it with help from another agency but I was bombarded with rude calls from GT for months and even on the edge of foreclosure because of them. How can I find out if I can benefit of the class action lawsuit?

Have had nothing but grief with this company...rude and no offer to help

I had a modified home loan through BOA which was sold to Green Tree. I was immediately told I was three months behind on my payments. But after much time and effort and sending them copies of my timely monthly checks they dropped those charges and threats of foreclosure. Then on the 2nd of each month I started getting 5 + calls a day saying I was untimely even through my loan had a overdue date of the 15th. Then late charges every month saying the payments were not made until after the 15th, but again copies of cancelled checks showing payment always before the 15th. Then escrow changes of needing more escrow even through my taxes are fixed, (over 65 and homestead} in Texas. So my monthly payment went up 50.00 and now again this year another escrow shortage of 645.00 and the taxes are still the same and my insurance went up 3.09 a month. They are rude, offer no help or explination of anything. Lock these crooks up.

My loan was sold to Green Tree and it was ridiculous. I was not distressed, but would receive calls night and day even when making payments on time. I finally got sick of it and refinanced away from them but would like to add my name to the people who got bullied by this company.

I am a victim of Green Tree. My mortgage was sold to Green Tree 2 years ago, and I was 1 month late. They called me 10 times per day, both on my cell and home. The reps are very rude, they even send people to my house and leave flyers. I tried once to make a payment and was told that they would not accept it, they wanted the full 2 months. They charged me $12.00 per month if I called and make a payment by phone. These people harassed me so bad, I was afraid of answering the phone. Thank God I was able to get caught up, but I am praying that I will be able to take my mortgage away from them. They even threatened me on the phone about foreclosing. I had nightmares dealing with these people. I hope they put them out of business....

How can one be added to one of these lawsuits? We have been harassed by this company for a few years and are at the end of our ropes. There is no talking or dealing with them in a reasonable manner or in the customer's best interest.

Any abuse, of gross negligence , the FTC should demand that all home owners are not in the free and clear, and their debt has been forgiven, with zero debt collection activities. This would set a precedent not to purposefully shyster people. (gross negligence)

Will a $63 million FTC-CFPB settlement encourage Green Tree to turn over a new leaf? NOT! They continue to do this as I write. I received (2) statements in the mail Wednesday, noting all of the above, this time of the month, I generally just unplug the home telephone. Frankly, I feel whenever we have a situation like what has been stated here, a few dollars will not solve the problem, just ask the CEO of Case Bank, they'll get that back in a matter of day "through the sleepers"... What the FTC should do if they sincerely want to change the calculus of a misbehaving business is to ban them from the market in the area where they are clearly milking the people... That, I can assure you send a clear message... STOP! we do not allow that sort of behavior here!

I am a former employee of GT and know exactly how the customers feel. Understanding the incentive which i called the dangling carrot, many of my fellow co workers were under the gun to perform. I know the mortgage business pretty well. I worked as a mortgage analyst, a MLO, and Loss Mitigation liason. When I began to work for GT the red flags flew everywhere. I am exception in my ethics and know my job, I was a source of information for managers and directors. I exceeded my goals for 2 years. I got tired of fighting with management, "i was too nice to my customers"....go figure but I hit the company standards. Long story short, After seeing my co workers going out on stress, quiting, but mostly being fired for "under performing" I to was put out on acute stress and quit. These guys are Morgage Terrorist, Trust me I know first hand, I saw may underhanded tactics and heard unheardable things said to the customer from Management as well. Many of GT top people are gone for the same reasons as mine. I wish we had an for a class action law suit.

Since starting a loan modification with GT; they increased the trial period contract amount, which I paid, feeling duress that if I didn't ..I would be disapproved. Then getting the modification approved with a contracted monthly amount. Then after two months, I was told their calculated escrow amount was wrong and increased my payments. Now they are adding legal fees to the monthly mortgage. I am getting harassed to pay the increase amount. Why do they keep changing my monthly amount? Is it legal? What can I do?

