consumer fraud and lenders
Posted by admin on November 3rd, 2009
Excerpted From The New York Times
November 2, 2009
David Streitfield and John Collins Rudolf
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However, it comes with a money-back guarantee from the writer/publisher and his strategies WORK; I saw a piece in action during a Visit to the Sheriff’s Office and I will let you know next week if this helped save Dennis’ home. If you can get through more battling, this may help you save your house. Apparently you have the right to a full disclosure of how fees are applied AND you have the right to ask for ALL of the original documents so that you actually know who owns your house. If we do not fight back. this inept and/or illegal behaviour on the part of lending institutions will continue! The Guide contains:
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The Foreclosure Secrets Guide.“Frustrated by the banks’ inability or unwillingness to stop an avalanche of foreclosures, the states are considering lawsuits over the creation and marketing of millions of bad loans as well as the dismal pace of mortgage modifications.
“We tried to use the tool to be persuasive with the banks,” Arizona’s attorney general, Terry Goddard, said in an interview. “But their waterfall of excuses, the abysmal numbers of modifications, tells us persuasion is not working.”
“As a result, he said, “we’re moving much closer to litigation.”
“While statutes vary, those of every state prohibit fraud in consumer lending. The attorneys general are considering the theory that the banks essentially perpetrated a vast fraud on consumers by marketing exotic loans that would prove impossible to pay back.
” . . . During the boom, the banks earned short-term fee income from generating the loans, then quickly resold most of them to investors or to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored housing agencies that eventually required costly taxpayer bailouts.
“The banks balked at surrendering any information . . . the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency filed suit, asserting the states had no authority over national lenders . . . Andrew M. Cuomo, took up the battle. Lower courts agreed with the banks, but the Supreme Court, narrowly, did not . . . “The handcuffs are off,” said Ann Graham, a professor of banking law at Texas Tech University. “The states can pursue justice now.”
“In July, the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, filed a civil rights case accusing Wells Fargo of predatory lending. . .
” . . . At other times, they merely switched their charters. When Illinois first started investigating the branches of Wells Fargo Financial Illinois for predatory lending in the spring of 2008, the branches operated under a state charter.
Initially, Wells responded to the state’s subpoena. But on July 26, 2008, the branches were put under the control of Wells Fargo Bank, which is nationally chartered. Wells promptly informed the state of this new situation and ceased cooperation.
With such maneuvers, Ms. Madigan said, “it was much easier for people in the banking industry or any other industry to hide their misconduct . . .
” . . . After the Clearing House decision there was “a virtual parade of national officers of national banks” coming through, ostensibly eager to find a common ground to help stop the flow of foreclosures that are running as high as 7,000 a month in Arizona . . . But Mr. Goddard, a former mayor of Phoenix, said the lenders were often unable or unwilling to provide him with elementary information, including how many and what kind of loans they have in the state . . . banks have been imploring Mr. Goddard to tell homeowners in default to get in touch with them, opening a dialogue . . . But the homeowners say they call and get no response.
“People call and get a runaround,” Mr. Goddard said. “The paperwork gets lost. It’s time to stop this absurd dance.”
Tags: foreclosures, mortgage company fraud, mortgage lenders facing consumer fraud
