My Fifteen Minutes of Larceny

Approximately 67 minutes on December 23, after Bliz left on Christmas holiday trip to a very cold, Midwestern city, the mortgage company contacted us and gave us new demands. This, for those new readers, is the mortgage company which called due a second mortgage they hold for my home in North Centerpoint AND the same mortgage company which has decided to modify, then deny, then modify a first mortgage we have on the home in Chalkville.

Aren't you glad I caught you up so you won't be confused?

Anyway, what they wanted was more profit loss statements from me for the month of November and December. Mind you, we had already already given them this document back in November, and if they had just modified the loan back then, WE WOULD BE DONE WITH THIS NONSENSE.
But I digress...

Anyway, Bliz was on her way to some cold, windy, frozen Midwest city ready to enjoy her holiday, which didn't coincide with the bank's deadline of December 26. So, as I reported this to her she just texted back and said, "I will be home late Sunday night." Though I was frustrated with the idiots at the mortgage company, I was not really excited about Bliz spending her holiday helping me out with this last minute request anyway. Nobody else should have to deal with this fire drill.

Out of reasonable options, I sat down and started thinking about other solutions. Not to be deterred--after all, in the days before Photoshop I was pretty handy with layout and design. I optimistically took the old profit loss statement from November, put white-out tape on the dates and said to Marty Sunshine, "Yep, this will fool them." Mind you, the numbers hadn't changed, but we are talking about underwriters here. Surely they don't pay attention to such detail.

Unfortunately, we will never find out if underwriters do or do not pay attention to such detail. It turns out I am no longer handy with layout and design and the documents looked forged. So, we didn't submit them. Instead we sent back every other scrap of paper the mortgage company asked for, sans the P&Ls. This will not make them happy. But then again, nobody else is very happy about this either.