We have been stuck with GreenTree for years. Tried to get our interest rate down when everyone was get loan reviews We pay 10% we were always told we are not a finance company we just collect on debits, which is a lie of course. They so called helped us twice by putting our past due amounts at the back of the loan when I asked about refinancing to a lower interest rate. We have gotten behind and cant catch up. I was paying 20.00 extra a month to catch up the bill and it never reflected on the bill. So i dont know where the money went, We dont have a payment book ever to make payments and we still owe almost as much as was borrowed after 16 years. We have pretty much paid for this house twice over already and it is so sicking that I just cant deal with it much longer

We have an active case against Greentree in Cook County Chancery Court right now. Our mortgage, which was originated with Countrywide, was sold to Bank of America when Countrywide was forced out of business by the Feds. After being serviced by Bank of America for almost a year and a half, Bank of America was forced to divest themselves of all of their "performing" (IE: GOOD) mortgages and keep the non-performing mortgages, so we, like hundreds of thousands of others, ended up being sold off to Greentree. A couple of background items: - I ALWAYS overpay my mortgage by at least $100.00 each month. The net effect of this is that the time to repay a 30 year mortgage is cut almost in half. - My FICO credit score has always been up near 800. having said that . . . In December of 2012, Greentree accepted our monthly mortgage payment and deposited my check, electronically. A few days later they REJECTED the payment, UNDEPOSITED the check, and UNCREDITED my mortgage payment. On December 18th, Greentree sent back the original ENDORSED, check, along with a letter stating, "the WRITTEN and NUMERIC amounts do not match." Before anyone asks, YES, there was plenty of money in our checking account, and YES, the written and numeric amounts on the check DID match. The written and numeric amounts were verified as matching by both my bank and check experts. There was no problem with the check. The undepositied check was not received back by us until the 27th of December, 2012, so, with the exception that i was receiving calls from Greentree's collections department, I had no idea that they had rejected my check. Upon receiving the check back from Greentree, I immediately wrote out a replacement check, made a photo copy of the replacement check, and sent it up to Greentree, in Minneapolis, via CERTIFIED, RETURN RECEIPT, SIGNATURE REQUESTED mail. I kept the receipt for the re-mailed check and cover letter, and, when I received the signature card, attached that to the receipt and put them in with my mortgage payment slips and other documentation. Because of the New Years Holiday weekend, Greentree did not receive my replacement check until the 3rd of January and then did not deposit my replacement check until the 7th of January. Greentree then sent me a letter stating that, as a courtesy, they would, just this one time, waive the "late fees," and credit the payment, with the $100.00 additional principal payment, which was also included in the check amount, to my account. The letter went on to admonish me for making principal pre-payments every month and stipulated that I would no longer be allowed to make such principal pre-payments on my mortgage because my mortgage, which was originally written as a simple-interest mortgage, had been converted to an amortized mortgage and, whether I paid off the principal ahead of time or not, I would be held responsible for all of the additional interest which they had now calculated me as owing. I then wrote them a letter stating that their conversation of my mortgage, from a simple interest note, to an amortized interest note, was not legal and I would continue to pay down the principal with succeeding mortgage payments. Greentree did not acknowledge my additional letters. Neither did they accept, nor did they return, my subsequent mortgage and principal prepayments, but on 27 March, petitioned the Cook County Chancery Court to show me in default, accelerate foreclosure, and asked them to allow for an accelerated auction of my property. I was served with notification of the foreclosure on the evening of Easter Sunday, 