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Congressman Grayson: "Breaking and Entering Does Not Become Legal Just Because a Big Bank Does It. The Rule of Law Must Apply Equally to Everyone"
Congressman Alan Grayson's office sent me the following statement by the Congressman on the rampant foreclosure fraud, and the unlawful breaking and entering into people's homes by the banks:
First
we see systemic fraud in the foreclosure process. Now we're literally
seeing banks breaking into people’s homes and terrifying homeowners.
The big banks claim these confrontations are a result of innocent
errors. Come on! How many times are we going to force a woman to cower
in her bathroom for fifteen minutes and dial 911 while a man breaks
into a home, before we do something about it?Breaking and
entering does not become legal just because a big bank does it. The
rule of law must apply equally to everyone. It's long past time to halt
this blatantly illegal activity. We need investigation and law
enforcement, not coddling of failed institutions. We need justice for
all.
In releated news, Conyers and Kilpatrick Demand Lenders Extend Housing Foreclosure Moratorium to Michigan; No More Foreclosures Until Fraudulent Paperwork is Resolved:
Sent to me by a friend on the Hill.
From the office of: Fourteenth District, Michigan
Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Chairman, House Judiciary Committee
Dean, Congressional Black Caucus
Press Release
Conyers
and Kilpatrick Demand Lenders Extend Housing Foreclosure Moratorium to
Michigan; No More Foreclosures Until Fraudulent Paperwork is Resolved
Contact: Nicole Triplett
202-226-5543
Washington,
DC- Today, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (MI-14) and Congresswoman
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (MI-13) called on lenders to extend their
foreclosure moratorium to Michigan and other states and to cease
administering foreclosures until the problem of fraudulent paperwork is
resolved.
The revelation that large mortgage lenders may have
been evicting families from their homes based on flawed and erroneous
documentation is no small matter. These lenders may have presented
false affidavits - that is, sworn legal testimony - in thousands of
cases fraudulently stating that a homeowner was in default or that the
lender had the legal right to foreclose on the property, without the
proper verification of the facts asserted in those affidavits.
Moreover, the admission by these lenders of inaccurate documentation
raises broader questions about whether they are proceeding with
foreclosures in non-judicial foreclosure states based on faulty
documentation or information. It is crucial that these lenders are held
accountable.
Michigan is among the hardest-hit foreclosure
states in the Nation. In August 2010, the state’s foreclosure rate
increased 128% over August 2009 and it remains among the top five states
in the Nation in foreclosure totals. Michigan's foreclosure rate rose
29% in the first half of 2010 over the first half of 2009. Metropolitan
Detroit showed an increase of 35% during that same time period, rising
to the highest level since 2007. In July 2010 alone, 1 in 241 housing
units in Michigan received a foreclosure filing. In Wayne County, the
number was 1 in every 158.
In response to numerous recent reports
of false foreclosure affidavits and other apparently fraudulent
activities by home mortgage lenders, Reps. Conyers and Kilpatrick,
today, sought the following actions:
· Lenders
should extend moratoriums on home foreclosures to all states, including
Michigan, rather than just those states with judicially supervised
foreclosures.· Lenders that have initiated moratoriums
should insure that they actually prevent foreclosures rather than just
evictions subsequent to foreclosures.· The Federal
Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
thereby controlling a major portion of mortgages subject to foreclosure
in the U.S., should review its procedures for proper compliance and
also consider initiating a foreclosure moratorium
At the
same time, Conyers announced plans to investigate mortgage lenders to
learn more about their foreclosure practices, including paperwork
violations and false affidavits, and ascertain what can be done to
protect homeowners from possible abuses. As part of this effort,
Conyers is asking the Federal Housing Finance Agency – the federal
agency charged with overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – to ensure
that they abide by the law, to consider initiating a moratorium, and to
conduct an audit of their actions. In addition, Conyers will be calling
upon the DOJ’s Executive Office for U.S. Trustees to investigate the
extent to which false affidavits have been filed in bankruptcy cases by
lenders seeking to foreclose on debtor’s homes.
Thus far, only
three lenders – Ally Financial (parent of GMAC Mortgage), Bank of
America, and JP Morgan Chase – have ceased post-foreclosure enforcement
actions in 23 states that have court- controlled foreclosure
proceedings: Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico,
New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Even those
lenders appear to have only ceased evictions, while they continue to
engage in foreclosures, which take title from homeowners.
