Popular Blogger Scoops Press on Continuing Betrayal of Foreclosed Homeowners and Orchestrated Coverup by Federal Officials, Bank of America

Popular Blogger Scoops Press on Continuing Betrayal of Foreclosed Homeowners and Orchestrated Coverup by Federal Officials, Bank of America

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Yves Smith, founder of the extremely popular economics blog, Naked Capitalism, today published major new installments in her ongoing investigative report on the “foreclosure review process which was set forth in consent orders issued in April 2010.” Her report is entitled, “Bank of America Foreclosure Reviews: Whistleblowers Reveal Extensive Borrower Harm and Orchestrated Coverup.”

Here’s the opening paragraph in her executive summary:

On January 7, ten servicers entered into an $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, terminating a foreclosure review process which was set forth in consent orders issued in April 2010. Borrowers who had had foreclosures that were pending or had completed foreclosure sales in 2009 and 2010 could request an investigation by independent reviewers, selected and paid for by the servicers but subject to approval by the OCC.

Yves conducted extensive interviews with whistleblowers who had been employed by Bank of America to help conduct the foreclosure review process, a process which most of them eventually came to believe was a sham.

OCC/Federal Reserve foreclosure reviews meant to provide compensation to abused homeowners were abruptly shut down at the beginning of January as the result of a settlement with ten major servicers. Whistleblowers from the biggest, Bank of America, provide compelling evidence that the bank and its independent consultant, Promontory Financial Group, went to considerable lengths to suppress any findings of harm to homeowners.

These whistleblowers, who reviewed over 1600 files and tested hundreds more in the attenuated start up period, saw abundant evidence of serious damage to borrowers. Their estimates vary because they performed different tests and thus focused on different records and issues. When asked to estimate the percentage of harm and serious harm they found, the lowest estimate of harm was 30% and the majority estimated harm at or over 90%. Their estimates of serious harm ranged from 10% to 80%.

We found four basic problems:

  • The reviews showed that Bank of America engaged in certain types of abuses systematically.
  • The review process itself lacked integrity due to Promontory delegating most of its work to Bank of America, and that work in turn depended on records that were often incomplete and unreliable. Chaotic implementation of the project itself only made a bad situation worse.
  • Bank of America strove to suppress and minimize evidence of damage to borrowers.
  • Promontory had multiple conflicts of interest and little to no relevant expertise.

We discuss the second major finding below.

Past whistleblower leaks from Bank of America and other reviews have pointed out how frequent changes to the review process, both from the OCC and from the independent reviewers, made the process disorderly. This confusion is likely to serve as a convenient excuse for why the costs of the reviews exploded, which was one of the two major rationales for shutting them down.

Read her complete devastating investigative report in the following installments:

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4 thoughts on “Popular Blogger Scoops Press on Continuing Betrayal of Foreclosed Homeowners and Orchestrated Coverup by Federal Officials, Bank of America”

  1. From the report:

    “One widespread complaint was that the servicers asked for borrower information, the borrower would fax it to the number given, the bank would then claim they had not gotten it, and would ask for it again, with this cycle repeating not once, but four, five or more times until the borrower was foreclosed upon. To add insult to injury, the justification often was that the borrower had failed to send in the requested documents. The reviewers found numerous examples where they could find notes of borrowers calling in to make sure documents were received, and the reviewer could find the records every time, but the borrower was told they could not be located. And that was far from the only problem … “

  2. Is there any doubt that corporations rule this land? Eric Holder must accept the blame for not prosecuting those firms which accepted Tim Geithner’s largesse with no strings attached and then did what they wanted. But his boss is the real problem here, as Obama has talked the liberal talk but walked the conservative walk. Could the campaign donations be at the root of such freedom from the law?

  4. Though all the polls continue to show that, on the issues, the majority of Americans hold progressive views we continue to see lassitude, ennui, poor numbers at the voting booths and a stunning lack of participation in the system. Democracy is a participatory sport and we see the effects of this lack of participation in the taker over of our governing processes by the corporations.

    All power resides with the people, and always has. Yet we refuse to use that power to restore our nation to its rightful place as a champion of all rather than an extension of the profit motive. Why, I cannot help but wonder, do we allow a President with blood up to his elbows continue an obviously fruitless war, to assassinate American citizens without recourse to due process ( three and counting), stifle the Justice Depts. investigations of wrong doing among our business leaders and ignore the growing needs of the disenfranchised, the poor, the children and the elderly?

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