Money Can't Buy Happiness #JPMC LOVE Your Advertisment. XOXOXOOXOX

This is an interesting advertisement from Chase.

So, I went and found something that I found a little more appropriate to my situation. So, in short...I agree with Chase....kinda the same thing.  :)  LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!

Mother of All Bank Scandals: LIBOR FRAUD

 Are you ready? Mother of All Bank Scandals....I guess that little pesky "housing crisis" was just the beginning." GOOD LORD.

 

LIBOR Fraud May Be the Mother of All Bank Scandals

By James Rickards

July 23, 2012 RSS Feed Print

James Rickards is a hedge fund manager in New York City and the author of “Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis” from Portfolio/Penguin. Follow him on Twitter at @JamesGRickards.
Investors have by now heard of the LIBOR scandal engulfing the banking industry. LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. To some it may be just the latest entry on a list of bank frauds and blunders in recent years, from mortgage scams to MF Global and the London Whale.
In fact, this may be the mother of all scandals—the one that finally leads to criminal charges and the insolvency of major banks. The fraud is breathtakingly easy to understand once past a small amount of jargon. Indeed, the simplicity of the fraud is the greatest threat to the perpetrators because here at last is a fraud that is easy for juries to understand and for prosecutors to prove.
LIBOR is the interest rate at which top-tier banks in London offer to lend to each other on an unsecured basis. The loans are usually short term, typically a day, a week, or several months. Historically the banks in the LIBOR market were among the strongest credits in the world and this type of lending was considered extremely low risk. As a result, LIBOR was among the lowest interest rates available in the market. Other interest rates including corporate loans were benchmarked to LIBOR and expressed as a spread, such as LIBOR plus 1 percent. LIBOR became the base rate used in calculating a vast number of other products and transactions.
[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]
LIBOR is set by a committee of banks sending their estimates of the rate at which they could borrow to a trade association. The banks on the committee are among the largest in the world including J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and Bank of America. The trade association would discard the highest and lowest rates and average the rest to arrive at the official LIBOR. This would then be published on financial news services. Payments due under LIBOR transactions would be calculated using that published rate.
We now know that some of the banks on the committee lied about the rates for a period of six years from 2005 to 2010, perhaps longer. The lies had two purposes. The first was to make money for the bank by lowering what it had to pay on LIBOR-based contracts. This is a kind of direct theft from customers. The second reason involved hiding the fact that some banks were being asked to pay high rates during the Panic of 2008. This is considered a sign of distress. By lowering the reported rate, the banks were made to appear healthier than they were and committed a fraud on the market as a whole.
We also know that regulators acted as aiders and abettors of the fraud by ignoring clear signs, including admissions by the banks themselves, that the rates were rigged. Regulators passed vague proposals back and forth about the need to improve practices instead of calling law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute the crimes.
[See an opinion slide show of 10 wasteful stimulus projects.]
One might expect that the scandal will follow the familiar pattern of bogus bank contrition, slaps on the wrist, large but not life-threatening fines, and pious promises not to do it again soon to be ignored. In short, it's just another scandal.
But this time it's different and here's why: The sheer volume of contracts based on LIBOR defies the imagination. Estimates vary, but $500 trillion seems reasonable. Even if the banks lied by as little as one-tenth of 1 percent, that percentage applied to $500 trillion multiplied by the six years of the fraud comes to $3 trillion stolen from customers. Cutting that amount in half to allow for the fact that some customers benefited from the fraud while others lost still gives implied damages of $1.5 trillion, greater than the combined capital of all of the too-big-too-fail banks in the United States. Taken to the full extent of the law, these damages are enough to render a large segment of the global banking system insolvent. These damages will be pursued not by regulators, but in private lawsuits by class action lawyers.
Bank defendants in cases like this typically ask a judge to dismiss the case because the claims are too vague. However, the facts in this case have already been made plain by Barclays, which is the one large bank to settle its case with the regulators. Once the plaintiffs get past the motion to dismiss, they begin discovery, which gives the class action lawyers access to internal E-mails, tape recordings, depositions, and other books and records of the perpetrator banks. Based on small glimpses of the doings at Barclays, the communications of the other major bank LIBOR trading desks could be shocking.
[Read the U.S. News Debate: Does the J.P. Morgan Loss Prove the Need for Tougher Bank Regulations?]
This kind of private legal process takes years to play out. In the meantime, some arrests and criminal charges by the government seem likely. In the end, legislatures may have to intervene to limit total damages to avoid the destruction of the too-big-too-fail banks. In this sense, the LIBOR litigation may come to resemble the tobacco litigation where the big tobacco companies embraced a government-backed deal with damages of over $200 billion to avoid eventual bankruptcy in the face of state and private lawsuits.
Of course, the insolvency of a major bank in the face of LIBOR rate rigging charges cannot be ruled out. In that case, good riddance. The big banks have perpetrated a crime wave longer than that of Bonnie and Clyde. If it has taken the law this long to catch up with them, it's better late than never.

Crimes Go Unpunished. #JPMC

Charles Ferguson

Director of the Wall Street documentary 'Inside Job'; Author of 'Predator Nation'

GET UPDATES FROM Charles Ferguson

 

