Call Kurtis: Homeowner Denied Loan Because Of Computer Glitch

GEORGETOWN (CBS13) — A Georgetown woman says someone else's mistake is keeping her from refinancing her home.

When no one would help with interest rates going up, she called Kurtis.

Somewhere someone made quite the mistake and as the interest rates tick up, this mistake could end up costing her thousands over the life of the loan.

"It's just peaceful up here, it's pretty, my drive to work is nice," said Bonita Strain.

Trying to cash in on the low interest rates, Bonita wants to refinance the Georgetown home she and her dad built.

"If I could save a couple of hundred bucks a month, maybe I could, you know, go on vacation or something," said Bonita.

Her Penryn home foreclosed in April 2009.  Enough time has passed, she built up her credit score.

But something that popped up in the lender's computer system prompted her lender to deny her refinance.

"It's trying to say the house was foreclosed on in Oct 2012," said Bonita.

3 and a half years after the foreclosure went through, the desktop underwriting system, which lenders use to approve or deny loans lists the foreclosure as happening just last year.

Bonita says it shows up correctly on her credit reports.

Calls to the credit bureaus, her bank, and Freddie Mac which is behind the computer system, didn't help.

"It's frustrating because there's nobody taking responsibility for this computer problem," said Bonita.

"I hear of credit problems every day," said Jeff Sipes, Owner, Blue Water Credit, a credit clean up company.

Sipes says he's seen a few cases just like this one.

So how do you fix it?  You can't.

"The only way to solve that particular issue is to do a manual underwrite so someone has to know what they're doing, they have to manually override the system," said Sipes.

We reached out to Freddie Mac, which in more than a month,  refused to look into this woman's file for us.

They couldn't answer why the foreclosure is showing up as recording last year, saying it's "mysterious why that's happening and it's not an issue we've heard of before."

But they said when Bonita is ready to refinance, her lender should reach out to them directly for help approving her loan.

"Find whatever that key is to unlock that computer glitch to show that accurate date of foreclosure. Just the little button that somebody needs to push to fix that," said Bonita.

Right now, Bonita is still trying to get her refinance approved.

She says interest rates have since gone up, causing her to lose thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the loan.