Credit crisis deliberately caused by the regulators
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Reader mail: foreclosure, altered loan docs and 10% interest rate
miss christine, i visit your web i have a few questions, i dont know what to do, i dont want to loose my home.
i got stuck with a predetory lender on a interest only loan of 9.95% on 160,000.
the lender added and change information on the loan documents after i sign the loan now he wants to take my home and he serve me with the documents for foreclosere.please were can i go rof help
...
My posting with several links to documentaries about my foreclosure work and lots of resources.
For starters, you need to scan and post the loan documents with and without the changes and your communications with the lender.
At closing all changes are initialed, so it’s easy to prove that they altered the loan docs. And of course you have YOUR copies of the docs and you can also get copies of all docs from the title company.
I’m not aware of anyone who will work for you free of charge.
There is lots of hype about all kinds of help for people in foreclosure, but I’m NOT aware of any credible organization. According to many reports, they’re mostly scams.
Chase just announced that they’ll modify 400,000 loans, don’t know yet how that will work out and whether they’ll only defer interest and add it to the balance.
In my own experience, legal aide type outfits are completely incompetent, but if you have lots of time, you might give them a try.
If you’re subject to judicial foreclosure, file counter claims. If not, you may have to file a lawsuit.
Credit crisis deliberately caused by the regulators • Reader mail • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
53-year old Pasadena woman set her house on fire and killed herself?
Wilting roses remain on the front porch of the boarded-up home of Wanda Dunn, 53, of Pasadena, whose body was found inside the North Wilson Avenue house after a fire.
Pasadena woman facing eviction is found dead in burning home
Firefighters discover the body of Wanda Dunn, 53, in a back room of the house, which was in foreclosure. Police say she had suffered a gunshot wound, and a gun was found nearby.
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 15, 2008A series of financial setbacks left Wanda Dunn facing eviction from the house in Pasadena where her family had lived for generations.
Dunn, 53, told neighbors that she would rather die than leave.
Early Monday, the day of her expected eviction, firefighters pulled her body out of the house as it burned. She apparently had set it on fire before shooting herself in the head, authorities said.“We knew it was going to happen,” said Steve Brooks, who lived across the street. “It was nobody’s fault; it was everybody’s fault.”
As Brooks watched the flames, he noticed that Dunn had left two of her plants on his porch, along with a note: “Please take good care of us or find us a good home.” She also had left several inexpensive toys, along with the name and address of a charity organization.
On Sunday night, Dunn spent hours moving boxes and packing her car, said next-door neighbor Scott Harden. He knew about the foreclosure and eviction, and Dunn’s suicide threat, so he “was on red alert.”
About 5 a.m. the next morning, Harden said he smelled smoke and saw flames in Dunn’s house in the 1000 block of North Wilson Avenue, and immediately called 911.
But Harden said he and other neighbors thought Dunn had already left. He said they were stunned to learn that she was still inside.
“When they brought her out, we were all really surprised,” he said.
The suspected arson fire engulfed the living room and dining room, but firefighters were able to douse the flames within 15 minutes, said Pasadena Fire Marshall Mark Fasick. Firefighters found Dunn in bed in a back room, with a gun lying nearby.
Firefighters tried to revive Dunn and took her to Huntington Hospital, where she was declared dead, Fasick said.
A longtime friend of Dunn was living in her garage at the time of the fire but was unhurt, authorities said.
The stucco house and garage were crowded with newspapers, books and clothes, making it difficult for firefighters to make their way through, Fasick said.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office plans to perform an autopsy this week to determine if Dunn died from the gunshot wound, but Pasadena police Lt. John Dewar said that is the most likely cause and that the death is presumed to be a suicide.
“She was made aware of Monday’s eviction,” he said. “That may have been what precipitated the arson and death.”
Police are still trying to determine the history of the house’s ownership.
Neighbors said Dunn’s grandparents owned the house before it was passed down to her parents and then to Dunn and her sister.
A few years ago, neighbors said, Dunn and her sister took out a loan on the house but couldn’t repay it and had to sell.
The new owner, who let Dunn continue to live there and pay rent, lost the home to foreclosure in May, neighbors said. Washington Mutual bank was listed in property records as the current owner.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials showed up on Dunn’s doorstep a few weeks ago and then again Friday to tell her that she had until Monday to pack up her stuff and go, neighbors said.
Though Dunn kept to herself and rarely participated in neighborhood events, she wasn’t shy about her financial situation. One day a few weeks ago, she showed up on Brooks’ doorstep with a stack of papers about her house and asked for help.
