Mortgage scams on rise, net millions for fraudsters in US: FBI

Source: Yahoo (AFP)



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080513/bs_afp/usfraudpropertyfinance_080513214842;_ylt=Ag.xZIydCzLXOz0JvKNOZTis0NUE

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This should be a sticky post on DU. The world appears to know and understand this, let the 'personal responsibility' noise die.

I'm glad it's being acknowledged. Although I don't agree with the analysis -- often the victims are also the accessories in this corruption. The real victims are people who tried being honest.

K&R

and it wasn't limited to mortgage lenders. Credit Cards, Student Loans (especially), you name it and it was (and is)
being gamed.

What incredible timing his downfall had, no?

Oh my, what will Republicans say now..all I ever hear is that the borrower is the slime here and how the lenders were forced to give loans to undeserving, unqualified borrowers! Lets see how many will end up in jail..will the proportions be the same as those who go to jail for possession of crack vs.cocaine? When pigs fly maybe.

Seriously, my credit rating is so bad it gets me treated like a terrorist at airports--and I wish I were kidding about that.

Yet, in 2002, a real estate agent wasted an entire evening of my time trying to talk me into buying a shitty apartment that I couldn't afford to rent. And yes, the prospect of an illegal kickback was dangled in front of me.

After that, I knew for certain that the real estate bubble was bound to burst. I'm just surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I have continually heard from Republicans on political forums how this was the borrowers fault..the government basically forced these lenders to give bad loans.Unbelievable!

sofa king was responsible enough to know his/her own situation, and to know that what was offered was not affordable. Lots of people, though, were so blinded by their "I want it NOW, daddy!" mentality that they neglected to read their mortgage contracts before signing, or worse, read them, knew of the lies, and signed anyway. Yes, lenders are guilty. But borrowers are guilty, too. Lots of them. Which is what makes Barney Frank's embarrassment of a bailout bill so wrong. Responsible homeowners should not be required to pick up the tab for irresponsible and/or greedy people who fail to live up to their contract obligations. Let the foreclosures happen. Correct the values in the real-estate market. There is no good argument for artificially propping up inflated home values by allowing people to occupy properties they never could afford and expecting taxpayers to foot the bill.

Now go ahead and call me a heartless republican bastard. I can take the criticism, because my stand on this issue is proper economically and morally.

How economically and morally responsible was it for the U.S. Treasury to bail out Bear Stearns, Citibank... Chrysler?

I'm interested in your take on it.

Ameriquest lawsuit settlement, as they found lenders adding assets to the applications without the borrowers knowledge. You are OK with the Bears Stearns bailout, not the borrowers, is that right?

According to him, the billionaire financial guys were the honest and trustworthy ones who where duped by dirty low down low income homeowners.

Sorry that my post was misleading.

Tough Luck is okay
Lance Boil is the leader of the blame the victim crowd.

where are my damn glasses?

My FIL was always generous and compassionate with us and the grandchildren. But Dad refused to acknowledge that his illness was terminal. Because he was religious, he insisted that the good Lord would cure him. He also lived according to the tenant to "have no thought for the morrow...considering the sparrows as it were...suddenly his kidneys were going to function again and he would drive, mow his grass, cook roast beef and taters in immortality...If Nanna had been the last to go, she would have had a whopping $16,000 to augment her meager SS, so guess what Gramps thought should happen in that case. Meanwhile, his only child must continue to believe that there isn't at least one IT job left in America that isn't being made redundant or outsourced. At 61, it's too late to start a new career except as a Wal-mart greeter. Although in good health now...what's the odds that will continue...Hemlock's looking better and better.

Now Gramps is dead and we are about to be homeless because we entertained his fantasies as pay-back on the years of care that parents give their children instead of cutting him off from the families "care" and leaving him with what the government would provide on the backs of the taxpayers: $40 a month from his SS. I confess that he's the one that saved us once again, for a while, though in vain.

Save for an attempted rescue by our SIL who BTW just lost his job when new owners demanded a $10,000 cut in his pay with a tripling of his "territory" for a mere $50 more in gas allowances. You can see where this is headed...and there are so many literary guides one could cite:

The Grapes of Wrath revisited.

Yep, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Just took the last train for the coast.
The day that "music" died.

So, bye-bye Miss American Pie - Hello Tom Joad.

So go ahead: keep up that sanctimonius litany: We deserve the rape of our fortunes we've all behaved like Blanche DuBois instead of the oh-so-smart brute Polack and pregnant shoeless sister Stella, except you haven't.

