Articles Related To Mortgage Servicing Fraud

*Date*	Article (Recent Additions)	*Author*	*Comment*
	Fairbanks Fitch rating report		A detailed view of Fairbanks' operations.
	Eliot Spitzer Takes on Feds Again, This Time Over Bank Regulation.	Jathon Sapsford Wall Street Journal
	Fairbanks Settlement Agreement and Release		Curry v. Fairbanks
12/18/03	Real Estate Fraud Investigations Increase	Internal Revenue Service -IRS	Through federal tax fraud investigations and money laundering charges, the Internal Revenue Service is playing a key role in the fight against real estate fraud. (Need any cheerleaders?)
	Top Residential Subservicers	National Mortgage News	Who really is servicing your loan?
12/17/03	Avoid the Home Equity hangover	CNN Money	The enticement could dig a hole you can't get out of.
12/10/03	In Congress, it's been a Banner Year For Banks	American Banker
2003	Securities Fraud investigation charges Bear Stearns	Edgar Snyder & Associates	EMC Mortgage's parent company pays 1.4 billion fine.
11/28/03	Mortgage Nightmares Come True Kweku's First Amended Verified Complaint Ocwen's Response to CBS News	CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.	Kweku Hanson claims Ocwen tacked on homeowner insurance he didn't need, and never credited the thousands in extra payments he'd made on his loan.
11/23/03	Letter to The Honorable Kenneth M. Donohue, Sr., Inspector General, US Department of Housing and Urban Development	The MSFraud Webmasters	A Thanksgiving-week letter we should all take the time to write in our own way and send to your Representative and Senators.
11/21/03	Thou Shalt Adhere to 'Best Practices'	Kenneth Harney	Another insightful article by Ken Harney!
11/20/03	Saving yourself from predatory mortgage servicers	Holden Lewis, Bankrate.com	A good review of the Fairbanks saga and some useful consumer information.
11/20/03	Consumer Watch - Homes imperiled by a strange firm	Jeff Gelles, Columnist Philadelphia Inquirer	More major media picking up on individual victim stories
11/14/03	Mortgage company to pay $40m in compensation	GENARO C. ARMAS, The Associated Press	One of the better representations of the situation and the news conference.
11/13/03	Local couple among loan firm's victims	MARC SCHANZ, Staff Writer, Imperial Valley Press	Another very interesting article about a victim in California.
11/13/03	Getting Good Mortgage Service? Find Out How To Check	WSB-TV Atlanta	Government Urges Consumers To Keep Track Of Records
11/13/03	Mortgage Servicer Must Pay Borrowers	Daniela Deane, Washington Post Staff Writer	Another viewpoint on the Fairbanks settlement.
11/13/03	Mortgage Servicing: Making Sure Your Payments Count	Federal Trade Commission	Link to important information from the FTC about your rights regarding mortgage servicing.
11/13/03	Fairbanks Critics May Now Focus on Ocwen	Erick Bergquist, American Banker	More attention on another shark!
11/12/03	Mortgage servicer, regulators to reveal $40 million settlement - Response to complaints about a booming industry	Trif Alatzas, Baltimore Sun	Extensive and detailed coverage including a quote from Ocwen President
11/7/03	Credit agencies sending our files abroad	David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle	More credit data worries and lies!
11/6/03	Senate expands protections against ID theft	JESSE J. HOLLAND, The Associated Press	A good example of just how powerful the credit data industry is!
11/5/03	BMA: Predatory Lending Curbs Shouldn't Harm Subprime Market	Deborah Lagomarsino, Dow Jones Business News	The bond investors don't want to take any responsibility for financing predators!
11/2/03	Mortgage fraud sweeps Charlotte	LIZ CHANDLER, KERRY HALL & LISA HAMMERSLY MUNN Charlotte.com	Rampant mortgage fraud in the Charlotte region is swindling millions from lenders and leaving naive home buyers financially ruined.
10/31/03	News First Investigates mortgage companies	KOAA.com Colorado Springs	There are federal laws offering consumer protection, but there's a lack of enforcement.
