Being a short sale listing agent is never boring.  It triggers migraines, anxiety, and hysterical laughter, but it is never boring.  I found myself discussing an unlawful re-key by a large bank this week with several of said bank’s employees. (A re-key happens to a property when the bank takes possession of a property through foreclosure.  The bank sends a contractor out to re-key the doors, thus preventing the defaulting seller from accessing the property.  The bank is also allows to re-key a property if the property is being used for illegal activity or the property has been abandoned.  None of the scenarios applied to my listing).

It must be said that when you call into almost any bank’s loss mitigation department you are guaranteed to be put on hold for at least 30 minutes and transferred to at least 3 different departments.  This bank is no exception.  I was not entertained by elevator music or bad 80′s love ballads while I was on hold.  Silence always leaves you questioning whether you are actually on hold or the line has been disconnected.  I guess TARP funds don’t cover hold music, only executive bonuses.  (Yes, that was a snarky comment).  Inevitably I got transferred to 4 departments each claiming a different reason for the unlawful re-key.  All of the reasons they give me do not apply in Virginia.  Finally, I am transferred to the Foreclosure Dept.  The End-All-Be-All of loss mitigation departments.   And this is when the phone call got interesting. 

Two minutes into re-explaining my re-keying problemto the foreclosure officer, he informed me that everything the bank’s employees informed me of in my previous conversations was false.  The only person I had talked to in the last 3 months that had any accurate information was him.  He explained this phenomenon by saying that some people in this world make good grades and some people make bad grades.  The amount of information these people are given and the amount of skill these people have depends on their grades.  Everyone else I had talked to had made bad grades.  He made good grades.  I should only go by his answers.  So… I can call into a bank and talk to someone who flunked bank training?  I could talk to someone who hasn’t been trained properly to handle the questions they have been hired to answer?  Banks hire D- students and rely on them to fix the real estate mess?  To continue the analogy, this bank rep saidthat some bank employees are good at subjects like English and other employees are good at subjects like medicine.  He was a “medicine” employee.  I countered by saying that I hadn’t called a writer and asked for him to perform open heart surgery on me.  I called a bank and expected the bank employees who answered the phones to be able to answer simple bank policy questions.  There was silence on the other end of the phone. 

What’s the moral of this tale?  Well, banks hire D- students.  The consumer has to rely on D- employees to get necessary and urgent information to the representatives that make the final decision regarding their short sale.  I might as well strap the short sale documents to my cat and give her a bus ticket and directions to the bank’s headquarters.  Consumers need to hire a REALTOR(R) who is well versed in short sales and the art of dealing with loss mitigation departments.  What have I learned from this phone call?  I will continue to make multiple phone calls to the short sale banks of the houses I have listed.  I will continue to document all of these phone calls and be sure to get the name of the person I have talked to.  I will also continue to verify all information I am given by a bank employee, just in case the bank hires nothing but D- students.