41 responses so far ↓

• evelyn wells // Jun 18, 2003 at 6:20 pm

  i am one of the many and just waiting for the wrong to be made right

• Michael // Aug 18, 2003 at 9:40 am

  In this article it states there are other pending class-action lawsuits against Household Int. and it’s subsidiaries. Can you tell me what kind. I don’t need a long description, just against what branch is the law-suit against and for what. Thank you.

• Christine Baker // Sep 21, 2003 at 1:18 am

  “Rutland-Drury’s declaration remains under seal at the insistence of Household lawyers.”

  Is that declaration STILL under seal?

• Shelly Real // Sep 22, 2003 at 4:05 pm

  I fit all the eligibility requirements to be part of the Household settlement, but for one: I did not physically go to a Household/Beneficial branch–I did mine over the internet…predatory lending practices only affected those who went to their local Household/Beneficial Branch? I don’t think so!!!

• J // Oct 1, 2003 at 4:48 pm

  As a Household Employee, I can see why you’re all upset. It’s very important one reads what they’re getting into before signing. Every single last line of that fine print, regardless of the situation you might be in. I suppose I see both sides. I’m not real fond of the company I work for, to be honest. But you have to take responsibility for your actions, too. You can’t sign something, then claim ignorant.

• Danny and Rose Nelson // Oct 19, 2003 at 6:17 pm

  Household was paid with checks, and moneyorders. The checks were recorded, but the moneyorders were not. Now they are saying that we are seventeen payments behind. How could you possibly be seventeen months behind whithin nineteen months, and still be living in the house? At this time we are unable to find our receipts, and there is no way to find the moneyorder receipts, and even if they were ever cashed or possibly destroyed. Now, Household is trying to take action, unless we come up with seventeen payments which would amount to seven thousand dollars in a six month period of monthly payments. Plus, our regular monthly payment.

• Lisa // Nov 5, 2003 at 12:11 pm

  I received one of these loans and paid over $500 extra principal twice and somehow they said I was behind a month. It is ridiculous that a company this huge can’t keep track of $1,000!

• Fran & Eddie // Dec 11, 2003 at 6:08 pm

  The deceptive and illegal practices extend beyond mortgages with Household; they also destroy your credit with the credit cards and send the account to collections for no reason; I paid every month the minimum and when I attempted to enter a debt counseling program Household sent me to collections instead (Hayt & Hayt) the dumbest law firm I have ever encountered; I have since provided proofs of all my payments and still nothing; please inform consumers there is help out there and reporting creditors like these are the first steps in stopping the abuse - a quick letter, fax email - try the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau, television stations and Comptroller of the Currency ANYONE THAT WILL LISTEN….GOOD LUCK…

• TimothyBlake // Jan 22, 2004 at 4:02 pm

  We have been monitoring Household International and Household Retail Services for three years.

  With reference to HFC, I started noting everything in a diary, so my report is long and detailed and I will not re-post it here. I do agree with your comments. Household was up to something with regard to Rutland-Drury before the $484 million settlement.

  The settlement does not preclude borrowers from taking additional action. If state laws were broken, as in Minnesota, some borrowers received thousands more.

  I believe, from the reports we are seeing, that the next major class action against Household and HSBC will be from their credit card operations.

  See the horror stories on http://www.householdwatch.com

• Nick J Kurns // Jan 27, 2004 at 8:50 am

  Finally! Household Finance cheated me out of many thousands of dollars, took advantage of my situation and misrepresented the loan they sold me. I borrowed $195,998.87. Without advising me, they charged an additional $10,315.73 to my loan. They called it pre computed interest. They never explained to me that this amount was being added to my loan. So now I owed $206,314.60. At 11.99% I paid on this loan to the tune of $2,120.59 every month on time, for the next 3.5 years. Not an easy nut to crack I might add. After watching my loan balance increase instead of decrease I went to Houshold Finance to lodge a complaint about why my balance was not coming down. They told me that my payment was in arrears every month and that is why the balance was increasing. When I asked why they never notified me that I was continually 1 month behind so I could correct that problem and start seeing the balance come down they told me that that is not their responsibility. To this day I do not believe I was ever in arrears. Ok the story gets better. After paying HFC $2,120.59 for 3.5 years which totals approx. $89,000.00 the balance due HFC when I finally got a new loan was $218,706.02. I went through the roof! How can that be? I only borrowed $195,998.87. I paid them over $89,000 in payments! how could the principal be higher? There is something seriously wrong here and I am pleased to see something finaly getting done about it. When this happened to me I went to the internet to see if there was anyone doing something about the HFC rip-off and unfortunately all I found was victoms like me and no one was sueing them. Well, I am sure glad things are happening now. Better late than never. HFC should be sued to the point they have to go out of business. In fact, People should go to jail for these crimes. People have been hurt. I personally barely avoided bankruptcy over this note with HFC and I am sure I am only one of many people who suffered tremendously. Thank you for listening.