Brooks said he believed that Dunn had previously worked as a nurse, but that she had been unemployed for more than 10 years. He said she didn’t have much money and often kept her house dark, except for one low-watt lightbulb. In the past, Brooks said he had helped mow Dunn’s lawn and fix her water heater.
On Tuesday morning, yellow police tape was wrapped around the house and the windows were boarded up. Smoke had left black marks above the front door and flames had broken at least one window.
The woman living in the garage, Alicia Suarez, packed up some of her belongings and moved them into a storage area. Suarez said she had known Dunn for 30 years and that Dunn was “desperate.”
“She would rather lose her life than lose her house,” Suarez said.
The apparent suicide occurred just one week after a Porter Ranch man having financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children and mother-in-law before taking his own life.
Ken Kondo, a spokesman for the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, said the agency’s crisis hotline recently has received numerous calls about housing, job and financial concerns.
He said people are encouraged to reach out to help friends and family during this time of economic uncertainty. If someone is feeling suicidal, he said, assistance is available at the county’s 24-hour hotline at (800) 854-7771.
“The most important thing is to ask for help,” he said.
This apparent suicide is a little different from the others I’ve recently posted about.
The neighbors and a friend who lived in the house actually KNEW that she was being evicted AND that she wanted to kill herself.
They’re concerned, but not concerned enough to find out where she’s going and what she’s going to do.
I can see how people get attached to houses that have been in the family for many years, but it’s only a HOUSE.
While I don’t expect the people of Pasadena to make mortgage payments for their neighbors, is it really too much to expect someone to care enough to offer a room, help with packing and storing stuff? It all seems so incredibly impersonal.
I’ve had clients and subscribers facing unemployment and foreclosure or eviction and I always encourage single people or couples without kids to look at it as an opportunity to do what you can NOT do while tied down to a house and job.
It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.
A woman with an organic farm in Costa Rica is looking for a person or couple to work about 20 hours a week helping with the farm and maintenance in exchange for room and board with a small stipend. No experience required, she’ll train. I’d LOVE to go!
I have a house to finish and lawsuits to litigate, so I won’t be going anywhere until the litigation is done. But as much as I like my house, now that I know HOW, I can build another and even better house anywhere.
If there was any kind of market, I’d sell and look into communities to buy into, preferably South of the border.
This lifestyle is so unappealing. You know that your neighbor is suicidal and you’re ready to call 911 after she killed herself. Like watching TV, some reality show.
And I wonder who owns the house and ordered the eviction, now that WaMu is no longer.
Who got their REO? The FDIC?
I’m sorry Wanda Dunn killed herself, but at least she set the house on fire.
UPDATE: I just looked at the live post and noticed this Google ad next to the picture of the roses in front of Wanda Dunn’s house:
House Rescue Bill Passed
Calculate New Payment Today! See Rates- No Credit Check Req.
http://www.Refinance.lowermybills.com
In August I noticed all these LowerMyBills.com ads with the headline about the July housing bill and refi info. I applied. Nobody contacted me with any info about the housing bill and special refi rates.
It’s still the same SCAM that greatly contributed to the mortgage crisis. I’ve sued the bastards, I’ve submitted my complaint to the California Department of Real Estate. I’ve posted my heart out.
Nobody gives a damn.
LowerMyBills.com sells the mortgage leads obtained through false advertisements in violation of all mortgage disclosure laws.
The lenders who buy the mortgage leads violate RESPA, paying illegal kickbacks.
LMB is owned by credit bureau Experian. Above the law.
Credit crisis deliberately caused by the regulators • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, October 13, 2008
Suicides due to financial problems - hot lines jammed
Officials: Financial crisis can lead to violence
By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer
An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.
In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family’s mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: “By the time you foreclose on my house, I’ll be dead.”
Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.
Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation’s financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full.
“I’ve had a number of people say that this is the thing most reminiscent of 9/11 that’s happened here since then,” said the Rev. Canon Ann Malonee, vicar at Trinity Church in the heart of New York’s financial district. “It’s that sense of having the rug pulled out from under them.”
With nowhere else to turn, many people are calling suicide-prevention hot lines. The Samaritans of New York have seen calls rise more than 16 percent in the past year, many of them money-related. The Switchboard of Miami has recorded more than 500 foreclosure-related calls this year.
