Articles Related to Mortgage Servicing Fraud 

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6/4/08 Ed McMahon's home faces foreclosure CNN There were nearly 650,000 foreclosure filings -- which include notices of default, auction sales and bank repossessions -- issued during the first quarter of 2008.
6/4/08 Mortgage Fraud Cases Up by Two-Thirds
By GREG FARRELL,
USA Today
Some of these empty homes have "for sale" signs. Others bear signs saying "foreclosure." Authorities say hundreds of them should have a different sign out front, one that reads "fraud".
6/2/08 Class action lawyer Weiss sentenced to 30 months By Gina Keating - Yahoo! Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Axel urged the judge to hand down the maximum under the plea deal, saying Weiss could have saved his law firm from the losses of cases and lawyers it suffered as the investigation dragged on. "He could have done the right thing and stepped forward and deflected (harm) from the firm," Axel said.
White paper Mortgage Default Risk and Real Estate Prices Karl E. Case / Robert J. Shiller The use of Index-based Futures and Options in Real Estate. Written by a current director of the Board of MGIC 4 years before he became a member of the MGIC Board, and had ties to several players
5/30/08 At Bear, an Apology Is Met With Silence By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

NY Times

But Bear’s balance sheet is rife with financial landmines, and with market conditions worsening, JPMorgan executives have cut hundreds of more jobs than they had anticipated. About 7,500 Bear Stearns bankers have lost their jobs, along with as many as 3,500 employees of JPMorgan.
5/29/08 Keep foreclosure at bay from the unscrupulous

Calling foreclosure "the most impersonal, awful, most traumatic thing that can happen to someone,"

They have been putting together a program that will offer free services to people who are in foreclosure due to dishonest lending practices.

By Angela Daughtry, News-Leader Johnson's mortgage lender had filled out Johnson's loan application for her, and falsified it so that it would appear to underwriters that she could afford a loan of $83,000. The broker also lied on the application about the age of the house, and falsely lowered the size of Johnson's outstanding debt. He inflated her current mortgage rate on the application from $450 to $778 to make it appear she could afford a higher payment, and lied about the value of her home, saying it was worth $225,000 when it was assessed at $76,000. The application also stated falsely that Johnson received rental income.
5/29/08 Bank of America decides not to retain Countrywide's No. 2 executive By E. Scott Reckard and Kathy M. Kristof, Los Angeles Times "Countrywide did more to contribute to the sub-prime mortgage crisis than anyone else," Schumer said. "It always amazed me that Bank of America would want to keep someone who was in effect Countrywide's chief cook and bottle washer on the scene."
5/28/08 Anatomy of Mortgage Fraud http://bonddad.blogspot.com Fannie Mae said it is reviewing every loan that defaults -- and seeking to force lenders to buy back loans that failed to meet promised quality standards.
5/28/08 Investors Putting Bad Loans Back To Lenders - This Is Only The Beginning. mrmortgage.ml-implode.com Ultimately, I believe that outright fraud, ‘white-lie’ fraud and lender negligence will be major deciding factors in the ownership of loans and the accompanying losses.
5/28/08 Suffering From Foreclosure Scams by Barbara E. Hernandez | CONTRA COSTA TIMES Elias Escobedo, 41, lost his house earlier this month when it was foreclosed on, but not because he didn’t pay his mortgage.
5/28/08 Foreclosure Pain Affecting 12,000 Families

Mortgage companies refuse to renegotiate, inviting foreclosure  VIDEO

myfoxtwincities.com Foreclosures are rampart while the economy weakens and the housing market slides, and as families beg for mortgage renegotiations, many companies are refusing to budge.
5/27/08 Lost Opportunities Haunt Final Days of Bear Stearns  - 3 PART SERIES kate.kelly@wsj.com But its stock continued to spiral down, its clients continued to flee and its trading partners continued to disappear.
5/22/08 Countrywide Buys Homeowner’s Silence Over Angelo Mozilo’s “Disgusting” Email Moe Bedard-LoanWorkout.org Welcome to the new way of putting muzzles on homeowners that can shed some light on Countrywide’s widely known practice of customer abuse.
5/22/08 Countrywide’s Mozilo Calls Borrower’s Plea “Disgusting”

Elizabeth MacDonald

EMAC's Stock Watch

Mozilo's response is so "disgusting", it is worth repeating with this article.
5/22/08 Advocacy Group Wants to Forestall Foreclosures By Lesley Mitchell, The Salt Lake Tribune Homeowners are having difficulty working directly with a mortgage servicing company, which may or may not be the same company that originated their loans.
5/21/08 Countrywide Financial Chairman Angelo Mozilo's e-mail sets off a furor By E. Scott Reckard,