2013. Receiving the notice of foreclosure on a properly we have lived in for 30 years was a bit more than unnerving - it was downright disconcerting and I was more than a little upset. Realizing there was not anything I could do about it on a Sunday evening, especially Easter Sunday, I resigned myself to the fact that I would need to prioritize my work with this unexpected project beginning the following morning. So, on the Monday morning following notification that Greentree Lending was now attempting to accelerate foreclosure and auction of my residence, I began contacting attorneys and agencies to see how best to handle this new crisis. I spoke with friends who were attorneys and asked for recommendations. I wrote to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office and got no response for several weeks. My attorney friends all advised me to, "work with Greentree to reinstate your mortgage. You don't want to play around in the Cook County Chancery Court system - it's as corrupt as Greentree." This was not what I wanted to hear. Several attorneys I spoke with asked for specifics, but quickly realized this was over their head and advised me to either file for bankruptcy - in an attempt to save the house, or to, once again, "work with Greentree." I finally, at the last minute, found an attorney who agreed to file my appearance, my legal response, which would allow me another 30 to 60 days to find another attorney and attempt to fight Greentree. Time dragged out, slowly, and I was not having any luck, when, suddenly, I received a recommendation for someone who, "is very good at this. All he and his partners do is resolve these kinds of issues.' So I made an appointment and went to see this miracle worker attorney. Three hours later, I had seen the MERS filings for my mortgage. MERS is the electronic records recording system - used by so many mortgage servicers now, which show what the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office doesn't see, or know, and, unless we're attorneys, who pay dearly for access to the MERS electronic records system, we will never see. My visit to this "miracle worker" attorney, who had now laser-focused my attention on his abilities, showed, via the MERS system, that Greentree had modified my mortgage so they could create a much higher outstanding balance on my account, rolled it into a mortgage investment package, and sold it to Bank of New York. My original mortgage was now part of a package that was being traded on one of the Options Exchanges several times per day. This repackaging of my mortgage was also the reason Greentree no longer wanted to accept my principal reduction payments because the value of the mortgage which had been made a part of the investment package was upward of $450,000, and the outstanding balance on my mortgage was less than $150,000. If Greentree's bean counters allowed me to prepay the principal on my mortgage, they would, quite literally, loose their asses on the mortgage value they had assigned to the portfolio when they sold my mortgage and be on the hook for the difference - so they came after me by illegally returning my valid check. So, I signed a contract with this new "miracle worker" attorney and he promised to intervene in my behalf and get the matter resolved. I then gave him a total of $3,000 and he went to court and began filing documents. But the miracle worker attorney turned out to be a flake and fraud. It turns out he had several filings against him with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary group and was being investigated. So, my payments and case are now, and two years later, still a part of an ongoing investigation against this "miracle worker" attorney who took my money and did nothing. While he had filed a response to Greentree's attorney, this only bought a couple of weeks worth of time, and I was beginning to panic because it looked like I was still in danger of loosing my house. So, still determined to fight Greentree, and still as poor as a proverbial churchmouse, cutting corners everywhere so I could pay attorney's fees, filing fees, and court fees, I restarted my search for a QUALIFIED attorney to handle my case. I finally found a really good attorney. He's part of a long-established firm in Park Ridge Illinois: they've been around since the 1880s. They have a good track record of