With mortgage delinquencies soaring-and projected to go higher this year-a unit of the Treasury Dept. last week urged banks to redouble their efforts to intervene earlier and more imaginatively with financially troubled homeowners.

In a report sent Thursday to banks nationwide, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that "traditional collection methods (of dealing with late-paying homeowners) no longer are producing satisfactory results."

The "old method," said the report, "was to flood borrowers with letters and telephone calls, hoping that the borrower would contact" the bank or loan servicer. However, 100 percent of the banks interviewed by OCC researchers said that today's borrowers "do not respond to mail notifications … and those that have answering machines and caller IDs on their telephones screen calls from lenders."

Complicating the borrower-contact challenge even further is the fact that "cellphones have replaced landlines" for many consumers and banks and servicers are finding it difficult to obtain phone numbers for growing numbers of their customers.

The study cited statistics based on consumer survey research detailing why borrowers experiencing financial strains avoid contact with lenders:

• 17 percent thought the lender would charge a penalty or fee.

• 32 percent said they were embarrassed to talk about their problems.

• 38 percent said they were afraid that the lender or servicer would foreclose faster if they established contact.

• 44 percent thought the lender wouldn't really care about their problems.

• 46 percent assumed that they'd be able to solve their problems on their own and make the late payments in a short period of time.

• 49 percent "did not know the lender might be helpful."

To break through these widespread impressions held by consumers, the OCC also last week inaugurated a public service advertising campaign urging borrowers facing financial jams to view their lender or servicer as the first place to turn, not the last.

In its separate advice to banks, the OCC urged lenders to adopt new techniques designed to get past current borrower resistance. Specifically, the study noted that commercially-available behavioral scoring models are now available that enable lenders to rank order borrowers by their needs for early contact.

For example, a borrower with a score indicating a high propensity to fall into serious delinquency might be contacted by the lender within days-even hours-of becoming officially late on a payment.

Borrowers with lower-priority scores, by contrast, might need to hear from the lender for weeks.

The OCC urged banks to call or seek to contact high-risk borrowers at "non-standard times" -- weekends and weekend evenings when they are more likely to be at home. The study also noted that some successful loss-mitigation programs emphasize "door-to-door" contacts with late-payers. These so-called "door-knockers" are "trained to explain repayment options to borrowers and provide a brochure explaining these options."

Door-knockers all "carry cellphones so that they can contact the (bank's) loss-mitigation and collections departments when they have reached a delinquent borrower. This method can result in the door-knocker putting the borrowers in direct contact" with the most helpful people on the bank's workout staff.

Bottom line for home owners facing tough financial times or rate resets: Don't shy away from your lender or servicer. They are your best hope for modifying the terms of your mortgage-lowering the rate, switching from adjustable to fixed-rate or moving your unpaid balance back to the termination date for the loan-so that you can avoid foreclosure and remain in your home.