 Los Angeles Times

Apparently clicking "reply" when he meant to hit "forward," Countrywide Financial Corp. Chairman Angelo Mozilo ignited an online furor Tuesday by describing a mortgage customer's plea for help as a "disgusting" example of form letters inundating the Calabasas home lender. [It wasn't so much that they didn't understand; they were misled.-MSF]
5/19/08 Woman fights to keep her Glendale home initially seized for $68 debt By Erin Alberty
The Salt Lake Tribune 		Ramos has been involved in a protracted legal battle to retain ownership of the house. It was sold at a county sale after it was seized to pay a dental bill.
5/19/08 Squatting rises in U.S. along with foreclosures By Jason Szep Reuters Squatting is on the rise across the United States as foreclosures surge, eviction notices mount and homes go unsold for months, complicating the worst U.S. housing slump in a quarter-century and prompting real estate brokers to enlist the help of law enforcement and courts to sell empty houses.
6/27/06 Symphony of Greed, Intro Chapter

"Financial Terrorism and Super-Crime on Wall Street."

Bob O'Brien - Sanity Check What was needed was a one-stop-shop, where a guy with an average education could sit on a plane cross country, and by the time he landed, know enough to be dangerous
5/18/08 THE SECRET BAILOUT OF JPMORGAN:
HOW INSIDER TRADING LOOTED BEAR STEARNS AND THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER 		Ellen Brown -Web of Debt “To prove the case of illegal insider trading, all the Feds have to do is ask a few questions of the persons who bought puts on Bear Stearns or shorted stock during the week before March 17, 2008 and before. All the records are easily available. If they bought puts or shorted stock, just ask them why.”
5/18/08 The Scars of Losing a Home By ROBERT J. SHILLER
New York Times 		The pain of this reverse movement could leave a psychological scar that will be with all of us for the rest of our lives.
5/17/08 Yes, But: The Subprime Litigation Wave Rolls On Kevin LaCroix If the lawsuit filings just in the last week are any indication, the litigation wave will continue to roll on for the foreseeable future.
5/17/08 Foreclosures take an emotional toll on many homeowners By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY "It is believed that the Donacas committed suicide after attempts to save their home following a foreclosure notice left them believing they had few options," the Crook County Sheriff's Office said in a report.
5/15/08 Judge: Countrywide shareholders' suit can proceed
By ALEX VEIGA
The Associated Press 		A federal judge has ruled that a shareholder lawsuit against Countrywide Financial Corp. executives and directors should go to trial, rejecting several arguments by the troubled mortgage lender to dismiss the case.  In a ruling issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Los Angeles sided with several public pension funds, finding that their witnesses' accounts of Countrywide's business practices were compelling.
5/15/08 Senator wants FTC to join Countrywide investigation By Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY A top Senate Democrat on Wednesday asked the Federal Trade Commission to join other government and court agencies investigating Countrywide Financial, (CFC) the nation's largest home mortgage lender
5/14/08 US foreclosure filings surge 65 percent in April By Alex Veiga
AP Business Writer 		Nationwide, 243,353 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in April, up 65 percent from 147,708 in the same month last year and up 4 percent since March, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
5/14/08 Schumer urges regulators to investigate Countrywide Associated Press Bankruptcy judges have criticized the company for arguing in court that borrowers were delinquent on their payments even when they were not, Schumer said in his letter.
4/23/08 A National Disaster 

Bear Stearns - JPMorgan

Rob Kirby This article is about how Bear Stearns stock was artificially collapsed so that illegal insider traders would make billions and J.P. Morgan would be paid $55 billion of U.S. tax payer money to shore themselves up - and buy Bear Stearns at bankruptcy prices.
5/9/08 Litton Picks Up Rest of Fremont’s Servicing Portfolio; Bankruptcy May be Next Paul Jackson - HousingWire ... the sale likely is the final step before it heads into bankruptcy and liquidation, according to a company statement
5/9/08

Credit Suisse Depicted As Fraud-Case Victim

chad.bray@dowjones.com A former principal at a Olympia Mortgage has been charged with fraud for an alleged scheme to sell to investment bank Credit Suisse nonperforming mortgage loans using falsified loan histories.
5/7/08 SCHUMER LIFTS VEIL ON PATTERN OF ABUSE BY MORTGAGE LENDERS LIKE COUNTRYWIDE Trading Markets.com Schumer Decries 'Death by A Thousand Fees'; Suggests Better Deterrence, Stiffer Penalties, and More Disclosure to End 'Vulture Mentality' of Mortgage Lenders and Servicers
5/7/08 Quarrel Erupts Between Bear Stearns' Elder Statesmen LANDON THOMAS Jr.

