PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM OAKWOOD IF YOU EXPECT TO KEEP YOUR SANITY

[Cleda Stephens]

Well here goes. I know noone is really interested about my problems but I need to get it off my chest somewhere. This time it is with the OAC LOAN DEPT. who seem to get nothing right. I got a letter the day before Thanksgiving in regard to late payment, which I had just mailed a payment this week. When I called a very rude, hateful woman Betty Gynn argued me I had not made the October payment, even though I tried to ell her I was sure that I had a money order receipt. She was unwilling to talk to me in any way shape or form. I demaded that OAC receive the two months payment by way of Western Union TODAY. This I did immediately, as well as the December payment, yet when I go to the online access site I do not find 4 months posted $16000.00. I SIMPLY CANNOT TAKE MUCH MORE OF OAKWOOD'S incompetent , arrogant and crooked business. Once again I WARN EVERYONE TO STAY AWAY FROM OAKWOOD>
Cleda

[Bryan]

Cleda,
Oakwood is in bankkruptcy, so I don't think folks are beating their doors down to buy homes.

[rmurray]

I do not mean to be harsh...but if you had the money in the bank to send 3 payments...you should not be sending the payments in 4 weeks late...If you got them in by the first when they are due..you would never have to talk to them...

Not to make excuses...but collections is one of the worse jobs in the business..and OH bankruptcy has everyone in the home office on edge...They do not know if they will have a job next week let along next year...

Keep getting them in on time...keep all your records...most likely they will be selling OAC to raise cash and you will be serviced by someone else..Good luck..

[Paula]

Take heart....
I have worked in the management side of mbobiles for almost 11 years and I can tell you most emphatically that this is not NEW behavior for Oakwood. Their "collections" have always been rude, unreasonable and criss-crossing over the edge of illegal for YEARS!!! They call all times of the day and night, they call neighbors, employers, other family members the property or just anybody they can get a number to. I can not tell you how many times they have asked me to go talk to them or go put notes on doors, I did not and do not.

Yes payments should be made on time, and collectors hear every sob story in the book, however, that does not give them the right to be rude and obnixous to the customers. I have had the collections people tell the customer that if a payment was not made with in 24 hours that they would have a persons at their door the next afternoon to "Throw them out of the house and change the locks". Now I don't know if ther is any state in the union that would permits this. Last time I looked all the states still had to go through the due process of legiation, meaning that you had to send a demand letter and when no complied with them go through the legal repossession process. This is NOT OVERNIGHT.
Most of the time Oakwood would wait until the property "evicted" them for non-payment of rent then step in and repo the home once we did all the dirty work.

Since Oakwood does their own "in-house" collections they are not held accountable in all of the "fair debt collection" rules. Best advice is find a lender who will refinance for you.

[Chris]

I have to agree with Mr. Murray, if you had the money in the bank your payments should not be late. If you didn't send them in late, you wouldn't have had to deal with collections. Even if the collection agent was rude, arrogant, and a jerk, you brought it on yourself by paying late. Like mr murray said, pay your bills on time and you wil never need to deal with a collection agent and it sounds like money isn't a problem since you had 3 months worth of money sitting in your bank account.
also, open a checking account. it is much easier to get a copy of a cashed check to show someone than a copy of a cashed money order, plus your screwed if you lose the money order receipt.

[Dan F]

From what I gather the major reason Oakwood went into bankruptcy is the loans that were made about 4 years ago, when they would give a loan to anyone with a social are all back to haunt them. They were being defaulted on so people weren't paying there mortgage. I also heard Oakwood stock actually made a turnaround last week some multi gazillionaire dumped a bunch of money into them in an attempt to boost its position in the market. It only went up 10 cents but when your talking 34 to 44 cents a share thats an increase. Just some food for thought.

[Threnody]

Making timely payments aside, any threats like Paula mentioned are in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices act. You can sue them for up to $1,000 in damages.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm#806

[D.Abben]

Sorry, it sounds like you are one of the reasons that OAC is in Bankruptcy, Default and even delinquency rates are something that all shareholders look at. You signed a contract stating when you're payments are due. You are also compromising the equity position on your investment, by going outside of your amorization schedule by going into the negative, INCREASING what you owe on you're home. Sure, it's easy to say the lender is making extra money but they will lose big time when they repo your home. It sounds like your no stranger to late payments on your home, when 2 payments are due it takes 2 payments to fix the problem and OAC is within their rights to ask for it. Statiscally speaking you are one emergency away from being a repo in the future. I know this is harsh, but if you truly care about your home, please make your payments on time. It should come before eating out, cable, cell phones, beepers, internet, newspaper subscriptions, gym memberships, vacations, christmas presents, even your vehicle and credit card payments. THIS IS THE ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD, instead of blaming a rude collector who believe it or not would prefer never to speak with you, TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Karen]

I have had problems with my home and cannot afford a expensive attorney--found this and it did help--it's not free but it did help me work things out

www.larryrule.com

good luck

Karen

[J.Louis]

Karen, what kind of problems are you having??? Hopefully, it's with the home itself and not surrounding the ability to make payments(I hope you are not having problems with your home either). In reading the forum I thought we were discussing collectors and house payments. If you are paying someone because you cannot or do not want to make your house payment on time, I think you have a much larger problem.