Predatory Servicing

Predatory-lending lawsuits on the rise

by Moe Bedard

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — During the housing boom, mortgage lenders were doling out the dough, giving loans to people who could never have qualified before.
Now, homeowners and government officials are increasingly taking these institutions to court, alleging unfair and predatory practices. While many of these suits are still winding their way through the legal system, [...]

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Customer DIS-Service: The Unspoken Reason for the Continued Collapse of the U.S. Housing Market

by Moe Bedard

If it’s this hard for a housing counselor, what is the poor homeowner supposed to do? “Call a nonprofit, HUD-approved housing counselor,” say all the government brochures and broadcast public service announcements. But housing counseling agencies like ours cannot possibly handle the flood of calls for help we receive on a daily basis. Thousands of [...]

FORECLOSURE MEDIATION PROGRAMS’ POTENTIAL TO HELP HOMEOWNERS NOW IN JEOPARDY DUE TO LACK OF INDUSTRY ACCOUNTABILITY

by Moe Bedard

NCLC Looks at 25 Programs in 14 States: CA, CT, FL, IN, KY, ME, MI, NV, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR and PA; Mediation Programs Seen as Faltering For Same Reasons as Struggling Federal Voluntary Foreclosure Modification Efforts.
WASHINGTON, D.C.///September 23, 2009///A spate of new state and local programs that have emerged over the last year [...]

Helping homeowners?

by Moe Bedard

Lenders are not moving quickly enough to do their part and refinance mortgages
In March, Phoenix homeowner Bobbi Giguere started asking her mortgage company, Wells Fargo, to modify her loan. She since has gone rounds with the company, trying to provide information and get an answer.
As The New York Times recently reported, it took bankruptcy Judge [...]

Mortgage servicers accused of preying on the people they’re supposed to help

by Moe Bedard

Billions of dollars the government is spending to help financially pressed homeowners avert foreclosure is passing through — and enriching — companies accused of preying on the people they’re supposed to help, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Foreclosure affects a persons life in many ways. Not only is the emotional strain difficult, but the financial [...]

Obama’s Foreclosure Dilema: Where’s the Accountability?

by Moe Bedard

Mortgage servicing is at the heart of the foreclosure crisis. Few people understand the role that servicers play as opposed to the institutions that provide loans (banks and lenders). When critical aspects of problems are not well understood the probability that problems will linger on increases exponentially.

Servicers do not merely accept payments from borrowers, they also play a major role in deciding when to foreclose on homes. As intermediaries between the borrower and the institutions that lend money, servicers clearly play a critical role in the solution to the ongoing crisis.

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Schumer Says 2/3 of Mortgage Servicers on Board Obama Foreclosure Boat

by Moe Bedard

It appears that 2/3 of mortgage servicers are on board the Obama foreclosure boat has it heads to neighborhoods to rescue struggling homeowners. The boat is leaving the port very soon and the remaining mortgage hold outs will most likely will drown in a sea of bad PR if they don’t jump on the Obama [...]

FTC Obtains $28 Million From Bear Stearns and EMC

by Moe Bedard

The Federal Trade Commission today announced that the agency returned almost $28 million to consumers this week as a result of a settlement with The Bear Stearns Companies, LLC and EMC Mortgage Corporation. Using the defendants’ records, about 86,000 consumers who had mortgage loans serviced by EMC have been mailed redress checks.

The #1 Reason Why Loan Modifications Are Not Working: Mortgage Servicers Suck!

by Moe Bedard

Many people in the media and our government are trying to figure out why loan modifications are not working and it is really quite simple to figure out. Yet, here we are almost two years into this foreclosure mess and it’s as if we are all stuck on stupid.
One doesn’t have to look further than [...]

Are Wells Fargo, Wachovia, ASC and CEO John Stumpf the Kings of the Predatory Servicing Sea?

by Moe Bedard

“I just want to let the my readers and the world know that Wells Fargo, Wachovia (who they now own) and their mortgage servicing arm that they “try” and hide behind, American Servicing Company (ASC) is one the absolute worst and predatory mortgage servicers that I and thousands of homeowners have ever experienced. I feel [...]

Homeowner Survey Says Countrywide is the Worst Mortgage Servicer in America

by Moe Bedard

CORONA, Calif.: 25 November 2008 — In the current mortgage and foreclosure crisis, the data and feedback from actual homeowners in regards to outreach and customer service by mortgage servicers during the loan workout process is crucial. Improving communication, customer support and timely resolutions for struggling borrowers are critical components to easing the foreclosure crisis.
This independent survey of [...]

Millions of Predatory Loan Modifications: Homeowners Left to Suffer in Their Toxic Assets

by Moe Bedard

Predatory lending begets predatory servicing, begets predatory loan modifications, begets predatory foreclosures. You simply cannot have one without the other.
You cannot have millions of predatory loans without having millions of predatory foreclosures because they are all inherently bound together in a tangled web of unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business acts and that is exactly [...]

Survey on Mortgage Servicers: Please help us help you

by Moe Bedard

Mortgage Servicer Survey – The Loan Safe Report
The homeowner responses are coming in by the droves and to no one’s surprise, it is looking very bad for many home mortgage servicing companies. Apparently many of them simply, “suck!” Homeowners get the foreclosure shaft and has they are losing their homes, they are being kicked in [...]

Trapped in American nightmare

by Moe Bedard

Here on LoanWorkout.org, I have been writing about the American Nightmare and the resistance homeowners recieve from their mortgage servicers when reaching out for help. And until this “serious issue” in our mortgage and housing crisis is addressed and these mortgage servicers are held accountable, Main Street and plumber Joe will continue to drown in [...]

