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Re: Strange requests
As a
librarian, and not unlike archivists, I am not hesitant to ask questions. Being
able to ask questions and knowing where to go for answers helped me greatly in a
bizarre turn of events some years ago. If this thing seems circuitous, it is,
and you can well imagine my consternation as all this unfolded. Perhaps some of
you may benefit from this 'learning experience' as I have come to call
it. I have still not reached the point where I can laugh about this, and I
doubt that I ever really will, but knowledge is power, and we archivists and
librarians hold skills to empower us when problems confront us. Without my
knowledge skills, the ordeal would have been a lot worse. To make a
short story long, I sell House A to a lady buyer who uses an S&L for her
mortgage (the S&L irregularities were coming to light at this time, but this
S&L was OK). I buy a house from a private owner, using the bank that had
acquired the mortgage on House A, from a smaller bank. A year or so after the
bank merger, and yet before I sell the house and buy this other one, the
new bank forgot to issue 1099's on CD's, so IRS contacts me, asking why I had
not reported some interest on a CD. I checked, no 1099 had been issued. I inform
the IRS of this, and apparently other CD holders at the new bank were in
the same boat. IRS was satisfied and I breathed a sigh of relief. I should have
let that be an omen that something was not right with this new bank, but I gave
them the benefit of the doubt.
Fast forward a couple years. I use the same new bank for the mortgage on the
house I bought from the private owner. It seems all the paperwork goes through
fine, and I move. About two months after I move, I get a call from the
S&L, asking me if I am aware of a 'problem', to which I reply, no. I am
advised to call the new bank. I thought, this can't be bad, probably forgot to
sign a document or something. I wish. The mortgage officer informs me that
the mortgage on House A is still open, that the bank has popped two
mortgage payments on to my Visa card (wise move to not have a credit card with
the mortgage holder) without my knowledge or permission, that I am still
liable for this mortgage, etc. I am stunned. I ask how this happened. He
tells me not to worry, these things happen all the time. To which I reply, his
institution should therefore not be in the mortgage banking
business. Dead silence on the other end of the line....paradigm
shift. I rarely get steamed, but I was this time. I indicated I had
paid several hundred dollars for the bank to process all this paperwork, and as
one who had bought/sold two other homes, this erroneous mortgage closing was
news to me that 'these things happen all the time.' I asked for
something in writing, many times, and the bank was reluctant to come forward
with anything on paper. I had to take it upon myself to determine who
made this 'mistake.' I was able to show the S&L was clean, as was the
title company. Hmm...this leaves only the bank, who has not really fessed up to
this 'mistake'. Time for professional legal counsel. I got a great
recommendation (from the local legal aid society) for an attorney who had
dealt with similar cases, and my first visit with him assured me that I
wasn't going to jail (whew!) and that this 'mistake' happens only
rarely, and it just so happened that Lady Luck dealt me this
situation. The attorney provided a much needed buffer between me and the
bank. However, I am not one to sit back...I had to scout out a few things
myself. I felt this error merited filing a complaint with the hierarchy to
whom this bank reported. I had been aware vaguely of some reporting hierarchy
from having done quite a bit of business reference work, so a quick call to
the state attorney general's office yielded instantly the name of the next
institution up in the banking food chain. I called the Controller of the
Currency in the respective area, had a sympathethic ear, and a complaint form on
the way. I was able to easily determine the top three officers of the new
bank, and I sent each of them, in a bright neon pink envelope marked 'personal
and confidential', a copy of the filled out complaint form and some
documentation. Bingo. The bank suddenly becomes quite cordial, and the
bank officer I dealt with, when I next talked with him, inquired as to how I
knew the names of the top three officers of the bank. I told him I was a
librarian and that finding the names was a no-brainer. I
don't like to play hard ball, but no other way in this one. Well, I began
to wonder what sort of precedent had been set in the small number of similar
cases. So off I go on a bitter cold Saturday morning to one of the local law
schools. I arrive before the law library opens (this is before the great
access now via Lexis-Nexis, and WestLaw, etc., that we have today),
and strike up a conversation with a law student who also waiting for the library
to open. He asks why I am there, so I tell him my tale of woe. Voila! He
tells me he is taking a real estate law course, and that my dilemma is the
perfect thing to bring up to the professor teaching the class. Hallelujia, I
say...go for it! Free legal advice, from a professor well versed in real
estate law. Wow! What luck! The student tells me he will call me in a few
days with the professor's advice. I nonetheless do some research on
my own, and the courts have felt the average consumer is baffled by amortization
tables, that we seek a lending institution's expertise to get through the
mortage muddle, etc. Settlements range anywhere from the bank
eating the loss completely, or extracting any/all from the unhappy
bank customer. I felt reassured by my rare foray into a
law library. I anxiously await the call from the law student,
and when it comes, I have another interesting surprise. The law student said he
brought the scenario to the attention of the professor (likely in front of the
entire class?) who turned livid. The prof wanted to know why the student was
broaching such a case, etc. The student, so the student said,
indicated a lady was by the library over the weekend, and she was having
trouble with a local bank that had closed out the wrong mortgage.
