Americans for Fairness in Lending - Predatory Lending, Builder/Mortgage/Title Fraud/Government complicity

Predatory Lending, Builder/Mortgage/Title Fraud/Government complicity

By: D from Texas
On: 2008-03-25

I was victimized by Grand Homes, the City of Richardson, Texas, Chicago Title/undisclosed partner Grand Title, Colonial Mortgage/Jon Traver, Broker for Colonial, RESMAE Mortgage, EMC Mortgage, LaSalle Bank, Bear Stearns, Premier Communities Property Management, various employees and executives and owner of Grand Homes, the attorneys for listed parties, Richardson and Collin County Courts/court reporters/judges and unable to obtain help from several local, state and federal agencies as well as my own state legislators...to name the most culpable.

Contrary to what many are engineered to believe, our voice does matter and does make a difference.This letter went to CNN Headline News and several legislators regarding my experience with Predatory Lending and more: You asked for feed back…so here it is. This is my answer to your question and a bit long…but the poster-child story of what is flooding the news. I am a life-long conservative Republican and am terrified of what appears to be deliberate engineering of this country toward a Socialist/Communist society with a dependent and fearful citizenry focused on nothing but daily survival. We do not need a parent in the form of government…we do not want to be fearful of speaking up for fear of reprisals and we cannot abide the idea of waiting in line every month for food stamps and welfare. I’m disgusted with the Socialist action of bailing out these banks and doing nothing to compensate the victims and restore the faith and confidence of American citizens. How many Americans will wind up begging for welfare and the kind of assistance real Americans abhor? The wholesale and wanton theft, abuse and corruption is nothing less than Organized Crime at its worst. As my situation unfolded and I learned what I did, with no extensive financial education, I could easily see what was happening and where we were headed and realized it had been going on for a long time. I asked the obvious: If I can find what I did and see the writing on the wall, where are the buffoons who are supposed to know and who are paid by our taxes to oversee things and prosecute cases hard enough to deter further criminal activity? The value of the homes was inflated by the banks and their appraisers and the builders from the get-go. The counties know about the fraud and continue to enjoy inflated property tax payments while the homeowners don't get refunds when they finally realize the extent of the fraud. While assisting neighbors in their protests, the county assessors and board admitted their knowledge. This is not just a matter of people stupidly getting in over their heads. The ‘cause’ of the economy downturn and damage to the banks is not Foreclosures alone and not where the problem originated. Should the government bail out Bear Stearns? Are you serious? Should we reward any criminal for criminal acts? NO…absolutely not. If I robbed that bank or defrauded them of funds, you can be assured I would be prosecuted and imprisoned; not offered a reward and a pot full of money. All of the perpetrators who knew or should have known and all the politicians and officials who aided and abetted need to be fully prosecuted, separated from every last vestige of their homes, property, money, credit, credibility, reputations, family and health as victims like me and millions of other people have been damaged. Further, they need to be imprisoned with common street criminals…not sent to resort-style white collar prisons for a couple of years and released to enjoy the wealth they stole from good people. Shut these companies down and let the perpetrators reach into their own pockets/profits and pay the victims and pay for their stupidity, recklessness and crimes. It would take far less to aid in the direct recovery of the victims…including individual investors as well as the defrauded borrowers…than to aid and abet the Organized Crime in this country and give them carte blanche to return to ‘business as usual’ as was the case after the 80s. We hear all the stupidity and lies spewing from the mouths of our ‘for the people, by the people government’, but why aren’t people like me testifying before Congress with the ‘real story’ and the real details? We turn on the television and hear the ‘spin’ and the cavalier chuckles of news reporters with their “gotta love it! It’s America...” hilarity and their refusal to run the real story and then we hear “It’s the fault of the ‘victims’….yada yada” Experts, including Greenspan, have admitted to the massive fraud and have stated that there was no way the victims could have known what was going on behind the scenes and what was being perpetrated against them and yet it’s our fault. It’s like the Dark Ages of ignorance; holding a rape victim responsible for rape or a homeowner responsible for a home invasion. CNN ran a story which began with Bush, Paulson, SEC officials, Bernanke and others sitting around a conference table and the story was focused on the bail out. All we saw was a bunch of nervous officials chuckling and looking very nervous and crooked. CNN panned to Paulson walking from the White House to a podium to take questions. The first question concerned the disparity between the aid going to the criminal corporation, Bear Stearns, versus the homeowners and victims of the fraud and reckless behavior. Before Paulson answered, you went to commercial. My question for you is: Why did you cut to commercial without running the rest of the story? Why were we denied that answer? There is no accountability and no explanation…no prosecution and no restitution for people who cannot afford an attorney and will never recover their lives and what they lost. Those of us who were victims of the fraud which was originated by and perpetuated by these banks want to know why our government will not prosecute or help us directly. We want to know why the heads of these banks are walking away with their ill-gotten gain and hundreds of millions in bonuses when people like me have been destroyed by their fraudulent acts and company policies that set us up. We want to know why we were stymied at every turn with every agency at local, state and Federal level in our pursuit of justice with every form of proof necessary to prevail in our possession. Governor Spitzer spoke up about the Federal interference with State investigation and prosecution of these crimes and look where he wound up less than a month later. Funny they investigated and prosecuted him while arguably half of the people who went after him are guilty of the same or worse. My case starts with builder, mortgage and title fraud and includes open city racketeering/complicity, Federal