• john roca // Feb 9, 2004 at 9:25 pm

  we were trapped into a crazy blanket loan on 2 properties!!! in a 3 visit closing !? computer problems?? lost paperwork???

  we never got our 3 days to look over the paperwork!!!!!they lost it by visit 3????

  it became so confusing by that point!

  with the usual customer service!

  after almost 5 years of struggle to get away. we could no longer absorb the abuse.

  beneficial ohio got them together at the auction! for about half of what i owed them!? they were bid on seperate!!

  this needs to be treated as a crime!

  we have been mugged!

  our properties! and our credit!

• jb // Feb 22, 2004 at 9:16 pm

  i was a household employee and personally i hope every one of you takes them to court and they go down. theyhave been screwing people for years including their employees. they sent us to seminars on quoting blended rate and effective interest rate. we never knew which way was up or down. as a past employee i now see the light

• Bham // Mar 4, 2004 at 9:06 pm

  As a former branch employee of the now infamous Bellingham branch and current employee I can say this,…I completely agree that there were deceptive practices being performed at that branch. But what people need to realize is that it was condoned and urged by our bsm Melissa. Personally I did not adhere to her methods of selling loans and that is one of the only things that has pissed me off about the complaints. There were quite a few legitimate complaints but I know personally there were about a vast majority more that were complete fabrications by our customers. In one instance the customer said he “knew exactly what” his interest rate was from the beginning but figured if everyone else was getting their rate dropped “why don’t I?” I had a couple of customers that out and out lied about their loan to my face and had a hard time with that. What it boils down to is that yes there were about 12 to 20 customers with legit complaints but about another 200 that were spurred on by an unethical attorney who planted seeds in the heads of our customers of big settlements and cash in the pockets. Lets be real a lot of the customers who are complaining could not get a loan from their parents and we were able to do something for them. Not every one qualifies for prime rates and that is a fact. Fees are a fact of every loan. If you did not read your paperwork then that is indicative of why you may have been taken in by the few unscrupulous hfc employees. I know I sound bitter but after having customers I know knew every single term of their loan with me that lied to my face about it,…I have a reason. There are 2 sides to every story.

• Bham // Mar 4, 2004 at 9:07 pm

  As a former branch employee of the now infamous Bellingham branch and current employee I can say this,…I completely agree that there were deceptive practices being performed at that branch. But what people need to realize is that it was condoned and urged by our bsm Melissa. Personally I did not adhere to her methods of selling loans and that is one of the only things that has pissed me off about the complaints. There were quite a few legitimate complaints but I know personally there were about a vast majority more that were complete fabrications by our customers. In one instance the customer said he “knew exactly what” his interest rate was from the beginning but figured if everyone else was getting their rate dropped “why don’t I?” I had a couple of customers that out and out lied about their loan to my face and had a hard time with that. What it boils down to is that yes there were about 12 to 20 customers with legit complaints but about another 200 that were spurred on by an unethical attorney who planted seeds in the heads of our customers of big settlements and cash in the pockets. Lets be real a lot of the customers who are complaining could not get a loan from their parents and we were able to do something for them. Not every one qualifies for prime rates and that is a fact. Fees are a fact of every loan. If you did not read your paperwork then that is indicative of why you may have been taken in by the few unscrupulous hfc employees. I know I sound bitter but after having customers I know knew every single term of their loan with me that lied to my face about it,…I have a reason. There are 2 sides to every story.