At this
point Michigan and 26 other states are not on the moratorium list for
these lenders, purportedly because they have a non-judicial foreclosure
process. However, without judicial oversight, the possibility of abuse
can be even greater in these states. As a result, elected state
officials in non-judicial foreclosure states such as California,
Colorado, Texas, Massachusetts, and Maryland have recently asked lenders
to suspend their foreclosures.
Widespread concern about
documentation abuses in the mortgage industry is not limited to state
officials. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of
the California congressional delegation called on the Justice
Department, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve to
investigate large mortgage lenders’ handling of delinquent mortgages,
mortgage modifications, and foreclosures. Additionally, Senators Robert
Menendez (NJ) and Al Franken (MN) called on the Government
Accountability Office to investigate the role of federal government
entities charged with overseeing the mortgage lending industry to
determine how they allowed lenders’ misconduct to occur without
detection for so long. Also, Members of Congress from Maryland and
Arizona – two non-judicial foreclosure states - called on large lenders
to halt foreclosures in their states.
“It makes little sense to
limit the moratoriums to judicial foreclosure states when many of the
same errors and paperwork flaws likely plague non-foreclosure states,”
said Conyers. “When the very same lenders that ignored the rules which
helped get us into the real estate bubble are placed in charge of the
foreclosures that are exacerbating the problem, locking millions of
Americans in a financial trap they cannot escape from, we have a
situation that is spiraling out of control and cries out for
intervention.”
“Given the depth of the financial calamity in
Michigan and other states, the huge number of foreclosures, and the
chain reaction of problems involving foreclosures that has impacted
communities and individuals, I would urge home mortgage lenders to cease
their foreclosure activities,” said Conyers. “Rather than spending
their time running mass production foreclosure mills, the lenders should
be working with individuals to keep families in their homes and
restructure their loans.”
“Home foreclosures affect individual
families and devastate entire communities,” said Congresswoman
Kilpatrick. “For home foreclosures to proceed under false pretenses is
patently unwarranted and unfair. I am proud to join one of the founders
of the CBC and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in this
clarion call for justice, fairness, and equality to Michiganders and all
Americans.”
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Yeah, had an insurance company force the hospital to try and shake me down for the anesthesiologist bill (biggest single item).
Back and forth, back and forth, threatened to call in my lawyer and they shut up and payed.
Hosptial billing mananger told me the insurance company did it on a regular basis to milk the cash out of frightened consumers who didn't know better.
$798 back in 1993, times that by 50,000 shakedowns in the D.C. Metropolitian area and someone was getting a big bonus check.
Our whole system needs to be torn down.
In Florida the law is that a creditor loses its rights after 7 years on anything unsecured; e.g a medical bill.
"I've had a couple of instances in the last few months of debt collection agencies calling me to try to coerce payment of debts that were paid off five to seven years before."
Reading that statement immediately brought to mind a situation I found myself in several years ago. One day out of the blue I got a call from the criminal investigation division of the IRS regarding a telemarketing scam that had been operating with my stolen identity. As it turns out the call was merely a formality, the agent who called said that the particulars of the fraud were already known and I was not really suspected of any involvement. He told me at the conclusion of the call that the IRS would take care of the matter of the unpaid telephone bills and not to worry about it. Unfortunately they failed to delete the bill in accounts payable at the phone company and it was eventually turned over to a private collection agency. During the next five years I had to defend myself against credit collectors who sought payment for the unpaid account on three separate occasions. As it turns out bad debt information can rest like a virus in some podunk collection agency and once that information is accessed it will go out and reinfect the big three credit agencies because the information is shared. Each time it required a great deal of time and frustration getting the credit smear erased from my records. It is very difficult to prove a negative. What evidence can you show that you have never been somewhere or done something if you haven't been there or done it? Talk about a pain in the ass. After the third go around the residual accounts payable entry came to light and I finally got some relief when the phone company deleted it. I feel sorry for anybody that gets into a situation where a false credit bill gets into a credit score in this day and age as poor as the bank records appear to be.
Your are spot on, spot on. Thats exactly what they are doing. They are trying to get their money (the executives and big stockholders) out and then allow it to fold up and let the govt. pay the expense of a bad bank. Also I've always wondered about that process of loans or debt being sold to another entity while the original holder got the debt written off. The way I look at it and it has worked is that I tell them (if they get my number) that I've paid that debt and/or it's not mine, regardless if I did or didn't. If they don't believe it or want documentation or something from me, I tell them to take me to court and don't correspond with me anymore. Now they have to figure is I told them the truth or not, but that doesn't matter. Because that zombie debt has been wrote off and that bill collector may be the third or fourth party to hold this debt and are trying to collect on a contractual debt that wasn't done with them. You can't do it with school loans because they still have the ability to take your tax returns (thats how they know where you are and the Fed has given companies that deal with student collections alot of powers) and garnish your check. But I see that essentially they are going to either make amends on the student loan (pay for a number of years (5 or 6) and then you owe nothing) or allow for students to discharge the debt in bankruptcy. The first cracks have already started, they now have allowed you to pay on your student loan 10 percent of your monthy income. This is a big change and it will continue.