Mortgage servicers sucking loans dry?

by Moe Bedard

Mortgage industry milking homeowners before foreclosure, critics say
“I have had people in the [servicing] industry tell me that their best customer is the one who is always 30 days late,” said Howard Glaser, a former official at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the president of the Washington, D.C.-based Glaser Group, a [...]

Nearly eight out of ten seriously delinquent homeowners are not on track for any loss mitigation outcome

by Moe Bedard

These days, it may look like the Wall Street trading floor is ground zero for the country’s economic crisis, but the root of the problem is still in your neighborhood.
The State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, a coalition of officials and mortgage servicers in North Carolina, California, New York and other states, has just put out [...]

Is Wells Fargo’s Mortgage Servicing Unit, ASC, Abusing Elderly Homeowners?

by Moe Bedard

Privileged Loan Safe Communication with ASC:
Loan Safe: Spoke with Dannette (id# O9T) and Bryce (id # KL1). Both parties at ASC have advised they didn’t receive the modification package yet. Both parties also advised that they don’t have capability to receive faxes themselves and/or their supervisors. Also note that both individuals advised that the [...]

The Mortgage Servicing Sector Has Failed & Is In Complete Chaos

by Moe Bedard

The facts remain that without provisions mandating loan workouts and loan modifications, increased regulation on mortgage servicers, servicer accountability and without complete 100% control of these mortgages, themselves, this bailout plan WILL NOT work.
Well, at least for the people on Main Street losing their homes.
The proposed $700 bailout proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in [...]

New Study Shows Wells Fargo Offers Very Little Help to Struggling Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

I had the privilege of receiving a new study done on Wells Fargo via email by Valparaiso University law professor and member of the Federal Reserve Board’s consumer advisory council, Alan M. White this past week. The study concentrated on a pool of Wells Fargo mortgages and gives us all a not too common look under the hood [...]

Who’s My Mortgage Lender this Week?

by Moe Bedard

Imagine you go to a Ford dealership, test drive a car, and then sign a contract to buy it. But as soon as the deal is done, they tell you you’re actually getting a Chevy, and the dealership across the street will be handling the details.
Or you go to a restaurant and order a steak, [...]

JD Powers Mortgage Servicing Survey is a Complete Joke

by Moe Bedard

Don’t these guys just rate cars and appliances? That’s what I thought until I saw the new survey titled simply, “Satisfaction with Mortgage Servicing Declines for a Second Consecutive Year.”
Looking down the list of small time and big time mortgage servicers, I see the familiar names and players. Some belong where they are on the [...]

Should the FDIC & Sheila Bair be in Charge of Cleaning Up the Toxic Mortgage Crisis?

by Moe Bedard

This blog and my life has been dedicated to following what lenders, servicers and our government have done and are doing to assist the millions of Americans that are facing foreclosure as a result of being sold defective credit instruments. AKA subprime and ALT A mortgages.
In my hundreds of hours of research and work, only one agency [...]

Frank calls for restructuring of the mortgage servicing industry if servicers fail to cooperate

by Moe Bedard

Finally! It looks like one of the peoples representatives, Barney Frank, has got hip to the fact that servicers have been giving a lot of lip service lately to everyone. From the homeowners reaching for help and to our government who has been asking them nicely to cooperate.
Thus far, servicers have been playing by [...]

Bring Down the Banks with these Foreclosure Defense Tactics

by Moe Bedard

Get your gloves on and start training for the fight of your life because foreclosure defense is going to be no easy battle. Make no bones about it, you are definitely fighting against one of the toughest and most powerful opponents in the world. The banks
Let’s get one thing straight here ladies and gentleman. The [...]

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Schumer decried the lenders’ tactics as amounting to “death by a thousand fees.”

by Moe Bedard

New York Senator and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, Charles Schumer has decried ‘Death by A Thousand Fees’; suggests better deterrence, stiffer penalties, and more disclosure to end ‘Vulture Mentality’ of mortgage lenders and servicers.
Can everyone say, “predatory servicing?” Welcome to mortgage servicing 101.
Mortgage Servicing Chapter 1 – [...]

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Litton Loan Servicing, an Affiliate of Goldman Sachs, Closes Deal on Fremont General’s Servicing Rights

by Moe Bedard

The servicing business has been going through some changes lately in the form or mergers and acquisitions. Obscene profits can be made in the servicing arena. Especially in today’s market of delinquencies and defaults.
All this spells is extra fees and income for today’s servicers.
So, it is no surprise that Litton, an affiliate of Wall Street [...]

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Bear Stearns – The mighty great Bear who preyed upon helpless Americans has been wounded to the point of death.

by Moe Bedard

By Nye Lavalle – Bear Stearns shareholder and defendant in an “unlawful” foreclosure action
Gentlemen,
As a shareholder, and for the last time probably before you each finally go away into the sunset, I am attaching the reports I sent each of you almost ten years ago. Instead of listening to me, you sued my family and [...]

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Mortgage Servicers Need to Change Their Mob-Like Collection Techniques

by Moe Bedard

Yes, you heard it right. I compared the mortgage servicing industry to the mob. Loan sharks. Pay up or we’ll break your knees! Well, at least, “pay up or we’ll take your house!”
This is business right? You don’t pay, you lose your home. That’s fair right?
In the old days it was fair for banks to [...]

Fighting mortgage disservice

by Moe Bedard

Late-fee profits
Some say one problem is that mortgage servicers make their money from late fees and other penalties charged to borrowers.
“There’s a built-in incentive for the servicing industry to really rip people off,” contends Richard Gaudreau, a Salem attorney who specializes in consumer bankruptcy law. “If they can throw your payment into a suspense account [...]