New York Times

Told that Mr. Cayne, with whom he worked for four decades, had lost much of his net worth and was suffering personally, Mr. Greenberg’s eyes turned cold. “Oh, really. Goodness, that’s a shame,”
5/7/08 SCHUMER LIFTS VEIL ON PATTERN OF ABUSE BY MORTGAGE LENDERS LIKE COUNTRYWIDE TradingMarkets.com Schumer Decries 'Death by A Thousand Fees'; Suggests Better Deterrence, Stiffer Penalties, and More Disclosure to End 'Vulture Mentality' of Mortgage Lenders and Servicers.
5/7/08 Bush to Block Foreclosure Relief Ann Weaver Hart -OEN Very clear, however, is the president’s intention to allow the largest lenders in the country to strip as much wealth out of the residential real estate market as they can get.
5/7/08 Countrywide denies it mistreated clients  By Michael Collins (Contact) Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., blasted Countrywide and other mortgage lenders during a congressional hearing for what he described as a "vulture mentality."  "You're always adopting good practices after you are exposed," he said.
5/7/08 Judge rejects Countrywide settlement of fabrication claim Associated Press Hill was up to date on her payments, yet Countrywide threatened to take her home if she didn't pay thousands more in fees, according to court documents.  In courts across the country, Countrywide faces allegations that it systematically abuses bankrupt homeowners and bankruptcy tribunals with fraudulent filings and inflated fees.
5/7/08 Subprime Lender Enjoined From Foreclosing On Mortgage Collateral Article by Mintz Levin Subprime Group In a decision widely characterized as both "important" and "unprecedented," on February 28, 2008, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge enjoined a subprime lender, Fremont Investment from foreclosing on many of its mortgages with Massachusetts subprime borrowers without the express prior approval of the Attorney General.
5/7/08 Wachovia's Big-Loan Executive Is Leaving LINGLING WEI and BETSY MCKAY -WSJ The bank also is being investigated by federal prosecutors for the alleged laundering of drug proceeds by Colombian and Mexican money-transfer companies.
5/6/08 Countrywide Financial admits loan officers made errors CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Business Writer Countrywide disputed accusations, made by hundreds of borrowers in Pennsylvania, Florida and other states, that the company has sought to collect inflated fees and other payments by filing inaccurate bankruptcy documents. The Justice Department is currently investigating the accusations.
5/6/08 Doubts Raised on Fannie & Freddie's Backing of Mortgages CHARLES DUHIGG

New York Times

But with mortgage defaults and foreclosures rising, Bush administration officials, regulators and lawmakers are nervously asking whether these two companies, would-be saviors of the housing market, will soon need saving themselves.
5/6/08 Mass. upholds ruling to halt Fremont foreclosures Reuters A Massachusetts court has upheld an injunction to force cash-strapped mortgage lender Fremont General Corp to halt all foreclosures in the state to give local authorities time to review each mortgage. (ABOUT TIME.)
5/6/08 UBS cuts i-bankers, leaves muni biz Aaron Elstein

Crain's New York Business.com

The Swiss-based giant UBS which grew into a major force stateside in the past decade via acquisitions of PaineWebber and numerous others, said Tuesday that it will eliminate 2,600 investment banking jobs. The bank also said it will exit the municipal bond business, where it has been one of the largest players on Wall Street.
5/5/08

Wall Street, Lenders Face Subprime Scrutiny

AMIR EFRATI - WSJ Prosecutors are investigating whether investment bank UBS AG improperly valued its mortgage-securities holdings, as well as the circumstances surrounding the failure of two hedge funds at Bear Stearns
5/5/08 Wall Street, lenders face new subprime probe - WSJ Reuters A task force of federal, state and local agencies will look into potential crimes ranging from mortgage fraud by brokers to securities fraud, insider trading and accounting fraud.
5/5/08 Buffett, Munger say many financial companies deserve pain Associated Press Lenders and investors who were dumb enough to deal in subprime mortgages should not receive any special help, Buffett said, but if homeowners were deceived about the terms of an adjustable mortgages, they should be helped.
5/5/08 Government Intensifies Mortgage Investigation LYNNLEY BROWNING

The New York Times

The latest inquiry is broader and deeper than a separate F.B.I. investigation of mortgage lenders that is also under way. While the new task force is focusing on the role of mortgage lenders and brokers in low- or no-documentation loans, it is also examining how the loans were bundled into securities.
5/2/08 Countrywide Rating Cut to `Junk' By Standard & Poor's David Mildenberg