working on all kinds of legal actions. Greentree's attorneys have done nothing but play games with my case. My legal bills are close to $30,000 at this point. Most people would have given up and walked away from their property, but I will not, because what Greentree did to me, and is doing, along with their parent company, Bank of America, is outright FRAUD. Greentree's sole basis for continuing their action against me is that "I am attempting to steal money from Greentree," because I want to prepay my principal amount with each mortgage payment. Their attorneys actually wrote that into one of the responses they filed with the Court. NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES A MORTGAGE IS SOLD; NO MATTER HOW MANY DIFFERENT LENDERS OR SERVICERS HANDLE A MORTGAGE DURING THE LIFE OF THE MORTGAGE; IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE ORIGINAL MORTGAGE AGREEMENT WITHOUT BOTH THE INVOLVEMENT, AND WRITTEN CONSCENT, OF THE ORIGINAL MORTGAGEE! In the process of going over my original MORTGAGE and NOTE (yes, they are two different things), part or our defense against Greentree, I found my original note. One of the paragraphs of the note I signed for the mortgage specifically grants me the right to PREPAY the PRINCIPAL of the note, in any amount, at any time, for any reason, WITHOUT PREPAYMENT PENALTY. From PAGE 1, PARAGRAPH 4 of my Note: "4: BORROWER'S RIGHT TO PREPAY I have the right to make payments of Principal at any time before they are due. A payment of Principal only is known as a "Prepayment." When I make a Prepayment, I will tell the Note Holder in writing that i am doing so. I may not designate a payment as a Prepayment if I have not made all of the monthly payments due under the Note. I may make a full Prepayment or partial Prepayment without paying a Prepayment charge. The Note Holder will use my Prepayments to reduce the amount of Principal that I owe under this Note. However, the Note Holder may apply my Prepayment to the accrued and unpaid interest on the Prepayment amount, before applying my Prepayment to reduce the Principal amount of the Note. If i make a partial Prepayment, there will be no changes in the due date or in the mount of my monthly payment unless the Note Holder agrees in writing to those changes." We kept copies of EVERYTHING when we wrote our mortgage. We keep copies of every check we send, every letter we sent, every part of the origination documentation. We requested a copy of our closing documents and delayed our closing a month, so we could have an outside audit done on those documents. We read through every page, or every document, as they were placed before us at the closing on our house. That added almost three hours to the closing process, but has proved invaluable in our defense against Greentree. Three years, $30,000, and more stress than I ever wanted in my life, and this is still not over, but the Justice Department, and the Attorneys General of the States of New York and Texas all agree with the findings of me and my Attorney: 65% of every action taken against a Greentree mortgage holder is FRAUD on the part of Greentree. We'd love to sell our house and move out of Chicago, but, until this is resolve, cannot do so. My latest affidavit, along with supporting exhibits, was filed on 27 April, and is now before the Judge and Court. Remember, KEEP RECORDS OF EVERYTHING. KEEP YOUR PROPERTY TAXES, INSURANCE, and ASSESSMENTS PAID UP. If you get behind, contact them and make arrangements to get caught up. KEEP COPIES OF EVERYTHING. TALK ONLY TO A QUALIFIED ATTORNEY. ONCE YOU RETAIN AN ATTORNEY, DON"T SPEAK WITH ANYONE FROM GREENTREE OR THEIR ATTORNEYS. Greentree will use whatever you say against you and, your speaking to them may negate what your attorney is attempting to do in the court. DON'T TRY TO NEGOTIATE DIRECTLY WITH GREENTREE - IT WON'T WORK. ONCE YOU START WORKING WITH AN ATTORNEY, PAY THE ATTORNEY. IF YOU CAN ESCROW YOUR PAYMENTS, DO SO, BUT PAY THE ATTORNEY TO WORK FOR YOU - DO NOT PAY GREENTREE. IF GREENTREE, OR ANY OF THEIR REPRESENTATIVES CALL, HANG UP - DO NOT TRY TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING - DO NOT BE NICE - JUST HANG UP. Make certain you maintain a conversation with your attorney and get copies of everything filed. It keeps you in the loop and ensures that he or she is actually working for you.