Banking Is a Criminal Industry Because Its Crimes Go Unpunished

Posted: 07/16/2012 8:23 am

Consider just this month's news in financial services.
First, Barclay's has been manipulating the Libor, the main interest rate upon which most other interest rates and financial transactions are based, since 2005. Moreover, Barclay's traders were colluding with traders in many other banks to assist them in manipulating the Libor too, so that they could all profit from their bets on it.
Second, JP Morgan Chase is having a really great month. Recent reports describe how it is resisting Federal subpoenas related to price-fixing in U.S. electricity markets. It is also accused (by former employees among others) of deliberately inflating the performance of its investment funds to obtain business. And finally, JP Morgan's failed "London whale" trade, which has now cost over $5 billion, is being investigated to determine whether the loss was initially concealed from regulators and the public.
Third, HSBC is paying a fine because it allowed hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars of money laundering by rogue states and sanctioned firms, including some related to terrorist activities and Iran's nuclear efforts. But HSBC is only one of at least 12 banks now known to have tolerated, and in some cases aggressively courted, money laundering by rogue states, terrorist organizations, corrupt dictators, and major drug cartels over the last decade. Others include Barclay's, Lloyds, Credit Suisse, and Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo). Several of the banks created special handbooks on how to evade surveillance, created special business units to handle money laundering, and actively suppressed whistleblowers who warned of drug cartel activities.
Fourth, a new private lawsuit cites documents indicating that Morgan Stanley successfully pressured rating agencies into inflating the ratings of mortgage-backed securities it issued during the housing bubble.
Fifth, Visa and Mastercard have just agreed to pay $7 billion to settle a private antitrust case filed by thousands of merchants, who alleged that Visa and Mastercard colluded to fix fees and terms of service.
Just another month in financial services. Is it unusual? No, it's not. If we go back just a little further, we have UBS, HSBC, Julius Baer, and other banks actively marketing tax evasion services to wealthy U.S. and European citizens. We have senior executives of several banks (including JP Morgan Chase and UBS) strongly suspecting that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, but deciding to make money from him rather than turn him in. And then, of course, we have the financial crisis and everything that led to it. As I show in great detail in my book Predator Nation, we now possess overwhelming evidence of massive securities fraud, accounting fraud, perjury, and criminal Sarbanes-Oxley violations by mortgage lenders, investment banks, and credit insurers (including senior executives of Countrywide, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, AIG, and Lehman Brothers) during the housing bubble that caused the financial crisis. If we go back to the late 1990s, we have the massively fraudulent hyping of Internet stocks, and several banks (including Merrill Lynch and Citigroup) actively aiding Enron in committing its frauds.
So, July 2012 really isn't abnormal at all. The reason for this is very simple. Over the past two decades, the financial services industry has become a pervasively unethical and highly criminal industry, with massive fraud tolerated or even encouraged by senior management. But how did that happen?
Well, deregulation helped, of course. But something else was far more important. It is the one critical factor that unites all of the episodes cited above, including those of this month. This critical unifying factor is the total number of criminal prosecutions of major firms and senior executives as a result of all of these crimes combined.
And what is that number?
Zero.
Literally zero. A number that neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney shows the slightest interest in changing.
Consider the Obama administration's choices for the four most important positions in financial sector law enforcement. The attorney general (Eric Holder) and the head of the Justice Department's criminal division (Lanny Breuer) both come to us from Covington & Burling, a law firm that represents and lobbies for most of the major banks and their industry associations; indeed Breuer was co-head of its white collar criminal defense practice, and represented the Moody's rating agency in the Enron case. Mary Schapiro, the head of the SEC, spent the housing bubble in charge of FINRA, the investment banking industry's "self-regulator," which gave her a $9 million severance for a job well done. And her head of enforcement, perhaps most stunningly of all, is Robert Khuzami, who was general counsel for Deutsche Bank's North American business during the entire bubble. So zero prosecutions isn't much of a surprise, really.
In contrast, what do you think would happen to you if, as a lone individual, you were caught supporting Iran's nuclear program? Do you think that you would get off with a "deferred prosecution agreement" and a fine equal to a few percent of your annual salary? No?
But that's because you don't live right. You probably haven't been to the White House a dozen times since President Obama took office, or attended White House state dinners, like Lloyd Blankfein has. Nor have you probably overseen millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign donations, or hired senior administration officials, or sent your executives into the government in senior regulatory positions, or paid $135,000 for a speech by someone who later became chairman of the National Economic Council. And, well, you get the law enforcement that you pay for.
Charles Ferguson is the author of Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.

Once Upon A Time At #JPMC

Today was good.
Today was really good.
Today was so good that I can't stop smiling!
Today was so spectacular that I can't help but SMILE.

Finally.

Finally an Apology from #Chase #JPMC

Yesterday I was promised that I would get a call today.

I recieved three apologies.

"Michelle, I'm so sorry, this should have never happened to you, we need to make this right"

"Oh My God, I can't believe that this has gone on for 14 months!!! I'm so sorry, lets get you out of limbo!"

"No matter what I will call you, and hopefully we can do something with integrity, this is not okay, this is fraud." "...I'm so sorry!!!"

Fingers Crossed.

:)

Pulling My Hair Out #JPMC #NYTM #MMFLINT #FORECLOSUREFRAUD #Fraudforeclosure

I just don't understand JPMorgan Chase, your representative and I had a wonderful meeting on July 13th, 2012...I mean sure we discovered the fraud together, but open lines of communication were there!!!  WHY won't you talk with me?? What are we up to.....like 72 phone calls, "I'm sorry, we cannot talk with you." What kind of beep beep is this?!??!?!?!?

This brain damage of trying to get you to talk with me after our approaching 500 day anniversary is EGREGIOUS BEHAVIOR. This is also called ACTING IN BAD FAITH!


This is not appreciated, this is not good!

I'm frustrated.
I'm disappointed.
I'm angry
I'm horrified

500 day Anniversary is fast approaching, I'm pulling my hair out...This is absurd. This is "EGREGIOUS BEHAVIOR" in the now infamous words of your CEO, Jamie Dimon.

Know that my one mission on the face of this Earth is to get some RESOLUTION, and I will take you to task, NO I don't have the unlimited financial resources that you do....but I'm the most tenacious person you will ever meet. 

The paperwork I requested and all the documents and follow-up documentation and all the accounting of this horrendous disaster is due soon, I hope to have a delivery soon. SHAME ON YOU.

More Brain Damage #JPMC #FRAUD

It is difficult when you want to communicate, but the company doesn't want to communicate with you, they are busy trying to understand what they have done and then trying to find a rug big enough to sweep it under.

Here we go...drum roll please...

Libor Fraud Exposes Wall Street's Rotten Core. Fraud has Run A Muck!

Libor fraud exposes Wall Street’s rotten core

By Elizabeth Warren, Published: July 19

Elizabeth Warren chaired the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel from 2008 to 2010. She is the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.

The Libor scandal is more than just the latest financial deception to come to light. It exposes a fraud that runs to the heart of our financial system.
The London interbank offered rate is a benchmark for a range of interest rates, and the misdeeds making headlines have to do with how those rates are set. If insiders can manipulate the basic measurement of a loan — the interest rate — there is rot at the core of the financial system.

