Steve: “It’s fraud. It’s clearly fraud. If I did that to anyone else, I’d be in jail.”

From "100 Stories of What Wall Street Broke," here is Steve's story:

When the economy crashed and his business slowed down, Wells Fargo offered to modify Steve’s loan to lower his payments. After making a series of trial payments, Wells Fargo notified Steve that his modification was on the way.

A few days later he received a letter stating that his modification had been denied. The Wells Fargo representative he spoke with reassured him that they had made a mistake and that he should keep making the payments, which he did for seven months.

Steve then started to receive foreclosure notices. Again, the bank representative assured him that the notices had been sent in error.

Then Steve checked his credit. Wells Fargo had reported him delinquent on his mortgage for the last six months. The reduced payments that Steve had agreed to pay for the previous months had been put into a separate trust by Wells Fargo, and they had not gone towards his mortgage.

Steve took the case to court but lost despite mountains of evidence in his favor. He lost his home and his business.

Steve is fighting back with the help of the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

"100 Stories of What Wall Street Broke" is a project created by the Home Defender's League, which is collecting first-person accounts from homeowners around the country. Homeowners can submit their own stories here.

The Home Defenders League is a national movement of underwater homeowners and their allies "Fighting Wall Street to get back what Wall Street stole from us and for a stronger economy for all of us."