Recently I asked loan officers to share their wildest, crazy and weird letters of explanation when it came to issues on their client’s credit reports. Here’s a list of some of the best (or should I say worst).
Robert Duck: Had a client that had a sex change operation and she (?) said that it was when she was a man so it doesn’t count now.
Aubrey Washington: How about when there is no excuse? They just don’t value paying their bills on time. I always say “you pay now or you will pay big time later.”
Heather Aurand: Woman has to declare bankruptcy after paying for/borrowing/overextending herself to get her cat chemotherapy treatments.
Theresa Ballard: Letter of explanation was 10 pages long with multiple reasons ranging from hurting his back while in the military, having gout, not having a good relationship with his daughter because his father had multiple children by multiple women—and the best statement was, “I was married to the Devil. I should have known that, because my marriage license number was 666.” This was all in one letter.
Karen Deis: I had a client who filed bankruptcy due to a failed restaurant venture. Said he bought it so his daughter could help him out and he would teach her how to run a restaurant and own it when he retired. His daughter was nine years old.
Stephanie Mai: I had a customer tell me they had great credit because they had filed bankruptcy in January. I met her in March of the same year.
Nick Linamen: I had a guy who was nine times 90 days late. When I questioned him he said: “Why, is there an issue? I simply choose to make quarterly payments.”
Lisa Coleman: Just when you think you have heard it all, I had a customer write that she would get anxiety attacks when she opened mail, so she said for health reasons the doctor told her to stop opening the mail. Apparently she didn’t pay any of the bills that were mailed to her. That was years ago, hopefully she pays her bills online now.
Jen Wuebben: I had a borrower years ago that wrote a LOX that said he was diagnosed with multiple personalities, so his other personality was responsible for paying the bills.
Karen Deis: A woman told me her credit was perfect—she paid all of her bills through the collection agencies—and she paid those on time.
Jessica Holderby: How about this explanation for why they’re buying a new primary residence smaller then than their current? Cause the self-employed borrower lost his license and is buying a house close to the business to ride his bike (meanwhile turning divorce papers in that say ex-wife can demand drug test anytime).
Betty Schapiro Jabloner: Late payment on an Exxon card. “I got a load of bad gas.”
Lisa Kulick Olszowy: Was not so much a bad credit letter as it was “Why I have had three different Social Security numbers.”
I’m given a tax return for first year, then the next and a current pay stub. We have three different Social Security numbers.
“OK pal you got some explaining to do.” “You see Miss Lisa, when I first come to this country I had to buy a Social Security number so I can get a job and support my family. But now I have a good Social Security number and a green card so I can buy a house now.” (By the way, we had an 80% loan-to-value.) The letter said, “Please see all and any my Social Security numbers you will see I have very good credit.”
He wasn’t lying, established credit under all three numbers, all three have excellent credit. Head of underwriting told me she was going to frame that letter. OK, the current one is valid correct? “Oh yes, is good one now.” As we know the Social Security Administration will allow those fraudulent numbers to become part of your ID. You have to get a letter from them stating when your Social Security number became valid, etc. I tell him this and he says, “No I can’t do that.” Why is that? Is it because this Social Security number with the green card is not valid either?” “No they are not. I am not legally in the country.” Was my favorite LO story of all time.
Jean Winckler Dowd: A psychiatrist who makes $300,000 a year saying the bank told her she has to be three months late to do a modification. And she got the modification. Not sure how that works. Now she is buying a new primary and keeping the current home. But she couldn’t afford to pay her mortgage.
Sue Emerson Gray: That my client thought she was “guaranteed” to win the lottery so she ran up her cards.
Heather Crosley Simon: Well it was a bad car so I took it back.
The salesman made us buy it, then we decided we didn’t like it. The car dealer was discriminating against us, we felt out our payment was too high so we took the car back.
This is from the same borrower who had three car repos in a three-year period. But they still were able to buy yet another one, but couldn’t figure out why the payment was so high.
If you’d like to share one or two of your craziest LOX’s, email Karen@loanofficermagazine.com or post on www.Facebook.com/KarenDeis. I’d love to hear from you.