Tom Toles on the economy: A collection of cartoons about the state of the economy.

Video

When Wall Street is left to its own devices.

The British financial giant Barclays has admitted to manipulating the rate from 2005 to at least 2009. When the bank made a bet on the direction in which interest rates would turn, the Barclays employees who submit data for calculating interest rates would fake their numbers to help Barclays traders win the bet. Day after day, year after year, bet after bet, Barclays made money by fixing bets for its own traders.
We don’t know who else was fixing bets. Other big banks, including some of the largest in the United States, are under investigation. Barclays doesn’t appear to have acted alone, and it is clear that its fixes weren’t secret deals by rogue traders. Traders put requests to manipulate the rates in writing and even joked about delivering champagne to those who helped them.
It is also clear that many of those who didn’t have a fixer — including consumers, community banks and credit unions — lost money. Barclays padded its bottom line by taking money from everyone else. It won when it shouldn’t have won — and others lost when they shouldn’t have lost. The amount of money involved is staggering. On any given day, $800 trillion worth of credit-related transactions are linked to Libor rates.
In most markets, consumers could simply take their business elsewhere once they learned that the scales were rigged. But interest rates are different. Everyone who borrows money on a mortgage, credit card, student loan, car loan or small-business loan — basically, everyone — is affected by a crooked market on Libor. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, in 2008 more than half of all adjustable-rate mortgages were linked to Libor. Even those who didn’t borrow but saved for retirement or their children’s future got hit with interest rates that had been faked.
It gets worse. During the financial crisis, Barclays and other banks also appear to have consistently manipulated Libor to show lower-than-real borrowing rates to convince the world — and their regulators — that the bank was stronger than it really was. In other words, they rigged the interest-rate reports so that no one would know exactly how much trouble they were in.
With a rotten financial system once again laid bare to the world, the only question remaining is whether Wall Street has so many friends in Washington that meaningful reform is impossible.
Real accountability would mean prosecuting the traders and bank officials who violated federal laws and prosecuting the executives who knew what they were up to. It would mean forcing executives to pay back any inflated compensation that was based on padded profits.
Going forward, the rules would be changed so that Libor is calculated on actual borrowing costs, not estimated or claimed costs. And enforcement agencies would have the resources they need to launch investigations, to fight the armies of private lawyers the banks hire and to prosecute the law-breakers.
But the heart of accountability lies deeper. It rests on acknowledging that we cannot trust Wall Street to regulate itself — not in New York, London or anywhere else. The club is corrupt. When Mitt Romney says he will move to repeal all of the new financial regulations, he supports a corrupt system. When members of Congress grill regulators for being too tough on Wall Street and slash the budgets of the regulators charged with overseeing Wall Street, they prop up a corrupt system.
Financial services are critical to the economy. That’s why everyone — every family and every business — has a stake in an honest system. The fantasy that reducing oversight of the biggest banks will make us safer is just that — a dangerous fantasy. The Libor fraud exposes rot at the core. Now, who will stand up to fix it?

#WeAreColorado #Aurora

There are days when there are just no words.

#SEC Securities and Exchange Commission

Thursday, July 19, 2012

There is a woman, who lives in Aurora Colorado, Arapahoe County who is trying to fight her bank, or at the very least just get them to talk with her. She uncovered something that she wasn't suppose to and now there is trouble looming on the horizon.

So, she decides to get her Real Estate Licence, so that if the bank agrees to short sell the property that they say doesn't belong to her, but sends her an invoice for anyway...that perhaps she can at the very least make this her first SALE in her career and and the very best....the Bank would HAVE to talk with her...


GET IT? 
Call it Clever...desperate...thinking out of the box, whatever...


Now, we have the SEC, Attorney General John Suthers, involved....and coming soon.....The D.A.

This is all I have for this week, and it is enough...  JPMORGAN CHASE....I'm here, and I'm waiting. :) Love You.

Stand Up For Something In Your Life. #WinstonChurchill

   Looks like I have officially woke the beast.  GOOD.  Maybe now we can COMMUNICATE and find some RESOLUTION.
You know....cause that is all I have wanted...COMMUNICATION & RESOLUTION...finding the fraud was just a happy circumstance, but I believe that we CAN MAKE THIS RIGHT!!!!!!?????!!!!!

Can't IGNORE ME NOW.  LOVE YOU MORE.

-Michelle

Challenger

I see you.

JPMorgan Chase Banker Cheated ill Client Lawsuit

JPMorgan Chase Banker Cheated Ill Client, Lawsuit Says

By Victoria Finkle

JUL 12, 2012 12:50pm ET

Not all bank misbehavior involves billions of dollars, nor is it all as woefully complicated as the Libor rate-fixing scandal.

A banker simply can issue himself a debit card under a customer's account and withdraw $300 a day for more than a year, as a JPMorgan Chase banker is alleged to have done in a new lawsuit.
The ruse is said to have begun as Alzheimer's disease tightened its grip on Herman Lafayette of Louisiana.
Lafayette's legal curator, LaaDonis Williams, is suing the bank and the banker for negligence, breach of contract, fraud and other charges in U. S. District Court in New Orleans, asking that the bank repay more than $100,000 in stolen funds. The banker is not named in the lawsuit.
"Defendant John Doe took advantage of Mr. Lafayette's illness. John Doe, as an agent of Chase Bank, closed Mr. Lafayette's current bank accounts, opened up other accounts and assigned himself (John Doe) a debit card to Mr. Lafayette's account," the suit charges.
The bank says it's pursuing the matter, but it has yet to file a reply in court.
"We only recently learned of the lawsuit and we take these matters very seriously and are investigating," Patrick Linehan, a JPMorgan spokesman, says.
The lawsuit does not identify the banker because JPMorgan Chase would not release his name, Williams wrote in an email. Williams hopes to obtain the name during the discovery process if the lawsuit proceeds, her email said.
The Huffington Post reported the lawsuit, filed June 29, on Monday.


                **********************************************************

This Story by American Banker, made me nauseous. I'm not surprised though, and this in itself is concerning to anyone.