• carrie // Mar 30, 2004 at 7:59 pm

  Sorry my email address is carrieblack@sympatico.ca

• carrie // Mar 30, 2004 at 7:59 pm

  Sorry my email address is carrieblack@sympatico.ca

• cheated in nevada // Jun 20, 2004 at 11:07 am

  I’m so glad to see I’m not alone in the misery that Household has put me & my family through!! We refinanced our house with HFC and in 2002 opened our own business so when I approached them about a loan they were eager to help me! I only borrowed $10,000 which they said would be as a revolving line of credit/unsecured loan I was very clear with them that I did not want the loan secured against my home obviously “just in case” my biz flopped. Well what did they do? You guessed it they secured the loan against our house! So needless to say in 2003 when I sold my home come to find our I had 3 equity loans and the amount the house sold for was not enough to pay all 3!!!!! I was FURIOUS! They were so hard to deal with they offered no answers no explinations other than an “oh well, you signed the papers” So now a I not only owe them for the amount that couldn’t be paid off but they’ve sued me and have begun to garnish my wages at a whopping $200 a pay check!!!Oh and on top of that they’ve added almost another $10,000 to the original amount I owed, for their stupid lawyer, court, and other fees what the hell? I bet I’m paying for their damn lunch & latte’s too!! IT’S ABSOLUTELY INSANSANE! Of course my biz is not yet turning enough profit for me to quit my full time job so now I’m having to consider closing and throwing in the towel on something I love doing so much just so that I can try & get a 2nd job and try to pay these monsters off!!

• KECIA JACKSON // Aug 2, 2004 at 4:16 pm

  I am one of many victims with the HFC scam. I recently found out after constant harassment from HFC and bankruptcy to prevent the loss of my home that the mortgage and 2nd mortgage on my home should have never happened due to HFC changing the number of dependents on my loan to push it through. I found out this information after trying to refinance and combine the 2 loans. I am currently seeking every avenue possible to try to find out how I can stop these predators from taken my family home and strapping me in dept for the next 20 -25 years. I wish I had the knowledge I now have before I signed away my family’s life to these devils. I would have been better off filing bankruptcy than refinancing into the nightmare I have today.

• Lori A. // Sep 28, 2004 at 2:20 pm

  My husband and I were lured by the salesmans pitch of paying off our loan in 16 years by paying every two weeks program. We went for this, and were never disclosed what would happen if we resorted back to the once a month regular payment program. My husband was out of work for seven months and we have never missed a payment, but only went back to the once a month instead of 1/2 a payment twice a month. Now, suddenly after 5 years of paying on a 145,000 first and a 13,000 second we still owe 142,500 and 13,000! We pay 1,650 and month and it mostly goes to interest! They are just eating us alive. We will never get ahead. Our house is not worth what we owe, so we cannot get another mortgage unless it was a 125% mortgage. We have good credit, but are stuck! Yes, if we would have kept up with the bi-monthly payments this would not be the case, but on the other hand they never disclosed the alternative. They used sales tactics to lure us in, now have charges astronomical interest fees and deferred interest that I am not even sure why we are paying. HELP! Someone should close them down! The government is so quick to close down other rip off businesses—where are they now?!?!!

• Leon // Oct 20, 2004 at 7:50 pm

  HFC is a good company they help alot of people that need money. You can allways pay back the loans. They treat customers very good. The rates are higher because of the risk they take. HFC is not a bank they are a finance company. It’s easier to pay 1 pmt then 5. The customers save money on interest.

• John // Oct 20, 2004 at 7:53 pm

  I work for HFC & my customers are all happy. I save them alot of money by lowering there payments. They can always pay more & pay back the loan

• household victim // Oct 27, 2004 at 7:49 pm

  dear john and leon,

  just in case you cant read ! these are real things your good company has done to good people !

  are you calling me a liar !?

  if so please give location and i would be glad to discuss the situation.

  if i were you ! and was also unable to get a job with lagitimate lender. then i would possibly be hostile toward my victims too . pretend that every person robbed by you ! actually deserved being robbed because they couldnt pay extra !

  if my liar loan agent would have told me the only way my loan amount would lessen !? is to pay more than payment amount !?

  i am not sure of your motivations! possibly some sort of bonus !

  cant be company commitment !? you know as we all know . you are just a puppet .

  you better hope they protect you when its time !

  john do me a favor pal ! look across the cubical . smile and give leon a thumbs up . hes a little slow you know .

  actually your choice of jobs show a lack of your basic smarts !

  grow some morals and get real job!!

  you a–holes..

