"This is Bank of America and we are calling to collect with regards to a debt."
That is a phone message Mililani resident Deborah Crabtree has received many times — up to 48 times a day, every day for five months, according to a lawsuit the 63-year-old widow recently filed in state court against the bank.
Crabtree is trying to block foreclosure of her home, but also claims that BofA incessantly harassed her in a "hostile and vicious campaign" that began a day after her husband, Robert, died last year.
According to the lawsuit, Crabtree received the first call on Aug. 4, 2010, from the bank seeking payment on a first and second mortgage that technically wasn’t late until after the 15th of each month.
Robert, a Science Applications International Corp. project leader consultant, had died Aug. 3 of cancer, and had pretty consistently paid the mortgages between the 1st and 13th of each month since acquiring the loans in a 2005 refinancing through Countrywide Home Loans, the suit said.
Yet the calls from BofA, which serviced the loans, continued.
"This is Bank of America and we are calling to collect with regards to a debt."
That’s what Crabtree’s family and friends heard on her answering machine speaker on Aug. 13 during a wake for her husband at their home, the lawsuit said.
Crabtree informed BofA that she would be able to pay the monthly mortgage installment due Aug. 15 later that month on account of having to wait for life insurance proceeds. But BofA agents told her they couldn’t stop the collection calls because they were computer generated and would continue until payment was made.
"This is Bank of America and we are calling to collect with regards to a debt."
Crabtree may have thought she would have heard that message for the last time after she made the mortgage payment with late fees on Aug. 18.
But the bank didn’t stop its daily calls that the suit said came in approximately every 15 minutes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
BofA agents, according to the suit, began insisting that Crabtree’s name be added to a note tied to the mortgage even though she signed the mortgage documents.
Bank agents said they couldn’t talk to her unless they received confirmation that her husband died and she signed the note.
Crabtree sent the bank a death certificate but claims in her suit that BofA began calling her home often asking for Robert and either refusing to talk to her or hanging up when she answered.
She alleges such calls kept coming in through Dec. 31 and occurred about 48 times a day.
"This is Bank of America and we are calling to collect with regards to a debt."
Then, in January, Crabtree had trouble making her mortgage payment over the phone with BofA. A payment for the first mortgage went through, but a payment for the second mortgage did not. Crabtree claims both payments were made and that she received confirmation from a BofA supervisor about it and that she has bank records to prove it.
BofA informed Crabtree in March that she was delinquent on the second mortgage, and the harassing phone calls escalated, the suit said.
On June 2, BofA notified Crabtree that she needed to pay off the entire second mortgage. The suit said the bank repeatedly threatened Crabtree with foreclosure over the phone and by written notice.
"(Crabtree) was not late in making her loan payments … from October 2010 through the present as she has carefully mailed in her coupons with payments on a regular basis and has cancelled checks and/or telephone payment confirmation numbers and/or bank withdrawal records to confirm the payments," the suit said.
Crabtree filed her suit, prepared by local attorney Gary Shigemura, on July 29.
Shigemura, Crabtree and a BofA representative could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
"This is Bank of America and we are calling to collect with regards to a debt."