MORTGAGE FRAUD $375 Million Lawsuit

UPDATE 2-Bank of America, Syncora settle mortgage fraud lawsuit

Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:07am IST

By Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp has agreed to pay $375 million to settle a case brought by bond insurer Syncora Guarantee over toxic mortgage-backed securities at the center of the 2008 financial crisis.
Syncora sued Bank of America in 2009 to recover losses on securities transactions based on home loans made by Countrywide Financial, which was bought by Bank of America in 2008. Syncora said it was duped into insuring the mortgage-backed securities and that Countrywide misrepresented the quality of the underlying mortgages.
Syncora, a unit of Syncora Holdings Ltd, announced the settlement in a statement on Tuesday.
Jonathan Rosenberg, an attorney for Bank of America, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Home loans such as those issued by Countrywide were at the center of the financial crisis. As loans became delinquent, mortgage-backed securities such as those insured by Syncora collapsed, helping to trigger a wider market meltdown.
In its lawsuit, Syncora claimed "a significant percentage" of mortgage loans underlying the securitizations did not comply with Countrywide's representations and warranties. The bond insurer sued for fraudulent inducement and breach of contract, seeking to recover money paid out on its policies as a result of the bad loans.
"Countrywide, consistent with its business practices at the time, systematically ignored its own underwriting guidelines and made imprudent loans that no reasonable underwriter would have made," Syncora said in its lawsuit.
As of May 2010, when an amended lawsuit was filed, Syncora had already paid more than $145 million in claims and had been given notice of another $257 million.
Rulings in the Syncora case and a similar lawsuit brought by bond insurer MBIA Inc have set precedents for what bond insurers need to show to prove insurance fraud and breach of contract.
Syncora Guarantee has also sued other banks over false and misleading statements in connection with mortgage-backed securities, including JPMorgan Chase & Co over Bear Stearns & Co transactions.
The case is Syncora Guarantee Inc. v Countrywide Home Loans Inc., New York state Supreme Court, New York County, No. 650042/2009.

Go Now, and Live. BE BOLD. BE FIERCE.

Divine Intervention

Today....there was divine intervention, this is the only explanation for what is Happening. WOW.

WhereThere is Smoke There are Mirrors

 TENACIOUS. PERSEVERANCE & HOPE

As I head to bed, after a day that felt like beating my head against a brick wall...I turn on the porch light and I do the usual walk through my home.  I tuck the pups in for the night, and I look around the house like I do almost every night, some nights with a longer pause then other nights.

Tonight was a very long pause, a deep breath, yes, I love my home. I pruned the roses again, and after a much needed rain it is very easy to fall in love with it all, all over again.  You see, this is more than just a bundle of sticks...this is my bundle of sticks, and I will continue to protect it. Everyday, I will continue to be the squeaky wheel, and I'm not going away.

So, I know something big is happening since last Friday...and I pray that it all comes out in the wash...I hope that there is an investigation into what I can only classify as fraud.  I'll continue to turn over the rocks, and I will continue to find very interesting and special things, I'm sure.

 Where there is smoke there is fire. Where there is smoke there are mirrors...follow the paper trail...something stinks.

I was told don't wake the monster...So, I'm outside of the monster's cave with a baseball bat, and I'm ready to take this outside. Most people would have just given up by now, this is something I hear almost daily.  I guess I didn't get the memo...I guess I was raised in a different time, a time when truth was the rule and not the exception....when fraud and greed didn't run rapid...when you could actually speak with someone and get resolution and not ten people all pointing fingers at the others. When did integrity and truth take a back seat to a major coverup and no communication?

I'm exhausted, and tomorrow...I'm going to get up God willing, and do it all again.


So, keep on doing what you are doing and I'll keep on doing what I'm doing.

Good Luck.

Michelle

Banks Settle #JPM #WFC #BAC

Banks settle foreclosure fraud cases for $26 billion, but MERS lawsuit continues

Posted 2/9/2012 4:31 AM from Daniel Pereira in News Headlines, Banking and Loans, US Markets

Five of the largest banks in the United States and government authorities in all 50 states have reached an agreement about how to settle a massive investigation into flawed and fraudulent foreclosure proceedings.

According to reports from The New York Times  and other sources, Ally Financial, Bank of America ( BAC ), Citigroup ( C ), JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) and Wells Fargo ( WFC ) agreed to settle a series of lawsuits from both the federal government and the states. The lawsuits covered a wide range of violations, including the use of "robo-signing" to speed the foreclosure process in often fraudulent ways.

Think Progress' Pat Garofalo lays out the basic elements of the settlement here , laying out how much money the banks will pay up ($26 billion), how much of it will go to help beleaguered homeowners ($17 billion) and the number of homeowners who will be aided by the deal (between 1 and 2 million).

Interestingly, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will continue to press his suit against Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo over deception and illegal actions in the Mortgage Electronic Registration System database. MERS, as it's usually called, is the central repository of data for every mortgage in the United States; in the last few years, nearly all mortgages in the country were registered with MERS rather than with county offices, saving lenders and borrowers millions of dollars in fees but depriving local governments of vital revenue.

Bloomberg reported  that the banks wanted the MERS lawsuit to be dropped along with the other investigations, but they were apparently thwarted in that effort. In addition, individual lawsuits concerning mortgage and foreclosure fraud will still be allowed to proceed.

Bank of America ticked up slightly following the news, opening almost 2 percent higher before retreating slightly. Citi, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo all slid by about half a percent by noon in New York.

The $26 billion represents a significant settlement, but it clearly won't stagger the banks too much. Together, the four banks mentioned above took in a total profit of $47.6 billion in 2011. It's not as if the banks will be paying the settlements out of pure profits, either; they've all set aside a fair amount of capital to pay for their mistakes. Still it's telling that the banks will be paying just about half of their annual profits to walk away from the foreclosure mess. 

Meanwhile, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan has said that the housing market in the US remains depressed because of  $700 billion  in negative equity held by US homeowners. To be perfectly clear - that's $700 billion that homeowners owe, mostly to the banks above, over and above the market value of their house.