10/27/03	Mortgage firm draws complaints	Olivera Perkins, Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporter	Good information and a mention of the involvement of Cleveland's ESOP.
10/24/03	SLC mortgage firm settles to avoid charges	Lesley Mitchell, The Salt Lake Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News	Interesting to see a quote from victims in this one.
10/22/03	UPDATE - U.S. mortgage lending seen plummeting in 2004	Aleksandrs Rozens, Reuters
10/15/03	The Financial Equivalent of AIDS	unknown
10/15/03	Clevelanders want to stop a notorious mortgage company. The state of Ohio won't help.	clevescene.com BY SARAH FENSKE	It's time for the politicians to step up, Anderson says. "We're not looking for them to do more," she says. "We're looking for them to do something."
10/15/03	Credit counselors face IRS investigation	Jennifer Bayot, NEW YORK TIMES	Beware Credit Counseling - and now the IRS is looking into them!
10/15/03	EquityLink faces class-action lawsuit Denver loan firm is accused of peddling predatory program.	Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News	Important warning for victims - don't get trapped into something like this!
10/13/03	Is This Any Way To Run A Bank? WaMu's alleged blunders have it fending off lawsuits and complaints	Stephanie Anderson Forest BusinessWeek	In August, the bank settled a Seattle lawsuit alleging that WaMu had lost mortgage payments, posted payments late or improperly, charged erroneous fees, and filed inaccurate reports to credit agencies
10/10/03	Fitch Ratings Investigates Salt Lake City-Based Fairbanks Corp. on Service	Lesley Mitchell, The Salt Lake Tribune Knight Ridder/ Tribune Business News	More fun and games, this time messing with the investor side of the scam!
10/6/03	Lawsuit vs. Chevy Chase Revived by Appeals Court	Laura K. Thompson, American Banker	More evidence that the financial industry will fight to the bitter end even when it knows it's wrong!
10/2/03	Texas probes Washington Mutual mortgage business	Reuters	Washington Mutual meet Tex!
9/29/03	HUD Settles Case Against Atlanta-Based Lender and Broker Accused of Phony Hiring of Real Estate Agents	PR Newswire	More Znet creativity exposed!
9/28/03	'Predatory Lenders' Foreclose on Hundreds' More than 1,600 West Virginians lost their homes.	Sunday Gazette-Mail By Ken Ward Jr.	'Does not include attempted foreclosures by Fairbanks Capital Corp. and EMC Mortgage, two large companies that are defendants in a statewide class-action lawsuit over their lending practices.'
9/25/03	Up Next, Best practices for Servicing Biz	Erick Bergquist, The American Banker	Some of the usual suspects and an interesting name at the FTC.
9/14/03	Increasing foreclosures, delinquencies raise fraud threat	A. LEE GRAHAM , STAFF WRITER, Plano Star Courier	Outstanding article from the leading newspaper in one of America's fastest-growing cities
8/19/03	California Assembly Passes Strongest Financial Privacy Reforms in Nation	unknown
8/7/03	Fannie Mae's Loss Risk Is Larger, Computer Models Show	ALEX BERENSON - New York Times	Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage finance company, faces much bigger losses from interest rate swings than it has publicly disclosed, according to computer models used by the company to estimate the value of its assets and debts.
7/13/03	Complaints filed against Fairbanks Capital	PR Newswire	Atlanta, GA Business News item
7/11/03	Fitch Ratings Comments on Fairbanks' Alt-A Servicing Platform	Businesswire	Fairbanks has people problems in Austin!
7/8/03	Mortgage Giants May Be in Trouble; A recent accounting scandal at Freddie Mac has critics questioning whether it and Fannie Mae should remain exempt from legal and regulatory rules others must follow	John Berlau, INSIGHT	Fannie Mae's new program, PaymentPower, in which borrowers may skip as many as 10 payments over the lives of their mortgages, creating new obligations with interest to Fannie Mae as well as new debts. "PaymentPower puts Fannie into consumer lending," Watts warns. "There's a lot of concern there, from predatory lending to taking equity from a homeowner to consumer lending that's outside of their secondary-mortgage charter." FM Policy Focus has charged that PaymentPower could hit consumers with effective interest rates of up to 69 percent.
