Middle America and Too Big to Fail: A Cockle Warming Tale

In the past 30 days your humble correspondent refinanced the homestead into a 15 year fixed note bearing 4% (hey, we can't all be IBM).  After easily closing the underwriting with a local yokel, and friend, we waited a few days to determine who would buy out our A paper gem.  Sure enough, information was not forthcoming, and the check went in the mail the exact same day as the required legalese arrived indicating that JPM Chase had gotten into the business of quality loan products.  As such, the check had to be overnighted from the underwriter to Chase, and all went smoothly, until it didn't.

You see, in that check we had decided to knock another 16% off of the principal in addition to the required monthly payment, rather than blow it on four more weeks of snorting coke off of hookers asses.  In reading the "Welcome to your monthly mortgage statement" papers from JPM I noted the following, quoted exactly, bold text theirs, underlines mine:

Please designate how you want to apply any additional funds.  When sent with this coupon undesignated funds first pay outstanding late charges and fees, then principal, provided your loan is current.  Undesignated funds sent without this coupon may be placed in suspense rather than applied to your loan as principal until Chase determines how you want to apply those funds.

Multiple Choice Question.  Since the check was made out to the underwriter, who then endorsed it over to Chase, meaning that the above was not seen prior to creating said check, how were the funds deployed?:

1. Monthly Payment made, Overage placed on hold pending contact to determine what to do with the balance.
2. Current Monthly Payment made, arbitrary number of Forward Payments made, the remainder deployed against principal, no attempt to contact detailing course of action.
3. Monthly Payment made, Overage applied against principal, no attempt to contact detailing course of action.
4. Monthly Payment made, Overage applied against principal, attempt to contact detailing course of action.

If you guessed Number 2 you win the prize.  With further action detailing the provenance of big banking in the 8th Circle of Hell (that of Fraud) the ass clowns at Chase decided to make three mortgage payments before applying the overage to principal.  This choice meant a 4.1% decrease in the amount intended to be applied against principal due to the fact that the forward payments were split roughly 50/50 between P&I.  Additionally to that, no attempt to contact was ever made prior to heading down this path.

So there.  MOTHERFUCK YOU, JP MORGAN CHASE.  And fuck you Uncle Sam for abetting this horseshit.  Along with all the other shortfalls the Topsy-turvy States of America face, we have completely disconnected honest business from human lives.  No one does the right thing without being specifically told because no one looks at anyone in the eyes anymore.  The greed, the fraud, the theft, the innocence by diffusion of responsibility, and the willingness to play the odds of hammering most suckers and apologizing to the few that figure it out feeds the cancer enveloping the hapless sheep who comprise most of what's left of the Spirit of the USA as intended by the Founding Fathers.

Money equals business which equals power, all of which come from character and trust.

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.

- both quotes credited to JP Morgan

One of these days I'd like to visit Mr. Morgan's grave and spit on it.  A fitting homage for what the legacy of the name has become.