The $26 billion settlement helps. But it's a long way from healing the grievous wounds left by the crisis and the fraud.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-02/banks-settle-foreclosure-fraud-cases-for-26-billion-but-mers-lawsuit-continues.aspx?storyid=119771#ixzz20oxPpHzP

Chase Meeting Went Well, Now for a Relaxing Weekend!!!

I met with the most wonderful man at my local Chase Bank...he made everything very crystal clear...and yes there is a problem.  I never...and I MEAN NEVER thought I would have an ally at Chase Bank, but now I do.  I can NOT even go into everything, but my faith in the truth and human beings as a whole was restored today.  Today, this is all I need....just a little hope and an investigation started.  So it begins.

Thank you,  Thank you,  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Sincerely,

Michelle

Friday the 13th and I Have a Date with Chase :)

In my zip code alone there are 8,500 foreclosures...I wonder how many of them get to talk to their bank?
Today, Friday the 13th (this is not lost on me) I'm taking in my binder and investigation requests among so much more....to a local Chase Bank location and I will speak to Matthew...the only person so far that says things like, "this is a mess, maybe we should start over," or "this is absurd."

Will keep you updated. I have no idea what is going to happen.

I JUST Want To Hug You Right Now. #JPMC #SUNTRUST

:)  You Know Who You Are.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire. Or Not. :(

This is all I have for this Tuesday, the 10th of July 2012.

I Apologize in Advance #JPMC Happy Monday

Dearest Chase,

It's Monday, and I'm going to apologize in advance for pestering you more this week.  You see, while you had the weekend off, I was up trying to contain my worry and figure out what exactly you have done. So, this morning I have a lot of questions, and a delivery for an investigation, actually three...three seperate and very understandable investigations with some really important questions that I would like some answers to.

I know this is gonna piss you off....and rightly so, because try as you might YOU can not get rid of me...but go ahead and continue to ignore me, cause that sure seems to be working for you, I mean me...I mean my case.

LOVELY

Sincerely,

Michelle

She Believed She Could So She DID. #JPMC #SUNTRUST

This hangs in my living room...and it is the only thing that hangs on my walls in my HOME...it is a little daily reminder that I BELIEVE.

I BELIEVE I'm digging up Fraud.
I BELIEVE I'm going to really piss you off.
I BELIEVE that the person with the best lawyer gets the last laugh
I BELIEVE that just because you are a corperation doesn't give you a free pass
I BELIEVE that you have brought out the fighter in me...
I BELIEVE that a 5'2" early 30's something is going to call you out on your SH*T
I BELIEVE I was put here to take you to task...
I BELIEVE God put me in your life as your wake up call.
I BELIEVE That everything is going to turn out better because of this disaster.
I BELIEVE that a documented lie is still a lie...You SHOULD SEE MY STACK ON YOU

She Believed she could so she did.

Foreclosure Problems #Suntrust #JPMC Request Your Independent Investigation

As Foreclosure Problems Persist, Fed Seeks More Fines

David Maxwell for The New York Times

Carla Duncan is fighting a lawsuit over the foreclosure on her home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG

Published: April 1, 2012

Federal regulators are poised to crack down on eight financial firms that are not part of the recent government settlement over home foreclosure practices involving sloppy, inaccurate or forged documents.

• Times Topic: Foreclosures (2012 Robosigning and Mortgage Servicing Settlement)

Last week, a senior Federal Reserve official recommended fines for these additional firms, raising questions about how deep foreclosure problems run through the banking industry.

In addition, judges, lawyers and advocates for homeowners say that people are still losing their homes despite improper documentation and other flaws in the foreclosure process often involving these firms.

The eight firms cited by the Federal Reserve — HSBC’s United States bank division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs — should be fined for “unsafe and unsound practices in their loan servicing and foreclosure processing,” Suzanne G. Killian, a senior associate director of the Federal Reserve’s Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, told lawmakers last month in a House Oversight Committee hearing in Brooklyn.

The recommendation is the culmination of an investigation begun nearly two years ago over accusations that bank representatives had been churning through hundreds of documents a day in foreclosure proceedings without reviewing them for accuracy, a practice known as robo-signing.

Some see the Fed’s recommendation as an attempt to push these firms to agree to the terms of the broader mortgage settlement involving the state attorneys general and federal officials. During those settlement talks, federal regulators contacted other institutions in hopes that they would also agree to the terms, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

Much of the foreclosure attention has focused on the five largest mortgage servicers — Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial — which agreed to the $25 billion settlement this year without admitting wrongdoing.

Despite the pledges of the giant servicers to amend their practices, there are signs that foreclosure cases with other companies remain problematic. An examination of dozens of court cases by The New York Times found questionable documents involving some of the eight institutions cited by the Fed.

Arthur M. Schack, a New York State Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn, has cracked down on fraudulent documentation and said he was concerned that foreclosures moving through the courts continued to be flawed. Even after mortgage servicers have been excoriated by a judge in one state, they still use similar documents in other cases in other states, according to the examination.

For example, last December, Judge Schack tossed out a foreclosure lawsuit filed by U.S. Bancorp after determining that a bank employee, Kim Stewart, had identified herself in two conflicting ways in documents throughout the lawsuit.

In 2008, Ms. Stewart signed an assignment of mortgage — which gives the mortgage servicer the right to foreclose — to U.S. Bancorp, identifying herself as assistant secretary of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. Yet in 2009, Ms. Stewart signed a separate document in the lawsuit as vice president of U.S. Bancorp, court records show.

The judge, in a derisive tone, suggested that perhaps the bank and its law firm “do not want the court to confront the conflicted Ms. Stewart,” according to a transcript. U.S. Bancorp strongly disagreed with the judge’s ruling and planned to appeal the decision, said Teri Charest, a spokeswoman for the bank. She added that Ms. Stewart was an officer of the bank and had “signed all documents appropriately.”

George Babcock, a lawyer in Pawtucket, R.I., who represents homeowners, estimated that roughly 300 of his clients were being threatened with foreclosures that included documents signed by Ms. Stewart.

A similar problem has cropped up on the West Coast, where an employee of a mortgage servicing firm whose signature appeared in a lawsuit filed by one of the eight firms had already been flagged as problematic.

