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 Nort!
ha!
mpton School
Easthampton, MA 01027
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