She was seeking information on such cases as well as
precedents. The student said he felt it was his moral responsibility
to help me, by bringing the matter before the prof...... Here
the prof was on retainer to the bank and was very familiar with the case,
apparently advising the bank on how to handle the case and deal with the mild
mannered librarian that had filed the complaint with the Controller of the
Currency!! Yo! I do not know if the law student passed
that course, or if he ever made it through law school, but I think he had the
stuff of a public defender, bless his heart. At first I felt
upset about this last turn of events, but after sleeping on it, I thought it is
a free country, and I can go to any academic library or public library I
want. It is my prerogative to be pro-active....especially when such an
incredible mistake had been made. To wind this up, we reached
a satisfactory resolution to the matter. My attorney said I was not his typical
client, that none of his other ones knew they could file a complaint with a
higher authority or that they could go to a law library and ferret
around. I have been told that someone's head rolled at the bank (that
was not my intent, but with the top officers aware of this mistake, it is likely
improvements in accuracy resulted in the mortgage department). The bank
finally told me after several months that some temporary workers had been called
in to assist during that time of heavy mortgage activity (I do not know if that
is really what happened). Somehow, a mortgage two counties away, a house with a
parcel number totally different, with an owner with a surname totally
different (and he had brought this to the attention of the teller at his branch
when he went in to make his mortgage payment and had been told twice it had been
paid off...go figure), had been closed out. A really obvious lack of
attention to detail, it would seem. The HUD statement is totally in error,
but I have been told by several attorneys that there is little need to worry
about that. (So now I wonder really how important that piece of paper is in the
overall scheme of things..). It seems like quite a few things
acquired from the smaller (better run?) bank in the merger 'fell through the
cracks.' The bank has never really acknowledged that they made the mistake, and
no apology was ever forthcoming from them. However, I felt that my ability
to ask questions empowered me when this distressing event began to unfold. The
bank's demeanor changed abruptly upon my filing the complaint which I felt was
quite justified. Sorry to have gone on and on, but it is cathartic to
unload.
So,
once again, knowledge really IS power. I think the fact that the professor was
on retainer to the bank shows how small the world really is and that information
threads lead to some very interesting places....although I love to help answer
questions, I am also a big asker of questions, too.
Sharon Lee Butcher
Reference Librarian
AEDC Technical
Library
100 Kindel Drive, Ste C212
Arnold AFB, TN 37389-3212
931-454-4430
Fax:
931-454-5421
sharon.butcher@arnold.af.mil
Okay, now that reminds me of another reference
request- again in a bookstore. A gentleman came in asking for
information on eunuchs. I took him over to the sociology/anthropology
section thinking this is where we would have anything, if we did. He
patiently let me scan the shelves for several minutes until I asked him if
there was a particular aspect of them he was looking for (in case we could pin
it down in another section). It was then that I realized he was looking
for computer books on UNIX.
Steve Cox
Special Collections
Librarian
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Rick Teller
wrote:
At 01:10 PM 7/11/02 -0400, Barbara O'Brien wrote:
But sometimes the error is ours. My previous boss was preparing for the
Library's 10th anniversary of its renovation and addition. He asked me if
I could get the address of the woman, a former alumnus, who was guest of
honor at the rededication. You guessed it, I emailed him the woman's
address - her telephone number too. As I pressed the send button, I
realized he wanted a copy of her speech. He had a good laugh.
When I was employed at (I stress) another institution, a faculty member
asked me if I could put Howard's End on reserve. The conversation went
something like this:
Me: Sure, no problem. Do you want the video, too?
Her: There's a video? That would be great!
When her students arrived that evening looking for Howard Zinn they were,
to say the least, confused.
Rick Teller
Archivist & Librarian
The Williston Northa!
mpton School
Easthampton, MA 01027
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