Zombie debt is running around all over the place and it's a big business. But what many companies try to do is to get the money for little effort. If as I said before you tell them that take me to court etc. etc., they may wonder if all the effort that I go to take them to court and the expense to find out that they don't owe on this debt or I can't collect. They move on. Thats why I see this economic rebound not happening, because the people who would be buying those hundred or more thousand dollar houses who got out of college have debt from their loans that is close to the amount of a house. Then the same people and others can't find jobs that will give them the extra income to pay on their debt and buy a house. This christmas is going to be a bad one, because people have no money because they have to much debt and there are no jobs to find.
You're on to something, Buck. I'm a "boomer" bankruptcy attorney and I see clear evidence that we are sowing the seeds of our own financial destitution.
First, wages. Almost all of the productivity improvements of the past 25 years have gone to capital, not labor. Inflation-adjusted wages are no higher (and in some cases are lower) than they were 25 years ago.
Second, benefits. Boomer union workers have their benefits and pensions "grandfathered" in while all cuts are borne by Gen-X and younger workers. Boomer government workers, same thing (the cut-off is presently at about 60 for most federal jobs). Those older than 60 get traditional pensions, those younger have more restricted benefits.
Third, cost of education. When I was young my student loans were modest because tuition was modest. And if I got into trouble the debt was dischargeable if I could show hardship. This has all changed in the last 10 years. Six figure student loans are becoming the norm and they are never dischargeable no matter what the hardship. When today's students retire and collect Social Security, what little they receive will be directly taken to repay their 45 year old student loans with interest ---- the only type of debt (other than the IRS) that can be directly collected from Social Security benefits.
Fourth, foreign competition. When I was young, I needed to compete only with workers in developed countries. Today's young must compete with developing countries whose workers are often paid slave wages. This is insane. I see Boomer parents who think they are doing the right thing by telling their children to borrow $100k for a computer science degree so they can compete for jobs paying $3.50 a day. I've told them that they should instead send their kid to trade school to be a BMW mechanic and they think I'm crazy. They just don't get it.
In short, when we start seeing the inevitable government belt-tightening in the coming decade, you can bet that almost all the pain will be visited upon younger workers on the theory that they have "time to make it up". But no such "making it up" will ever occur because today's young workers, unlike the boomers, are directly competing with foreign wages that are one-tenth of ours. Of course, we boomers will eventually get what's coming to us when we try to sell our McMansions to our burger-flipping children and they can only afford to pay us one-tenth of the home's "real" value.
Remember,if they bankrupt their customers, capital don't have a return.
... but the derivatives do - and that is where the real action is!
This reminds me of the "Production in China"-scam. In order to sell in the Chinese market, you have to set up a joint-venture with Chinese cronies and give them majority interest in the business. Basically, your are giving them all the IP and basically the entire business should they desire to use their majority votes on the board and hire some new management.
All this Just to be allowed to produce and sell a product inside China. Why would anyone do such an insane thing??
Because of the "derivatives". The real profits are not made by selling products inside China. Instead they are made by growth in turnover, a huge potential market and the "coolness" of doing business in an economy growing at 10% p/a (according to the offical made-up statistics). All those can be leveraged with new stock isssues and other kinds of debt which creates the cash-flow from which the obscene bonuses for management are skimmed via stock options and similar transfer mechanisms. In principle, the shareholders own the business and the IP freely given away to the Chinese, In reality nobody cares about shareholders (and most are too stupid anyway, they are just happy to get 2% dividend instead of 0.14% interest).
As the icing on the cake, one can take out CDS against the Chinese subsidiary for when it goes bust. It's not like anyone from the outside can get in and investigate Chinese accounting anyway.
These comments were excellent- some of the best i have read here. Student loans are a horrible indentured servitude scam. Creating money supply as credit from the youth. Obama wanted to expand Pell grants!
Education, it has a price limit. People need to understand that knowledge is not 4 years at some puppy mill like Dartmouth
kitty mill like princeton (class of '70).
Rise up countrymen and women!
Goodrich/buck+++1.......wll said thank you