Few Opportunities

• The first problem with Bank of America's loan modification program was that the bank was offering too few loan modifications to its clients. According to an article in bloomberg.com, Bank of America's loan modification program initially only involved four percent of the eligible loans the bank held. According to the same article, the Treasury Department ranked Bank of America's performance in offering loan modifications to struggling customers as one of the worst, along with Wells Fargo.
  
  

Deceptive Practices

• Several Bank of America customers who tried to get loan modifications alleged that the company lied to customers about how they had to go about getting the modifications. At least one customer was told that in order to get a loan modification, she needed to first default on her loan, even though she was in good standing at the time. After she followed the instructions, Bank of America enrolled her in a trial modification program, but she continued to receive bank notices that were holding her to the standards of her original loan.
  
  

Excessive Paperwork

• Another problem reported by Bank of America customers involved the excessive amount of paperwork and documentation the bank required those seeking a loan modification to complete. This paperwork consisted of several documents that would often have to be filled out again when the bank claimed to have never received them -- even though the customers claimed they had in fact sent them in. Additionally, customers alleged that the bank would make them restart the entire process if any information required by the paperwork changed. The customers' lawsuit said that these were tactics to delay loan modifications or discourage people from getting them at all.
  
  

Poor Internal Communication

• During loan modification trial periods, customers had problems with Bank of America's record keeping. In one case that was settled by a court judge, Bank of America's lawyers claimed that during a family's loan modification trial period they had missed one monthly payment and made late payments on the rest. The family produced the records that Bank of America had cashed each of the payment checks ahead of the payment due date, including the one the bank claimed they never received. The judge issued an order from the bench that Bank of America make the trial loan adjustment permanent.