Phillip Bennett, a retired schoolteacher in California, was evicted last month from the home he shared with his wife in Rancho Cucamonga.

Mr. Bennett said he thought he might be able to save his home, despite falling behind on his loan payments, because the mortgage assignment was signed by a mortgage company employee, Marti Noriega, who was previously involved in a foreclosure that had been halted.

In October 2010, Garr M. King, a senior judge with the United States District Court in Oregon, blocked a foreclosure after spotting a suspicious document from Ms. Noriega. In that lawsuit, Ms. Noriega, acting as vice president of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, signed an assignment of mortgage.

The problem, court records show, was with the date. Ms. Noriega’s signature transferring the mortgage from Mortgage Lenders Network USA to LaSalle National Bank (now part of Bank of America) was dated 15 months after Mortgage Lenders Network halted its operations.

Some foreclosures include documents from people who have testified to being robo-signers in other courts.

In July 2010, Erica Johnson-Seck, whose signatures appeared in foreclosure cases filed by OneWest, acknowledged, in a deposition in state court in Palm Beach County in Florida, having signed 750 mortgage documents a week, usually with only a cursory review.

Yet Carla Duncan, a social worker, is fighting a lawsuit over the foreclosure on her three-bedroom home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The lawsuit, which was filed in March 2010 in Ohio state court, includes a document signed by Ms. Johnson-Seck.

“It’s so totally unfair,” said Ms. Duncan.

A spokesman for OneWest declined to comment on Ms. Duncan’s lawsuit.

Last November, federal banking regulators forced the nation’s largest servicers, including the eight cited by the Fed, to comb through foreclosure records and to rectify any problems.

As part of that process, consumers who believe that they have experienced “financial injury” have until July 31 to request an independent review of their foreclosure and potentially receive compensation.

But Matt Englett, a lawyer in Orlando, Fla., who defends struggling homeowners, said that many people who had already lost their homes were focusing on simply staying afloat and did not realize they could ask for an independent review.

So far, more than 128,000 people have requested a review, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“These are the forgotten homeowners,” Mr. Englett said.

JPMorgan Tied To Lehman Bros

Regulators Penalize JPMorgan Over Lehman Ties

By BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED

Jessica Ebelhar/The New York TimesJPMorgan Chase’s dealings with Lehman have been linked to Lehman’s collapse.

10:03 a.m. | Updated 

When Lehman Brothers collapsed at the height of the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase was at the center of the storm. The bank was a major lender to the firm, which filed the biggest bankruptcy in United States history.
Now, more than three years later, regulators have penalized JPMorgan for actions tied to Lehman’s demise.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a civil case against JPMorgan on Wednesday, the first federal enforcement case to stem from Lehman’s downfall. The bank settled the Lehman matter and agreed to pay a fine of approximately $20 million.

The Lehman action stems from the questionable treatment of customer money — an issue that has been at the forefront of the recent outcry over MF Global. JPMorgan was also intimately involved in the final days of that brokerage firm.
The trading commission accused JPMorgan of overextending credit to Lehman for roughly two years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2008.
JPMorgan extended the credit using an inaccurate evaluation of Lehman’s worth, improperly counting Lehman’s customer money as belonging to the firm. Under federal law, firms are not allowed to use customer money to secure or extend credit.
The arrangement worked well for both parties. Lehman wanted a larger loan, and suggested counting money from the customer account to justify it. JPMorgan complied, treating the money as part of Lehman’s coffers.
In a statement on Wednesday, JPMorgan noted that the size of this customer account was small relative to the overall relationship with Lehman.
The trading commission also accused JPMorgan of withholding separate Lehman customer funds for nearly two weeks, rather than turning them over to authorities. In the course of resolving that matter, regulators became aware of JPMorgan’s questionable credit to Lehman, a person briefed on the matter said.
“The laws applying to customer segregated accounts impose critical restrictions on how financial institutions can treat customer funds, and prohibit these institutions from standing in the way of immediate withdrawal,” David Meister, the agency’s enforcement director, said in a statement. “As should be crystal clear, these laws must be strictly observed at all times, whether the markets are calm or in crisis.”
It is unclear whether JPMorgan knew the money belonged to clients. The agency did not charge JPMorgan with intentionally breaking the law. But in the view of regulators, the bank should have known — the customer funds were kept at a JPMorgan account. The funds belonged to investors trading in the futures market.
The actions did not in and of themselves cause Lehman to fail. JPMorgan neither admited nor denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
“The firm cooperated with the investigation and is pleased to have resolved this matter with the C.F.T.C.,” the bank said in the statement.

Peter Foley/European Pressphoto AgencyLehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

In some ways, the commission’s case echoes the situation involving MF Global, which is the biggest financial collapse since Lehman. In the case of MF Global, JPMorgan received money belonging to the brokerage firm’s customers, who are still out $1.6 billion. The money vanished in the final week before the firm went under and its disappearance is the subject of a federal investigation. Unlike the MF Global fiasco, however, customer money never went missing from Lehman. JPMorgan is not accused of any wrongdoing in the MF Global case.
In addition to being an investment bank, JPMorgan and Bank of New York Mellon are the two big institutions that process transactions for most other Wall Street firms. As a result, JPMorgan is often at the center of financial maelstroms. So-called clearing banks have a great deal of leverage over the firms they serve, because they play central roles in their financial solvency.
This role is particularly important when a company is under duress. In the case of Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan grew nervous as questions about Lehman’s capital and real estate holdings mounted in the late summer and fall of 2008. The bank asked Lehman to post more than $8 billion in collateral to continue clearing its trades, a condition that if not met might have expedited Lehman’s collapse.
Those collateral calls — issued in the week before the firm collapsed — drained Lehman of money it could have used to stay afloat. And that money is the subject of a 2010 lawsuit Lehman’s estate has filed against JPMorgan that accuses the bank of hastening its demise.
State and private lawsuits have emerged after Lehman’s bankruptcy, including one from the New York attorney general against Lehman’s auditor, Ernst & Young. But federal regulators have not previously filed Lehman-related actions, even though its collapse was at the center of the financial crisis.
The trading commission’s action against JPMorgan is the latest prominent action filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which once had a reputation as a sleepy regulator. On Monday, the agency sued the Royal Bank of Canada, accusing it of operating a major trading scheme that it used to reap lucrative tax benefits.
The agency’s enforcement division has experienced a makeover under its current chief, David Meister, a former federal prosecutor. The division filed a record 99 enforcement actions last fiscal year, 74 percent more than the previous year.
The MF Global case presents a bigger test for the agency. In the firm’s final days, MF Global tapped $175 million in customer money to patch an overdrawn firm account at JPMorgan.
The bank, suspicious about the origin of the money, sought assurances from MF Global that the money did not belong to customers. In testimony before Congress last week, a JPMorgan official said MF Global never signed a letter verifying that the transfer was legitimate.