“A lot of people are telling us they are losing everything. They’re losing their homes, they’re going into foreclosure, they’ve lost their jobs,” said Virginia Cervasio, executive director of a suicide resource enter in southwest Florida’s Lee County.
But tragedies keep mounting:
• In Los Angeles last week, a former money manager fatally shot his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law before killing himself.
Karthik Rajaram, 45, left a suicide note saying he was in financial trouble and contemplated killing just himself. But he said he decided to kill his entire family because that was more honorable, police said.
Rajaram once worked for a major accounting firm and for Sony Pictures, and he had been part-owner of a financial holding company. But he had been out of work for several months, police said.
After the murder-suicide, police and mental-health officials in Los Angeles took the unusual step of urging people to seek help for themselves or loved ones if they feel overwhelmed by grim financial news. They said they were specifically afraid of the “copycat phenomenon.”
“This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair,” Deputy Police Chief Michel Moore said. “It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times.”
• In Tennessee, a woman fatally shot herself last week as sheriff’s deputies went to evict her from her foreclosed home.
Pamela Ross, 57, and her husband were fighting foreclosure on their home when sheriff’s deputies in Sevierville came to serve an eviction notice. They were across the street when they heard a gunshot and found Ross dead from a wound to the chest. The case was even more tragic because the couple had recently been granted an extra 10 days to appeal.
• In Akron, Ohio, the 90-year-old widow who shot herself on Oct. 1 is recovering. A congressman told Addie Polk’s story on the House floor before lawmakers voted to approve a $700 billion financial rescue package. Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae dropped the foreclosure, forgave her mortgage and said she could remain in the home.
• In Ocala, Fla., Roland Gore shot his wife and dog in March and then set fire to the couple’s home, which had been in foreclosure, before killing himself. His case was one of several in which people killed spouses or pets, destroyed property or attacked police before taking their own lives.
“The financial stress builds up to the point the person feels they can’t go on, and the person believes their family is better off dead than left without a financial support,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Washington D.C.-based Violence Policy Center.
Dr. Edward Charlesworth, a clinical psychologist in Houston, said the current crisis is breeding a sense of chronic anxiety among people who feel helpless and panic-stricken, as well as angry that their government has let them down.
“They feel like in this great society that we live in we should have more protection for the individuals rather than just the corporation,” he said.
It’s not yet clear there is a statistical link between suicides and the financial downturn since there is generally a two-year lag in national suicide figures. But historically, suicides increase in times of economic hardship. And the current financial crisis is already being called the worst since the Great Depression.
Rising mortgage defaults and falling home values are at the heart of it. More than 4 million Americans were at least one month behind on their mortgages at the end of June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
A record 500,000 had entered the foreclosure process. And that trend is expected to continue through next year, despite the current programs from the government and the lending industry to refinance delinquent homeowners into more affordable loans.
Counselors at Catholic Charities USA report seeing a “significant increase” in the need for housing counseling.
One counselor said half of her clients were on some form of antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. The agency has seen a decrease in overall funding, but it has expanded foreclosure counseling and received nearly $2 million for such services in late 2007.
Adding to financially tense households is an air of secrecy. Experts said it’s common for one spouse to blame the other for their financial mess or to hide it entirely, as Balderrama did.
After falling 3 1/2 years behind in payments, the Taunton, Mass., housewife had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company and shredding them before her husband saw them. She tried to refinance but was declined.
In July, on the day the house was to be auctioned, she faxed the note to the mortgage company. Then the 52-year-old walked outside, shot her three beloved cats and then herself with her husband’s rifle.
Notes left on the table revealed months of planning. She’d picked out her funeral home, laid out the insurance policy and left a note saying, “pay off the house with the insurance money.”
“She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her,” said her husband, John Balderrama. “Apparently she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She didn’t come to me. I don’t know why. There’s gotta be some help out there for people that are hurting, (something better) than to see somebody lose a life over a stupid house.”
Doesn’t life insurance EXCLUDE suicide? You’d think that if it doesn’t, most suicidal people would take out huge policies. Maybe it was supplemental mortgage insurance that you can buy. Since I haven’t had a mortgage in ten years, I don’t know the terms, but I used to get advertisements all the time.
I wonder how many people were wiped out in the stock market. It doesn’t do you any good that the markets rally now if you couldn’t meet your margin calls last week. Some people made a ton of money, but there sure were a lot more losers than winners.
The New World Order.
America “followed” the European strategy to buy into banks. TRILLIONS of dollars are handed to the world’s largest banks and brokerages.