Bloomberg

Countrywide Financial Corp.'s credit rating was unexpectedly cut below investment grade by Standard & Poor's Corp., which cited doubt about whether Bank of America Corp. will back the home lender's debt after they merge.
5/1/08 Judging the Judges By AMITY SHLAES -WSJ Minnesota state senator is pushing legislation to freeze foreclosures on homes with subprime mortgages in the name of "protecting the American dream."
4/3/08 Video: Global Housing Bubble is About to Cause a Greater Financial Crisis John Authers - FT.com House price comparison between US, UK and Spain.
5/1/08 Unrepentant, Intransigent Lenders: Overplaying Their Hand? Yves Smith

nakedcapitalism.com

Two items provide further evidence that lenders not only have little sense of responsibility for the problem they helped create, but worse, their unwillingness to reform in the face of considerable public pressure.
4/30/08 Wells Fargo Is Sanctioned For Role in Mortgage Woes Amir Efrati

WSJ

Wells Fargo's failure to monitor a mortgage-servicing company that the court found took improper actions in a consumer-bankruptcy case and made misrepresentations to the court, imposed a $250,000 sanction against Wells..
4/29/08 FBI: Rise In Home Mortgage Fraud Cases An Indirect Effect Of The Subprime Crisis Vittorio Hernandez - AHN News FBI director Robert Mueller, in a testimony before the U.S. Senate Appropriations panel, said we have identified 19 corporate fraud matters related to the subprime lending crisis - cases that may have a substantial impact on the marketplace."
4/29/08 Iowans Riot Against Foreclosures HousingPANIC Martial law was declared in Plymouth County after a mob of 150 farmers dragged Circuit Judge Charles C. Bradley from the bench, manhandled the 60-year-old jurist and threatened to lynch him unless he promised not to sign further foreclosure orders.
4/29/08 Countrywide Clients Get More BofA Help Associated Press "After 12 years of litigation on a mortgage they did not even own, Richard Davet (see WSJ Article) is still waiting for his help from this despot." "Who are they kidding?
4/29/08 Judge Has Stern Words (But No Fine) for Associates at Sanctioned Firm

 Buchalter Nemer and Ablitt & Charlton,

Posted by Dan Slater -WSJ On Friday, two law firms — Buchalter Nemer and Ablitt & Charlton, along with name partner Robert Charlton — got whacked with a combined $150,000 in sanctions. In a decision regarding an order to show cause in the case, called Nosek v. Ameriquest, bankruptcy judge Joel Rosenthal found that, throughout earlier proceedings, lawyers at both firms, in representing Ameriquest, had continually represented that Ameriquest was the holder of Nosek’s mortgage, when in fact it had been assigned, at least twice, to other lenders.
4/29/08 Rundown foreclosures may bring fine Barbara E. Hernandez
ContraCostaTimes 		Homeowners tired of foreclosed homes destroying property values with weed-choked lawns, vandalism and squatters, may get help from the state Legislature which could approve fines up to a $1,000 a day for those lenders who don't keep up their bank-owned properties
4/29/08 Panel to Look at Foreclosure Practices  GRETCHEN MORGENSON

New York Times

As the mortgage crisis has spread, an army of law firms, loan servicers and foreclosure management companies has developed a highly profitable business by assessing legal fees and other charges on imperiled borrowers, calculating what they owe and drawing up the documents required to remove them from their homes.
4/29/08 Countrywide Swings to Steep Loss By DONNA KARDOS

WSJ

Net charge-offs, or loans the bank doesn't think are collectible, surged from $39 million in the prior year to $606 million,  while Mozillo walks off with $100's of millions.
4/29/08 Deutsche Bank Swings to Loss On Write-Downs, Trading Loss By ULRIKE DAUER
WSJ 		Deutsche Bank AG Tuesday reported its first quarterly net loss in five years, reflecting additional asset write-downs, lower revenue and a trading loss in a deteriorating market.
4/27/08 The Color of Money: Mortgage Mess a More Criminal Than Regulatory Problem singletarym@washpost.com. Soon after I inquired about Wachovia's business transactions with Lee, Davenport was fired. Wachovia confirmed that Davenport was terminated but declined to comment on the reason.
4/27/08 Lawyers Open Their File Cabinets for a Web Resource
By ANNE EISENBERG

New York Times

JDSupra.com, a new site, is stocking a free, virtual law library by persuading lawyers to do something highly unusual: to post examples of their legal work online for use by one and all, no strings attached.
4/25/08 Nomura Posts Record Loss on Bond-Insurance Provisions By Takahiko Hyuga