• Deborah Price // Dec 22, 2004 at 7:31 am

  My experience was not with a house(which would have been much worse!) it was with a car. I am a single Mom, fell behind briefly, 30 days, and had penalties and additional interest added to my principle balance even after the loan was current. This is negative amortization. Household takes advantage of good people who have fallen on hard times. I knew I would have to pay a higher interest rate, one almost four times the current rate but I was never told at the dealership or by the online rep that if in fact the payments fell even a little behind that my principle balance would increase. At this rate my 5 year loan would take 15 to payoff. I totaled the car that I had the loan on and have to make a short payoff because the loan balance had continued to escalate while the car continued to depreciate. I think they are loan sharks. They will not negotiate payments on any other amount other than the full amount which goes up about 200-300 dollars a month because of fees. I am a mortgage banker for a big bank and I know if we did this we would be out of business by the weeks end.

• Tim Jones // Dec 27, 2004 at 9:10 pm

  I only wish I had researched this company before I signed! There are many problems here I have had myself and others not listed. 1) Misled on rate that was changed on signing…should have read instead of listened. 2) Told I had free online payment available….hahaha. 3) Misled on who actually held the loan I was signing for. Many subs to this company and not all have same policies. 4) Many payments sent several weeks ahead were always late and sometimes lost. I started sending certified mail and not one late payment for a year. Costs me extra but shows average of 3-8 day delivery to payment address where payments were as much as 3 weeks arriving before having certified….HMMMMM! 5) The deferred interest on those original (late) payments were much more than a late fee would have cost me….Be carefull to read that fine print that only a finacial degree with 10 lawyers could understand. 6) Charged for deffered interest on late payments when payment was early…by 3 days. 7)Still can not find the subsidiary my loan comes from. To this date they will not give me a straight answer but the online account access can not be used because someone else blah blah blah….Still don’t understand! can not figure for the life of me why one month I get over $100 paid off priciple and the next I get less than $30. And where is that deferred interest I have to pay? Or, how I have 20 on-time monthly payments when I have been charged deferred interest for 4 late payments in the past 18 months?

• Thomas Duffy // Jan 2, 2005 at 3:58 pm

  I’ve tried prior and after HFC lost their case to get them to put both loans against my home together. Whenever I speak to someone on the telephone who seems to be concern and take my information. I never expect to hear from them after that. Now my home, may go foreclosure, unless I chose to file bankrupycy. They also assure me they would cover my taxes and insurance, for the last for years I had to borrow to pay them. 2005, may cause me to end up in litigations myself. My concern, is they didn’t shut down completely as Eron did, although I know people would also lose jobs. I tell people I know to never rely on borrowing from them.

• J. // Feb 17, 2005 at 10:58 pm

  I am so sorry to all of you for the evil way in which Household Finance robbed you of your integrity, your future and your health –due to the stress. I want to thank you for the time you took to voice your opinions. I just applied for a loan through a broker–was approved through Household Finance but have not signed any papers. Thank God I had your stories to read. You helped me so much!! Good Luck & please-someone take them to court!

• Pat // Mar 15, 2005 at 8:31 pm

  I wish I had read this last August.

  According to customer service, I have been behind on my Beneficial payments from day one. My original date due was not the date I was told it would be. I receive harassing calls at home and at work. I have hourly hang-up calls during the evening. *69 gives me Beneficial HFC customer service. I have complained about the calls to the *69 number three times in two days. I was told an employee hadn’t done his job in recording the scheduled on-line payments for which I have two one-time payment confirmations, two email confirmations, and one letter of confirmtion. I just filled out the Missouri attorney-general customer complaint form. I will mail it tomorrow.

  When I took out the $6000 loan, I was harassed for two months about getting a mortgage on my home. I didn’t need one. Now, I’m behind on my payments, but not according to what I was orignially told by the account representative I talked with when I refused repeatedly to get the house loan.