The bankers have been running most of the planet, but now they are formally organizing to rule the world.
A MUST WATCH video: U.S. Army prepares to invade U.S.
Where does that leave YOU?
You’re less important than ever. Your job is to pay taxes and to ensure corporate profits through your labor.
It looks like the Democrats may finally want to do something about the foreclosures, but don’t think for a moment that Pelosi, Obama and Biden care about you. They only care about being elected. They’re wholly owned by the bankers and multi-national corporations.
Hopefully the government will refinance delinquent mortgages and bring the loan amounts down to fair market value. It’s not fair to the people who did NOT take the mortgage money or to the people who PAY their mortgages and it will encourage future reckless borrowing.
The FAIR solution would be to give every person $100,000 to do with as they please and charge it to the banks.
Since that won’t happen, I can only recommend that the near judgment-proof stop paying their credit cards to the major banks. If you HAVE money, don’t deposit it with the LARGE banks, support your LOCAL bank or credit union.
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Saturday, October 11, 2008
Lenders agree: FICO scores caused the credit crisis
From a Business Week article from February:
Credit Scores: Not-So-Magic Numbers
The once-vaunted FICO credit scoring system is now being blamed for failing to flag risky home-loan borrowers. Will an overhaul be enough to appease angry lenders?
by Dean Foust and Aaron Pressman...
Now the credit markets are in disarray, and big mortgage players like HSBC (HBC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Washington Mutual (WM) —perhaps opportunistically—are laying much of the blame at Fair Isaac’s feet, arguing that its score didn’t predict delinquencies as expected. (Meredith Whitney, an analyst at CIBC World Markets, called FICO scores “virtually meaningless” in a December note to clients.) Consumer advocates and state regulators are clamoring for Fair Isaac to disclose its formula. And credit-card providers are beginning to question the score, too. “So many people, I think incorrectly, looked at FICO as being the’ measure of risk,” Discover Financial Services (DFS) Chief Executive David W. Nelms told analysts in December.
Fair Isaac vigorously defends its product. “We don’t think FICO scores have caused or contributed to the subprime mortgage problem,” says CEO Mark N. Greene, a 12-year IBM (IBM) veteran who took the helm at Fair Isaac last February as its problems were becoming apparent. [emphasis added]
...
This must be the article a reader once mentioned in email, but I never had the link. Are there any updates?
I really hope the banks will sue Fair Isaac out of business.
There’s a lot about “credit doctors” in the article. It’s amazing how so many credit repair people engage in illegal activities. Apparently I’m still the only person who can analyze score factors and make recommendations to LEGALLY improve the scores.
I also seem to be the only person who documented that FICO 08 is nothing but a lot of hype and that Authorized User accounts are NOT ignored as Fair Isaac claims.
Maybe Fair Isaac hadn’t figured out yet that AU accounts are STILL rated for account history. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve documented a FICO scoring “bug.”
Fair Isaac programmers can’t even get the correct field labels on the myFICO reports! And that’s first year programming.
Please post or email any articles on possible legal action against Fair Isaac by the banks. FICO scores aren’t the only cause of the credit crisis, but they are a MAJOR cause.
Isn’t it too bad the regulators and legislators ignored and CONTINUE to ignore my research?
Nobody can claim that I didn’t try to prevent the credit crisis. I’ve done all I could do, I’ve given all I had.
EVERYBODY ignored me.
Credit crisis deliberately caused by the regulators • 2003 Suit (appealed, Experian filed credit reports on PACER) • Fair Isaac - credit scoring fraudware • (2) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Investor accused of threatening to blow up Chase bank
Cops: Stamford Man Threatened Bank Over Financial Losses
Last Edited: Wednesday, 08 Oct 2008, 5:49 PM EDT
Created: Wednesday, 08 Oct 2008, 5:49 PM EDTCops say a frustrated man threatened employees at a bank in Connecticut because of his tumbling investments.
MyFoxNY.com — Cops say the Wall Street crisis has had a disturbing affect on one disgruntled investor. Police charged a 60-year-old man with threatening to blow up a bank branch in Stamford. Authorities say he was angry about his investment losses, so he walked into a branch and said he would kill everyone inside.
If you watch the video, you’ll see that he denies threatening to blow up the chase branch and all the people inside. Do they have audio?
The bank employees may just be hysterical. After all, at least 90% of American adults are thinking what you can’t say without getting arrested.
Credit crisis deliberately caused by the regulators • (0) Comments • Permalink
