There's the woman who called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could help getting her loan mod done. Washington Mutual (taken over by JP Morgan Chase), her lender, agreed to one last January but won't finish the mod, won't call her back, tell her it's "in process" when she calls them, but meanwhile--nothing.

Then there's the woman who e-mailed me last week that her lender, after agreeing to some kind of a loan modification, is now asking for a couple of thousand dollars the family doesn't have by the end of the month, but still no word on the loan modification.

Laughable, if there was no human tragedy attached. A bad joke? Inept effort? Here's how Inman News puts it:

"Here's the problem in the proverbial nutshell: Many loan modifications result not in lower payments, but higher monthly mortgage obligations." The article referred to one mortgage servicer, Carrington Mortgage Servicers LLC, who increases loan balances by as much as $15,000 as part of its modification program.

If you're working on a loan modification, be very, very patient, because it takes like FOREVER to get an offer from your servicer.  And be very, very careful when the offer comes. Understand it. Don't do anything to make things worse than you already are.