cover ups and interference with prosecution, lack of State agency assistance, cleaned court transcripts and judicial misconduct. The origination broker was motivated by the high-yield premiums and easy acquisition of loans due to the structure provided by the banks and mortgage companies. The motivation was pure profits and their political and official cronies sat back and either participated directly or refused to do anything about it. Key elements of the mortgage were either misrepresented or not disclosed. I depended upon the professional advice and the laws and ethics codes to guide my decision and protect me. The payments and long term goals and expectations were comfortably attainable and made sense to me as they were ‘sold’. I had no idea that the structure my broker presented was designed to obtain approval by the mortgage company while I expected the bank to know better than I what I could and should be approved for. I provided the required documentation, but feel that my overall situation was either misrepresented or the bank did not care because of the pure profit involved. I did not know until much later that the sales pitches presented by the supposed independent broker were based on a builder training program which he attended and which was designed to keep me tied to the over-priced and inflated value of the new home. The appraisal was puffed at the very last minute because I refused to close when told that I needed to bring a much higher amount to closing. I had excellent credit and income and did not need to be ‘sold’ into a sub-prime mortgage other than for the purposes of a greedy mortgage broker and the banks and mortgage servicer involved. For most of these scams to succeed, all the players who profit from the sale of a home had to be working together to gain the confidence of the buyer and feed them to the next predator in the deal. The Fed and the Federal Government knew what was going on and did nothing. Politicians and local officials benefited from a variety of ‘rewards’ from the build-out through to the end game. The HUD office in Washington confirmed knowledge of all the ‘players’ in my deal and used my information to pursue yet another investigation in RESPA charges against one of the largest and oldest title companies in the country and even warned me to be careful for my personal safety. Millions of fines and back room deals and hidden results regarding these players do nothing to alter the fraud they commit daily against unsuspecting and trusting consumers. HUD was happy to use my documents and told me my docs made their case…BUT, I and the fifteen neighbors who brought stories and proof to the table were told that the statute had run out for most of us and HUD could not access victim restitution funds on our behalf. They could use the millions in fines to supplement their salaries which are paid by tax-payers and they could use those fines to build impressive and comfortable headquarters with gyms and relaxation rooms and dining rooms, but what about the victim’s damages? The fines are not large enough to deter the criminal behavior which continues as the investigations for the same offenses are opened and run concurrently to the latest ‘Settlement Agreements’. These disciplinary actions are impossible to find and the public has no hope of discovering what they need to know to protect themselves from known criminals. Statutes of Limitations in these types of cases that normally take much longer for the violations to be discovered should be eliminated, particularly when the fraudsters are known and found guilty on a repeated basis. The final insult and injury is to sit by and endure the massive bail out of these crooks with tax payers’ money while all of us are paying dearly in one way or another for the fraud responsible for bringing down the economy. The heads of these companies are not held accountable and they walk away with huge bank accounts from the fraud they committed. There are too many comments by people who were not victimized and by newscasters which put the blame on the individuals in these cases. The victims include honest, intelligent, highly educated people who had no idea what they were being set up for. How many people know that the scenario was pre-meditated? How many know that the moment we signed those documents, we are reported as Class C accounts in a hidden code on our credit bureau? I learned of this from a credit company who was kind enough to tell me about it while telling me I had a perfect record with EMC(LaSalle Bank/Bear Stearns) who had put this code on my account and while I had a perfect payment history with all my other accounts. Class C means bad collection account. This is a set up to ruin your credit and ability to borrow money; it is specifically designed to prevent your ability to refinance the ARM before it goes up and you don’t even know why because it is hidden. Destruction of your credit also limits your ability to obtain legal counsel when the crooks come after your home. EMC/LaSalle Bank/Bear Stearns are in actuality one and the same and yet they operate as separate companies while moving forward with the theft of your home and tell the courts they don’t even know who the other party is. When caught lying and committing fraud upon the court and obstructing justice; the crooked judges rule in their favor. Are there any ethical and educated attorneys out there who are willing to make an honest dollar? Apparently not…too many of them are in league with the crooks and making millions off the backs of innocent victims. These cases are complicated and the number of players adds to the possibility of ‘conflicts of interest’ for lawyers who have handled cases for one or more of the crooks. The rest want a monthly retainer to pay their salaries while they string their clients along, advise them badly and ‘lose’ the case once they have pocketed the last dime of the current ‘victim’. In my case, as in others, EMC (Bear Stearns) promised not to foreclose and work with me while I expended all the time and effort fighting the builder and title issues which created encumbrances, destroyed my property value and prevented my legal conveyance of the property to protect myself. While the city openly aided the builder and allowed violations of building codes, muni codes and city drafted deed restrictions and Homeowner Association documents without following legal process of obtaining variances and such and while the builder sent extortion letters to me and made extortive and coercive demands and while they filed ‘purchased’ and/or coerced affidavits and ‘dirty hands’ court documents and more…EMC(LaSalle Bank/Bear Stearns) acknowledged that my efforts would benefit them. Their advice that I not file bankruptcy and not incur any expense other than fighting for my property and rights was