7/3/03	Washington Mutual & automatic withdrawals	ClarkHoward.com	Because the industry sets its own rules and has unlimited access to your funds, banks can come in whenever they want and take money you don't owe..
6/17/03	Lehman Bros. Held Liable in Fraud Case	E. Scott Reckard, LATimes	A federal jury Monday held Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. accountable for fraud at an Irvine mortgage company it helped finance, saying the investment bank aided and abetted a First Alliance Corp. scheme to cheat borrowers. The verdict marked the first time a financial backer of an abusive lender has been held liable, carving out a new area of vulnerability for Wall Street. The 10-person jury in Santa Ana said Lehman not only knew that First Alliance engaged in fraud but also "substantially assisted" the deception.
6/15/03	Has Fairbanks Cleaned Up Its Act? Controversial mortgage-servicing company claims it has, but many customers doubtful.	BOB QUICK, The New Mexican	Another revealing article with quotes from folks we know!
6/10/03	Citi Board the Worst, Study Says	John Goff, CFO.com	Citigroup had agreed to pay $400 million to settle charges that Citi and nine other investment banks had allegedly issued pollyanna stock research to curry favor with investment banking clients.
5/21/03	Consumers & government fight abusive loan servicers.	Holden Lewis - Bankrate.com	You can't choose your mortgage servicer, but you can strike back if your servicer mistreats you.
5/14/03	Loan Shark Attack	Rich Lord -clevescene.com	Rep. Bob Ney battles to protect banks from you, the pesky consumer.
5/9/03	Loan servicer gets a downgrade	Adolfo Pesquera, San Antonio Express-News	Fairbanks Capital is being investigated after many complaints.
4/25/03	Banker Sued Over Alleged Home Foreclosure Fraud	Bob Mims, The Salt Lake Tribune	Litton Loan & C-BASS playing another illegal foreclosure angle!
4/3/03	S&P Lowers Servicer Rankings on Fairbanks Cap to BELOW AVERAGE.	Business Wire	An 18 month investigation only validates consumer experiences
3/14/03	Official Axed, Exposed Threat Of U.S. Housing Bubble Crash	Executive Intelligence Review.	Armando Falcon, director of the U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, was forced to resign, after issuing a report showing the underlying weakness of the U.S. housing market and financial system.
3/3/03	Who Is Guarding The HUD Guards?	By Martin Edwin Andersen Insight magazine	It was a question raised yet again when media attention focused on pistol-packing Inspector General Janet Rehnquist at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and allegations of document shredding in her office, long considered a model by internal investigators at other agencies. But the epicenter of complaints of wrongdoing by those in charge of policing key government functions may be the Office of the Inspector General (IG) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
2/11/03	Gershuni & Imrich Files Suit to Save Irvine Family from Foreclosure	Business Wire	Another story where an attorney took on Litton Loan Servicing
1/27/03	Lenders' Overstated Claims Shouldn't Doom New (Georgia) Law	Atlanta Journal Constitution	Standard & Poor's doesn't like a provision in the Georgia law that allows cheated borrowers to hold the current holder of their mortgage liable if the loan is found to be illegal.
	Borrowers Beware	By Teresa Dixon Murray Reporter, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio	Tom, who has spent several hours every week for the last 16 months trying to fix the problems, says he can no longer stand to think about what the lender has done to his family. "I'm so tired," he says. "Things happen, little things, and I can't take it. Mentally I'm losing it. Why can't somebody do something so this doesn't happen to people?"
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Getting Good Mortgage Service? Find Out How To Check

Citi Board the Worst, Study Says

Official Axed, Exposed Threat Of U.S. Housing Bubble Crash

Official Axed, Exposed Threat
Of U.S. Housing Bubble Crash