  I should have known when my bank told me they had to hold the funds from the Beneficial check made out to me because even though the check looked real, the company had a reputation of not honoring the checks after they had been cashed.

  Consumers beware.

• Steve A. // Mar 23, 2005 at 12:36 pm

  How do the people that work for this company sleep at night, only knowing all they are doing is making helpless people struggle more than they were before signing the loan papers.

  I have had many loans and not one company has mislead and cheated me out of so much money in my life and I’m still paying. Please send your sugestions to help to go after this Corporate Giant that is distroying helpless and countless American people, we need to stop these greedy bastards for good.If you are an exemployee please send an email to me as we need your help with this matter. Let us see if we can help these people that are losing their houses and properties do to very crooked practices.

• Mr. & Mrs. F. // May 27, 2005 at 9:11 pm

  Okay, I read your complaints re: Beneficial/HFC and I want on the bandwagon. My husband and I took a second for $40K in 2001 — had to put our house up for sale, as we hit a financial/employment/illness bump and could no longer afford the bigger house payment. Our most recent bill fromBeneficial quotes a payoff of appx. $39K after FIVE YEARS of paying, and today we closed on our house……..and instead of the meager $6000 we were expecting to make on the sale, Beneficial came up with this ‘deferred interest’ crap, to the tune of about $5K. Bad enough we had to sell, that was unavoidable, but even worse was that all we THOUGHT we’d get was about $6000, and we counted on that money. Now ALL OUR PROFIT to ‘deferred interest’. In short, our first we owed $79K, the second $39K (or so we thought), sold the house for $125K, and THOUGHT we’d have about $6K left over - but they said we owe the other $5K because of DEFERRED INTEREST. NO ONE explained that to us going in.

  Bottom line……our home is sold as of today, and we got only $1009.00 for our years of timely payments, hard work, the whole bit. NOT a good way to start over. We are HEARTSICK — we at least have a home, not quite as nice as the other one, but luckily I work for a great man who is going to carry the note with no money down. We hoped to give him at least $5000.00 in appreciation of that as he’s not charging us any interest, but the house needs a roof - that’s the only downfall in this — and now, thanks to Beneficial, the money we’d counted on from the sale of our home is just basically GONE and we have to figure out a way to pay for the roof out-of-pocket instead of having the little extra we’d counted on to buy the roof and give the man the $5K in return for his kindness in saving our asses.

  We would have been better off to just skip the payments, save the money and lost our place to foreclosure. It’s awful, we had nothing, now we have even less - and no money to fight back either. It’s just sickening — and you’re right — someone has to STOP THESE BASTARDS! They don’t do prepayment penalties, they do WORSE — they lie, they cheat, and they steal. Deferred interest my ass — it’s plain out STEALING and LYING.

  I’m at least glad to know that we’re not alone.

  Mr. & Mrs. F. Colorado

• ok // Jun 15, 2005 at 10:36 pm

  i currently work for household (hfc) in the midwest division as an account executive and was also a mortgage banker prior to! i’m sorry you guys feel this way about the company, but day in and day out i save people from foreclosure and bankruptcy. i understand your points quite clearly but for every one complaint there’s a hundred more people that are clearly satisfied! the company recently has cleaned house and every account executive is watched and subject to an audit every month. i will be honest we don’t sell our products on rates (interest rates), we sell on how much money we can save you a month. one thing to consider thoroughly before you get a lone is to make sure it is a fixed rate product unless the revolving loan suits you better. ask the account executive questions don’t go into this blind have them help educate you! when doing a consolidation loan you have to realize this doesn’t mean you can go out and open more credit accounts.

• ok // Jun 15, 2005 at 11:10 pm

  i currently work for household (hfc) in the midwest division as an account executive and was also a mortgage banker prior to! i’m sorry you guys feel this way about the company, but day in and day out i save people from foreclosure and bankruptcy. i understand your points quite clearly but for every one complaint there’s a hundred more people that are clearly satisfied (i wish there were no complaints)! the company recently has cleaned house and every account executive is watched and subject to an audit every month. i will be honest we don’t sell our products on rates (interest rates), we sell on how much money we can save you a month. one thing to consider thoroughly before you get a lone is to make sure it is a fixed rate product unless the revolving loan suits you better. ask the account executive questions don’t go into this blind have them help educate you!