merely given to facilitate their hitting me broadside with an unexpected foreclosure. How many know that a large number of foreclosures were accomplished with pre-designed and bogus bank ‘mistakes’ which stripped many people of homes they had paid timely on for many years. These escrow and payment ‘irregularities’ are played out while the borrower does everything they can to fix the problem while the bank has no intention to do so. When news reporters ran these stories with evidence and victim’s interviews locally several years ago…the station which just happens to be owned by a big bank fired the reporter and the series on this fraud was never finished. It was all spelled out and then squashed and now we are in this huge economical crisis. By the way, millions of people bought the shoddy homes and signed the fraudulent loans after these abuses were brought into the light of day; and nobody knew??? Insiders at EMC (servicer), attorney in fact for LaSalle Bank for Bear Stearns, call the victims Joe and Judy Jerk and they laugh in their meetings while they decide who to foreclose on this month and call it ‘whacking baby seals’; because they know these people are innocent and have no idea what is coming. EMC is a known foreclosure mill to whom ‘packages’ of mortgages are sold as collection accounts which are in actuality being paid timely at the time the mortgages are ‘transferred’. They follow a modus operandi which has been documented by one victim after another who is dazed and confused by the time they are thrown out in the street…some at gunpoint with no due process at all. Bear Stearns’s ‘stellar financial reputation’ was a lie perpetuated by the FEDs who already knew about the illegal activities. I actually brought my documents and proof into the courtroom and to the local FBI. Many other victims have done so. The banks and Federal agencies visit the websites where these stories are detailed on a regular basis. But they did not have to read my documents or visit the websites…they already knew. If you are going to run a story…try doing so with some ethics and a full range of the facts for a change. People like me who followed the rules and did everything the right way to fix a bad situation we did not cause and wound up decimated feel that our taxes should be expended directly to help us and that the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the wanton destruction that has been wrought upon us, our country and the general economy. After being publicly flogged by a judge and ordered to obtain an attorney while I cried and explained how terribly ill I was, I went to North Texas Legal Aid as directed and was told they did not have the resources to help me! They and every other legal aid group I called actually asked if I was an ILLEGAL immigrant, certified disabled, black or other minority, etc. When I answered those questions with “NO”, they refused to help even though they are funded with my and the average American’s taxes. I have not even touched on all the details of my story or what I have, unfortunately, learned in the past few years. I can prove everything I say and after spending several months homeless, sick and incredulous over how I could be in such a terrible situation after fifty three years of hard work and honest living; I tell my story constantly with names and details. I used to believe in the system and continue to inform others and fight the good fight while I try desperately to rebuild a living from my sixteen year employment with the same company. Due to all the issues with my new home and the massive fraud along with extended food poisoning from Peter Pan Peanut Butter; I lost most of my business and am unable to function as I did prior to the illness and destruction. If not for the problems I was dealing with I would not have eaten peanut butter because I don’t really like it. If not for the tainted peanut butter, I would not have been too sick to work or fight the legal battles more effectively. I thought I was being deliberately poisoned for over a year and it turned out to be the most innocuous and healthy snack on the planet…so we thought. Had the FDA followed up on the discovery of rat droppings, plastic, hair and whatnot in the peanut butter in October 2004, many people would not have gotten sick or died. I now have a painful and debilitating auto-immune syndrome which is caused by Salmonella and because of the duration of symptoms; appears to be a permanent condition. I am currently on the verge of losing my car and in constant fear of being homeless due to fear of not being able to pay my rent. I’m in straight commission sales with no family…figure it out. I raised my son and managed my life very well until all this occurred and it was all ‘known’ by everyone but the victims and preventable. How do interest rate cuts help the real victims…including those who are losing their jobs from related backlash…who could not borrow money if they wanted to due to the ruination of their credit? We are talking about 20 million or so by the end of the year according to estimates. How will mortgage assistance help those of us who have already lost our homes and have nothing left? How will handing the crooks money and letting them draft forbearance agreements which only make it easier to steal homes going to help people in danger of losing their homes? How does a person with foreclosure and eviction in their credit file even rent an apartment when eviction is the one thing that precludes a rental application from being approved? How in the hell is confidence and stability going to be attained while intelligent Americans watch the stupidity and corruption? We can’t recover if our taxes are used to ‘bail-out’ the crooks and nothing is done to stabilize the average tax-paying, home buying contributory citizens. This is forcing us into a Socialist/Communist mentality. People who could never have imagined asking the government for anything are desperate for help and we are looking at the very situation our parents warned us to be aware of with billions of our dollars supporting illegal aliens and staring down the barrel of destruction while idiots are trying to take away our right to bear arms against the ‘take over of our country’ and the invasion of our homes. Our Fourteenth Amendment right to equal justice in the courts has been trampled into the dust. We are prosecuted for using our voice, so there goes that Amendment. I don’t have to continue here with an example of every Amendment right that is being stolen along with our homes and stability. Our political leaders and legislators and enforcement agents seem to be “Testicularly Challenged” and/or corrupt or merely dumb. I have a question for all of them “Are you stupid, a crook or short on testicles (a coward)?” We listen to you guys, this was your turn to listen… Texas Patriot