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Just a little re cap on more stacked poop from JPMorgan Chase...looks like I will need to track down a "signed letter verifying that the transfer was legitimate" you know, cause odds are if they use that excuse once, they will probably use it again!!!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOOLLOLOLOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOOLLOOLOLOLOLOL

Churn of Foreclosures #JPMC #WellsFargo #TNYT

Bank Officials Cited in Churn of Foreclosures

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Four million Americans have been foreclosed upon since the beginning of 2007. Here, a boarded up house in Islip, N.Y., in February.

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and J. B. SILVER-GREENBERG

Published: March 12, 2012 179 Comments

Managers at major banks ignored widespread errors in the foreclosure process, in some cases instructing employees to adopt make-believe titles and speed documents through the system despite internal objections, according to a wide-ranging review by federal investigators.

The banks have largely focused the blame for mistakes on low-level employees, attributing many of the problems to the surge in the volume of foreclosures after the housing market collapsed and the economy weakened in 2008.

But the report concludes that managers were aware of the problems and did nothing to correct them. The shortcuts were directed by managers in some cases, according to the report, which is by the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The examination is among the most extensive to date of the banks’ foreclosure practices, which caused a national uproar and prompted a $25 billion settlement between the banks and the government that was filed in federal court Monday.

“I believe the reports we just released will leave the reader asking one question — how could so many people have participated in this misconduct?” David Montoya, the inspector general of the housing department, said in a statement. “The answer — simple greed.”

What is more, rather than focusing on misconduct at outside law firms, loan processors and other third parties as some past inquiries did, the department’s investigation takes aim at internal bank processes and the chain of command. It does not name the supervisors or indicate how many knew of the problems, however.

At Bank of America, which until late last year was the nation’s largest mortgage servicer, two employees testified that they had raised concerns about whether documents were being properly notarized, but managers told them to proceed. One vice president said documents in her department were checked only for “formatting and spelling errors,” not the underlying figures or facts in the case.

“Bank of America did not establish effective control over its foreclosure process,” according to the report, to be released Tuesday. And as foreclosure cases multiplied, Bank of America’s management turned up the pressure on employees to move faster. “Despite management representations to the contrary,” the report says, “employee performance reviews demonstrated that Bank of America used defined goals and metrics to evaluate performance-based production in its document execution group.”

At Wells Fargo, now the nation’s largest mortgage servicer and originator, employees told the inspector general’s office that the company’s management had assigned them bogus titles, including “vice president of loan documentation,” even though they had no training in document review. Before becoming vice president, one employee worked at a pizza restaurant.

Wells Fargo’s management quashed an independent study by a manager responsible for overseeing the affidavit process. The study had started to show that the document department was critically understaffed. “The midlevel manager was directed to stop the study and return to the practice of signing affidavits without reading or verifying data,” the report said.

And instead of remedying the problems, Wells Fargo’s management shortened the review period to less than 48 hours instead of five to seven days, the employees said.

The banks have argued that despite document errors, foreclosures were justified because borrowers had fallen behind on their payments. But the report, which focused on foreclosures from 2008 to 2010 of federally backed loans serviced by five major banks, suggests that the banks violated state laws governing the foreclosure process.

In a statement, Bank of America said the report “references activities from over a year ago that have been addressed as we do all we can to modify loans when possible and to ensure foreclosures are fair when they are unavoidable.” A representative for Wells Fargo declined to comment. At Ally, a spokeswoman said that when managers became aware of “procedural deficiencies,” they “took quick and decisive action to address it.”

At the center of the foreclosure controversy, regulators accused the banks of so-called robo-signing, in which employees churned out thousands of documents used to seize homes without reviewing them for accuracy.

A team leader in Ally Financial’s foreclosure department admitted signing up to 10,000 affidavits a month without reviewing them for accuracy, according to the report. The team leader also said he had routinely signed documents used in foreclosure proceedings with “no knowledge of the facts without reviewing the supporting documents.”  

At JPMorgan Chase, operations supervisors “routinely signed foreclosure documents, including affidavits, certifying that they had personal knowledge of the facts when they did not,” according to the review.

As at Wells Fargo, employees at JPMorgan Chase took on titles like “vice president of Chase Home” even though “the titles were given by Chase for the sole purpose of allowing individuals to sign documents and came with no other duties or authority.”

In one review of 36 foreclosures at JPMorgan Chase, the bank was able to find documents explaining what the borrowers purportedly owed in only four cases. And in three of those four instances, the underlying documents proved incorrect.

A representative at JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

Vice presidents at Citigroup told the inspector general that some employees had “regularly” signed foreclosure documents without reviewing them for accuracy. While the foreclosure procedures were improved in 2010, the bank continued to employ outside law firms to file foreclosure documents that were potentially sloppy and plagued by errors, the report concluded.

Some employees signed stacks of documents a day without reviewing them. Unlike the other major servicers, Citi never halted foreclosure sales. In 2010, Citi told regulators that it had found its internal procedures to be sound.

In a statement, Citi said it was “making every effort to ensure that no foreclosure goes forward based on an inaccurate or defective affidavit.”

The five big banks written about in the report face stiff penalties and intense public scrutiny if they fail to live up to the standards of the settlement.

While the broad outline of the deal was announced last month, the mechanics of the agreement that took more than a year to negotiate were laid out in Monday’s filing.

The five banks covered by the settlement — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally — engaged “in a pattern of unfair and deceptive practices,” the complaint says.

