In 2008 we found it was difficult to make our mortgage payment of XXXX, so we requested a loan modification. A trial mod was granted for 3 months which helped greatly. When my husband lost his job, the mod was rescinded because he was collecting unemployment. After contacting XXXX or more firms boasting to help obtain a loan modification for a few XXXX dollars we were advised to stop payments until the mod was approved..Of course it never was and the firm was no longer in existence.Now we were in foreclosure. After battling with the bank on occasions too numerous to recall we jumped through hoops to provide the proper documents to accelerate our application. Most times these were misplaced by the bank staff members and we had to resubmit repeatedly. After many meetings at the court house with the banks attorneys, we were still at square one..only now we owed the bank interest and penalties. As a last resort we attended a meeting in our state capitol with an agency to help people like us make some headway with our lenders.After four or five hours, we were told that we had been approved by our lender for a reduction of our interest rate previous to that day but were never notified. So now, after all is said and done, our rate dropped but our payment remains the same due to interest, penalties and late fees on the payments we were told not to make. Now we are underwater and although we are making our payments on time, our mortgage balance is higher than the original purchase price. We feel we were taken advantage of by several law firms preying on folks like us desperate to keep our homes in a waning economic climate. 