GT acquired our pan 2 years.ago and it has been a nightmare. They start calling 3 days before it is even due. They have had me in tears every time they have talked to me. My husband had a quad bypass in January and I called and told them the payment might be late but it would be paid. Their response was that wasn't their problem. I didn't answer the phone because I didn't want to be harassed. They called every member of our family and threatened them . How is this legal? Please someone needs to help us. We have been making our payments just having a rough time. We don't want to lose our home that we have worked so hard for.

I do work for green tree and I am a supervisor of 9 reps and very good, meaning that my team does hit their goals.I win contest for sups company wide, i only say that so people don't think im just some disgrunted ex employee. Green tree doesn't itself doesn't condone hard collection tactics, but the pressure from the VP of collections and the directors to the sups and reps is beyond rough, they know what tactics we use and even advise us to string along customers. One director even took me to lunch and advised me how to call a customer for a mobile home and act as a repo agent. Most customers that go over 30 days pass due are called in excess of 30 times a day when it becomes end of month, we will call your neighbors , relatives and place of employment. We have a skip tracing program that will locate all that for us. What we do as employees is not right, what we say to you all is the truth bent to the point of breaking. If you are a BofA loan we wont file for foreclosure before 61 days, any other loans it isn't until 90 days, we tell you that you are over 1 month past due which is the start of the foreclosure process........Um what we do is send out a notice of default which does give you 30 days to pay that past due amount, all you hear is foreclosure and we know this. What we don't tell you is if there is under 10k in equity in your home we wont do anything and will charge it off at 180 days, but in the meantime your sweating it out and scared that we are going to lock you out. As sups we have been directed by our directors to be logged off our phone and make our calls because they are not recorded, that gives us the chance to tell you what ever and we do. Your probably thinking what a *** and how can he do this, well we are driven to it and our bonus is based off our reps hitting goal, (which they do lower most months which makes reps push the envelope harder). Im sorry but there is alot more we can do to help you all and we don't, we hold on to your docs that you send us for a STRM, HAMP, HARP, just so we dont have to carry your loan that month and you are forced to pay to keep the default from going out which cost you around $175 bucks and put into your advances that raise your note. I'm tired of doing this and lieing just for the bonus when it is at your expense. I know of reps and managers using the docs you send us to get your checking info and run the check at end of month if you didnt pay, I know of reps and sups creating a false check on your account just so it shows payment in hand and it doesn't carry for that month. Your asking yourself why is he saying this, if greentree finds out I lose my $3000 bonus and my good salary, well Just had an incident that happened and it came out about one of my reps lifestyle (which didnt reflect her job) I was scolded about it and said i should be embarrassed to have that around, and they made false accusations about the incident, this rep did nothing wrong and I refuse to let them harass her because of this her sexual activity outside of work doesnt matter but as it was told to me its not moral. How can I has a person continue to lie to you and allow them to treat people wrong because of their sex life. If you have a question send me and email and I will respond to it. Again if you were on the receiving end of our deceitfulness im sorry. [email and links deleted]

My mortgage got sold to Green Tree. I have been a month ahead for over 9 years, never late, etc. My problem isn't phone calls. It is they won't post my payment properly. After 3 or 4 miss accounted checks someone finally told me I had to send them a letter, which I did. They replied with some stupid explanation that the company that collected the checks was different and in another state. I DON"T CARE. Also, if I every wanted to be more than 2 months ahead I had to let them know. When I saw on my credit report the "natural disaster - declared disaster", the rep. tried to sell me "that is there in case you are late on your credit and there is a natural disaster in your area the credit bureau will understand why you are late". And YES I did record it. Then when I checked my account I found they were cashing my check (on the 2nd or 3rd of the month) and applying it to the next months payment all right. BUT they didn't credit the payment until the 1st of the next month. Keeping my money and charging me interest on my loan. Talk about total thief's. Now I get a letter they reported all the houses in Michigan a disaster for a few months. Not done with them yet.

so what can we do? Im sick of their harassing.

I lost my home after trying to refi w/Green Tree for two years. We got hung up on. Made another call....more crap. We were told to call Quick Loans and got laughed at, as the roof leaked the appliances stopped functioning...the plumbing backed-up....the house needed major repairs. The insurance costs got higher on the roof, till they cancelled coverage because it was in need of being replaced. Loss of income and spending years looking for work in Florida and we were totally doomed. At least we had SS and we were willing to comply as long as we could have repaired the house and taken the mortgage payment down. We lost. Green Tree messed up our short sale, which put it on hold for another four months. Finally, Congressmen made phone calls for us and pushed GT to move. We now have no hope as to even being able to find a place to live with that mess on our backs. These CROOKS continue to thrive...and we lost.