The settlement covers mortgages owned by the banks or serviced by them on behalf of private investors. Mortgages held by government-sponsored enterprises or backed by the Federal Housing Administration do not fall under the scope of the accord. 

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I have learned a lot this past year, "churning" however, is yesterdays news...for me at least! Looking forward to our visit JPMORGAN CHASE, Can't wait to see you! xoxoxoxooxoxoxo

Divvying Up The Banking Markets #JPMC #Santander

Questions Raised About JPMorgan E-Mail on M.&A.

By DEALBOOK

An internal JPMorgan Chase e-mail message from 2008 describing a meeting involving Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, and Emilio Botin, Banco Santander‘s chairman, has been obtained by TheStreet.com, which says the message raises antitrust questions because it suggests that the two men possibly discussed divvying up the banking market.
Written by Jose Cerezo, an investment banker at JPMorgan, the e-mail message describes Mr. Dimon, Mr. Botin and a Santander executive board member, Juan Inciarte, talking about several possible acquisitions of interest to both banks at the time, including Washington Mutual (which was later acquired by JPMorgan), SunTrust Banks, the PNC Financial Services Group and Wachovia (which was later acquired by Wells Fargo).
“It is important to have an open dialogue with them, as Santander would not pursue any of these opportunities if JPMorgan were to do the same (can’t compete on price with JPMorgan for an acquisition in the U.S.A.),” Mr. Cerezo writes in the e-mail message. “But Santander would probably hire JPMorgan as adviser if we are not going after them.”
The e-mail message, sent on June 5, 2008, came to light recently in connection to litigation stemming from JPMorgan’s acquisition of Washington Mutual in September of that year after the biggest bank failure in American history.
Ian Ayres, an economics and law professor at Yale University, told TheStreet.com that he saw problems with the suggestion that the banks might be divvying up the market or that Santander might reward JPMorgan with an advisory fee if it chose not to pursue a target of interest to both banks.
“The email is very problematic,” Mr. Ayres said. “If I were in the Justice Department, I’d immediately open an investigation to pursue this further.”
TheStreet.com said representatives from JPMorgan, Santander and the Justice Department all declined to comment on the e-mail.
Go to Full Article from TheStreet.com »


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What does it mean when the Justice Department declines to comment on the e-mail?????

#JPMC Protected by the Laws. Sure, hide while you STILL CAN.

Suspense Is Over in Madoff Case

By JOE NOCERA

Published: June 25, 2012 91 Comments

On Monday morning, as the Supreme Court was issuing its big ruling on the Arizona immigration law — and prolonging the suspense on its Affordable Care Act decision — it also quietly decided to end the suspense for the victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. Without comment, the court declined to hear a case about which Madoff victims should be compensated and which should not.

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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Joe Nocera

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Practically from the moment that Irving Picard became the Madoff trustee, he took the position that his job was to get money back for the “net losers” — that is, those who put more into the Madoff fraud than they took out. He planned to do so, in part, by “clawing back” money from the net winners, who took out more than they put in.

Not surprisingly, lawyers for the net winners sued. But, in the lower courts, Picard’s argument held sway, and the Supreme Court saw no reason to wade into the matter.

I have argued that Picard’s method is the fairest way to treat the Madoff victims. After all, the net winners’ gains came from the pockets of the net losers. That’s how a Ponzi scheme works. If you buy a stolen watch, and its real owner wants it back, don’t you have an obligation to return it?

Yet it is hard not to feel sympathy for the net winners. For many of them, their Madoff accounts represented their life savings. To discover that it was all an illusion was crushing. It seems doubly cruel that they should now have to give some of it back. They feel punished for someone else’s crime.

Still, in all the fighting between net winners and net losers, what tends to get overlooked is that the big boys — the “deep pockets” who could actually afford to compensate the Madoff victims — are being allowed to walk away from the fraud.

Early on, the trustee made an enormous effort to investigate the roles of HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and other financial institutions that were in one way or another linked to the Madoff fraud. (JPMorgan was Madoff’s banker, for instance.) It found various HSBC due diligence reports, to cite one example, that clearly showed bank executives declining to look too deeply into Madoff — even though internally they had acknowledged that his returns were too good to be true.

At one point, the trustee had up to $100 billion worth of lawsuits, most of them against some of the biggest financial firms in the world. But those cases are starting to be tossed out of court. Though the trustee is appealing, the odds of him gaining a reversal — and thus being able to claw back from Madoff’s enablers — are not high.

The crux of the problem is a longstanding legal doctrine called in pari delicto. What it essentially means is that “thieves can’t sue thieves,” says Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who writes about white-collar crime for DealBook in The Times.

That’s all well and good, I suppose, except that in the view of the law, Irving Picard is a thief. Even though he is trying to get money back for victims, the fact that he is representing the Madoff estate in bankruptcy court means that, in the eyes of the law, he is standing in the shoes of a very bad man. So when he alleges that the big banks played a role in the fraud, he has no legal standing to do so, the courts have ruled. A thief can’t sue a thief.

Nor is Madoff the only time in pari dilecto has been trotted out in recent years. According to Frederick Feldkamp, a retired lawyer who has dug into its implications, it has become a common tactic to shield lawyers, accountants, banks and other enablers of fraud that winds up in bankruptcy court. “It’s being used everywhere,” he told me. Bankruptcy trustees can’t overcome the hurdle it poses, and thus are stuck with clawing back money from victims.

If Picard can’t sue the big banks for wrongdoing in the Madoff case, then who can? You might think the answer would be the Madoff victims themselves. When Colleen McMahon, a federal judge, threw out Picard’s lawsuit against JPMorgan last year, she suggested that, indeed, only the victims had the standing to sue.

Sure enough, a group of Madoff victims decided to file a class-action lawsuit against the bank. Guess what. It’s probably not going anywhere either — thanks to a law, passed in the mid-1990s, that drastically limits the ability to sue companies for securities fraud.

You can’t blame the judges for making these rulings. They are doing what the law plainly tells them to do. But it does make you wonder who the law is supposed to serve: huge institutions that can hide behind legal niceties, or victims of fraud.

Sadly, these days, the answer seems obvious.