  when doing a consolidation loan you have to realize this doesn’t mean you can go out and open more credit accounts. this is how people get into trouble.

  i truly would not advise getting the high interest unsecured loan, but in some cases it works perfect. these are not practices of predatorial lending it is called the equal credit opportunity act it is a federal law. i love my customers and i would not put them in a situation where they are forced to foreclose or have a bankruptcy. i have saved people hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month and allowed them to eat (true story)!

  another good point before i go is to; always check the amortization schedule let me elaborate, an amortization schedule is a table which shows how much of each payment will be applied toward principal and how much toward interest over the life of the loan. It also shows the gradual decrease of the loan balance until it reaches zero. most of your first payments are all or nearly all interest! it is this way wherever you get a loan. in the 2 yrs i have been in this line of work i have had no complaints from my customers. and again guys, im sorry you had a bad experience with my company i wish there is something i could do to help you! if you are having problems with your loan call an account executive and see if there is a better program to get you on and make sure you read the paperwork and ask questions. (check to see if there are bi-weekly payments; these will help pay off your loan faster and it costs no mmore than you already pay a month) if you have any questions for me if i can i will answer them. all states have different guidelines but i will try!

• R. Walker // Jun 17, 2005 at 2:31 pm

  HFC is taking us to court for late payments although we are current.Please let us know if you have advice on how we should handle this. We need an Attorney rightaway. Thank you for your timely response.

• JON BOOKER // Aug 8, 2005 at 8:38 pm

  All of these loans are handled by attorneys that go over all the paperwork. If there were any issues, why didn’t you ask them? You did have a 3 day rescission period. I’m sure the loan helped you when you needed it.

• Aurora // Aug 9, 2005 at 8:24 am

  please check the last contract due date and the due date on your fist statement they love to change that on their own that’s a breach of contract… they will tell you to look at #2 on the back of the contract where it says they have the right to change your due date until all money is disbursed but if it is the last contract where it superceeds all others they cannot change it…..

• A. Morgan // Aug 16, 2005 at 3:12 pm

  I borrowed $10,000.00 from HFC. After making 7 payments @ $300 each the balanced jumped upwards to $10,300.00! How is this possible? Earlier this month I sent a check for $10,000.00 just to get this account closed. Checked the internet a couple days later instead of owing just $300 - I now owe $384.00. They will get their balance as soon as I get my next paycheck. GOOD RIDDANCE! I wouldn’t advise anyone to do business with these CROOKS!

• jon booker // Aug 18, 2005 at 7:33 pm

  you’re all whiney bitches.

• john // Aug 20, 2005 at 10:39 pm

  dear mr. booger,

  shut up and get back to robbing people fag!!

• Confused // Aug 31, 2005 at 11:36 am

  I have a general question about loan practices that I was hoping one of the knowledgable people who have posted here might help me with. Or if not, perhaps someone point me in a direction where I could find out this info.

• Molly // Aug 31, 2005 at 7:55 pm

  Household should be put out of business. I had no problems with their regular company, HFC, but 5 years later, HAFC is STILL haunting me as in something horrible on my credit report, they claim my car has been repossessed. They consistently lost checks, customer service was rude and abusive, they report to the credit reporting agencies years after the loan is paid off to keep it on your report. The give you the runaround on payoff statements so they can jack up the amount overnight hundreds of dollars.

• JON BOOKER // Sep 2, 2005 at 8:25 pm

  hey “confused,” you forgot to ask the question. Don’t you think that might help? And john, Fag? where did that come from you D-BAG!!!

• anonymous // Sep 14, 2005 at 5:19 pm

  These people do not care about the customer’s well-being. Definitely stay away from doing an auto refinance from them, if you do not have the leinholder information to provide them, they will call you leinholder & pretend they are you, just to receive your information. This is a federal crime. I worked in an office with all men, being the only woman in the office. The men in the office had no respect for me, they tried to take advantage of me & because I spoke out, respected myself & stuck up for myself, for my rights as a women, the men were intimidated & no longer wanted me in the office. The branch sales manager did nothing to correct this situation & I was let go from my job. I hope these pieces of shit get sued bigtime & someone puts them out of business. I know that I am going to do everything in my power to do this myself.

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