In addition to the ethical dilemma of lying and saying you are going through an economic hardship when you really aren’t, I don’t think the banks simply just give it to you. My understanding is you need to actually provide proof of an economic hardship in order to qualify (IE proof of unemployment, reduced earnings etc)… Even the county’s assessor’s office allows you to apply for a penalty waiver, but you also need to provide proof of an economic hardship.
Second, my understanding is the loan amount you don’t pay simply gets tacked on the end of your loan, and during that time I believe interest is still be charged. I could be wrong about that. Also, unless they changed the terms, some of the loans don’t allow you to tack on the missed payments at the end of the loan. They are due in full after the 3 months.
I generally don’t try to play this sort of game. Maybe because I’m superstitious, but I just think that if you pretend to be going through an economic hardship in order to take advantage of a situation, it always has a mysterious way of coming back and biting you in the ass in some weird way.