Bloomberg.com

The loss was 15 times larger than the most pessimistic estimate among six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.  Nomura follows New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in reducing the value of bond-insurance contracts after a slump in subprime-infected mortgage securities triggered more than $300 billion in losses and writedowns worldwide.
4/24/08 Foreclosures often leave big messes By KEVIN SIMPSON
The Denver Post 		"It was in what was obviously a girl's bedroom, in a walk-in closet," she recalls. "She'd written a note and stuck it on the wall. 'Dear Bedroom, I'm going to miss you. When I get older, I'll buy you back."'
4/24/08 Ambac shocked to find fraud Housing Wire staff One word, dear readers: fraud. Lots of it. And it’s something that will eventually come out, because in the end defaults expose all flaws.
4/24/08 Subprime-Crisis Lawsuits 2008: By the Numbers Posted by Amir Efrati-WSJ Consumer advocates say mortgage brokers and big lenders made such mistakes routinely, and some lawyers have been successful at getting many clients out of bad subprime “option ARMs,” or other home loans
4/24/08 Here's Why We Need The Right To Receive A Monthly Mortgage Statement ON All Mortgages! Denise Richardson

www.givemebackmycredit.com  

 A couple of YouTube videos that cut to the core of the mortgage servicing nightmare . It points out how an innocent man (one of many) had his home foreclosed on -yet he never missed a payment. In fact, he overpaid and they still stole his home.. If we don't expose what is happening to innocent borrowers, who will stop it? What happened here could happen to anyone who holds a mortgage and doesn't receive a monthly statement.
8/20/99 To Your Credit: Going to court over bad credit reports CBS.MarketWatch.com
"How can it be unique when I'm sitting here with hundreds of letters from consumers?" Denise Richardson, consumer
4/24/08

If they pay, they stay

Hub bill would ban foreclosure evictions

 By Jerry Kronenberg

Boston Herald

“Lenders have an obligation to fix what’s going on,” said Ross, whose Government Operations Committee held a hearing on the proposal yesterday. “They’ve crippled the American economy.”
4/23/08 The Future of Mortgage Servicing

article contains a Webcast

by Katie Porter

Credit Slips.org

Chairwoman Waters kept returning to a fundamental point--mortgage servicing is an unregulated industry. The witness testimony was essentially unanimous that mortgage servicing has a tremendous impact on American families and on the resolution of the current crisis.
4/22/08 No help for 70% of subprime borrowers

State regulators say efforts to help at-risk borrowers are barely keeping pace with rising delinquencies. Many borrowers are left out.

 By Les Christie, CNNMoney Seven out of 10 seriously delinquent subprime mortgage borrowers are still not getting the help they need to keep their homes, according to a report released Tuesday by state officials working to stem the foreclosure crisis.
4/22/08 The trillion-dollar mortgage time bomb

Risks are rising that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may need a government bailout that could cost far more than previous rescues.

Chris Isidore, CNNMoney Among the nightmares lurking around the corner for the already battered housing and credit markets would be a meltdown at mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
4/22/08 Citi annual meeting: It's Pandit-monium!

Angry Citigroup shareholders lashed out at Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and Chairman Win Bischoff at the bank's annual stockholder's meeting

 By:  Aaron Elstein

crainsnewyork.com

“I urge investors to vote the board out!” shouted a Citi shareholder who identified himself as a former employee with 38 years of experience. “Under [the board’s] watch we’ve had Enron; we were thrown out of Japan; and now (we have) the subprime debacle.”
4/21/08 The Subprime Crisis and Government Failure by Michael S. Rozeff All of this is highly misleading. Those at the state level complain that the federal authorities already have enough statutes and rules. They fail at enforcement even when it comes to matters of fraud.
4/21/08 Waiting for a subprime perp walk Pat Regnier, Money Magazine Punishing companies isn't as satisfying as punishing the people who made the bad decisions. But how do you make sure they feel the pain?
4/20/08

New Md. Rules Aim To Aid Those Facing A Risk of Foreclosure

Mortgage Firms Must Notify the State

 Washington Post He said the state has opened a wide-ranging examination of one firm, Ocwen Financial, and Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said he would consider revoking operating licenses of companies that fail to meet their obligations to consumers.
4/20/08 Maryland Forces Loss Mit Reporting; Opens Investigation into Ocwen By PAUL JACKSON

HousingWire

Ocwen under investigation
He said the state has also opened an investigation into the servicing practices of Ocwen Financial, one of the largest servicers of Maryland loans, and may look to revoke the company’s operating license in the state depending on the outcome of a review of individual loan files.