Streetcar Named Desire - "dependent on the kindness of strangers" in LaLa land for doing what society in the past said was right - actually fighting like hell to keep Belle Reve and caring for sick parents instead of running off and over the balcony railing or walking out the front door with a bus ticket to NOLA.

Williams' "Death of a Salesman" - the shame of not keeping up with....just not good enough; just bad timing...just too chicken to make it REALLY work by preying on those shopkeepers and homeowners with defective products that make put the commissions in your pocket.

My daughters and I, in our subservient, helper/slave status are now the breadwinners. Our men are finished...but don't worry, be happy...it's just a phase...a temporary situation...not a permanet resolution that will turn around in my lifetime, or my kids'...

Please pass the Hemlock!

stupid.

sorry, i'm not buying what you're selling. i've been in real estate since i was a child, helping my parents with rental properties. i was investing at the time of the bubble blowing up and ran into quite a few of these crooked mortgage brokers using every kind of hard sell to steer my business into exotic loans. i'm an intelligent, well educated person with lots of experience in real estate and tried to learn about the vehicles they were pushing, but there was NO ink/research/basic information to be found on these instruments. my real estate agent had not heard of these instruments. when i pointed out to him what the numbers would be on an investment property, he became an ardent supporter of these loans -- steering his business to this broker.

turned out, i decided not to buy at the time. but i had the luxury of choice. people who had to relocate for a job or for family didn't have that choice. if they were in the market at the time, they would have been steered into these loans with everyone cheering them on, and NO INFORMATION "out there on the web" to balance their decision. lets say they already owned a home and had to maintain two mortgages, waiting for one to sell. they were prime targets for exotic loans b/c their cash flow was limited. they went into these agreements with eyes wide open -- with no contraindication for them taking the exotic-type loan.

i''m not going to call you a "heartless republican bastard." i'm sure you are reacting to your own particular experience (whether that's NOT having financial trouble, or having PLENTY). instead, i think you are uneducated in terms of your own self-interest. it's not in your self-interest for every other house in your neighborhood to be vacant; or for the value of your house to drop 20, 40 or 50%. your wish that the "immoral and ignorant guilty parties" get their due, is wildly not in your interest.

but -- that's not what the OP is about, is it. it's about mortgage FRAUD perpetrated by brokers, agents and crooks bringing dirty deals to these professionals. my fiancé is a real estate atty who works to ferret out this fraud, get the mortgages paid off and bring the criminals to some sort of justice. had i done business with this "exotic loan dealer," there's a big chance that he would have funded my loan and then not paid off the first holder. that's how the fraud works. sometime later -- possibly when i wanted to sell the house, during my title search i would have found out that the first mortgage wasn't satisfied. suddenly i would be responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and he would be long gone, probably to the islands in the Caribbean (which is where most of these people are right now).

This mess was caused by wild deregulation. People entering into high finance (buying a house is a great example) DEPEND on their team of professionals to educate and advocate for them. that's why we pay those high commissions. brokers and agents SELL themselves based on their "experience" and "expertise." so don't tell us the victims are guilty. the victims are not the ones who deserve or merit your derision. it's the people who deregulated and the schemed the system. not the families trying their fucking level best to do the right thing for their families.

and yet--i stop short of calling YOU immoral and stupid. you're just another of the masses that has bought the myth of rugged individualism hook, line and sinker. you're as much of a victim as the people who have lost their homes and life savings.

At least in the sense that I had a job which allowed me to rent a place of my own. Since then only my miraculous good fortune and some fine kin have kept a very nice roof over my head, save for a few nights under a bridge here and there. Hey, you go into Indian Affairs knowing that when the Republicans get in the White House, you're going on a four to eight year unpaid vacation. And so it went.

If I had taken that loan it sure as hell would have been my fault, because I know myself well enough to know I can't balance a checkbook, much less cover a mortgage. Others, however, are probably not so self-loathing and introspective.

The big indiscretion was in offering the loan to me in the first place. Again, it's an ass backwards world where my financial incompetence gets me treated like a criminal at airports, but doesn't preclude me from a predatory loan. I know well enough, but it's obvious there were plenty of people out there who didn't, and what bankers rest their finances on fools like me, anyway?

Bankers who know Uncle Sam will be there with the wet-wipes when the poopy hits the fan, obviously.

Thanks Ronnie and Poppy.