Re: Predatory Lending, Builder/Mortgage/Title Fraud/Government complicity

By: Concerned in US
On: 2008-04-30

The writer of Predatory Lending, Builder/Mortgage/Title Fraud/Government complicity also claims to be incapacitated by peanut butter poisoning, how ironic that one poor victim would have every aspect of their life ruined by all the latest “big bullies” on the TV… Is this a professional victim, looking for names, to fill in the blanks, on the checks that will support the rest of their lives? There is no way to verify any facts, no way to know the writers mental capacity, or history of lawsuits. There are many signs in this writing that would point to the possibility this person is a professional victim. There are common themes and overtones amongst professional victims, and if you study a multitude of their stories, you can see the common elements that usually include, describing all encompassing events, such as the reason their “lives are ruined”. They often list multiple entities that act in cooperation, in a conspiracy like manner, with malice intent purposed to personally destroy them, and succeeding despite their overwhelming struggle. It usually includes many emotional references and all inclusive statements that could not be completely true, and generally refer to their emotional state, like “destroyed our lives” or “ruined us forever”. What is usually missing, are rational, specific, statements like “it cost us $4724 extra”, or it took “6 months longer than promised”. There are many motives for professional victims, to make preposterous claims, ranging most commonly from mental illness causing delusions of paranoia, to fraud schemes worked for a profit, to the need to find blame for whatever is perceived to be “wrong” with their life. Victims forums, offer support for free speech, which is the foundation for our country, and necessary for growth and understanding, however nothing is verified or documented to be true, so the forum is used by both legitimate victims, as well as those trying to work the system to turn a profit, or have other motivations to make untrue claims. This writer mentions repeatedly all of the common elements that would indicate they may suffer from mental illness or have some other motivation for sharing this information besides protecting consumers or championing truth and justice. I write this because it is important to recognize when this occurs, and because false reports from professional victims, do great damage to the overall effort to eliminate predatory lending & widespread fraud, impeding legitimate efforts to discover and prosecute on behalf of true victims.

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