US Banks are Sick and Tired of Being Served with Lawsuits

 (I couldn't help but laugh...it's called stop passing around the deeds like a bottle of whiskey at a frat party, it's called take your hand out of the cookie jar, it's called pick up the phone, stop giving people the run-around and do the right thing, stop robo-signing documents, stop lying, stop the cover ups. JUST STOP.)

 

US Banks Are Sick and Tired of Being Served with Lawsuits

Posted by 4closureFraud on October 17, 2012 · shared to the world my Michelle who would like to sit down amicably with a bank that has ignored her for 17 months and is now suffering from brain damage.

US Banks Are Sick and Tired of Being Served with Lawsuits

The nation’s top banks are tired of paying the price for crashing the economy, defrauding billions from retirement savings, and dispossessing tens of millions of people from their homes in fraudulent foreclosures across the nation. The banks are ready to move on already. Their officers and representatives are whining about the continued investigations, lawsuits, and damage to their reputation. If the banks are tired of fending off lawsuits, how must millions of Americans facing debt collection, foreclosure, or student loan collection lawsuits feel?

In February 2012, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached between five of the top banks; Citi, Wells, BoA, Chase, and Ally/GMAC. The settlement, between these top five banks and forty-nine state attorneys general and federal housing and banking regulators, was the result of sixteen months of negotiations after the story about foreclosure fraud and robosigning (aka forgery and real estate fraud) broke in the mainstream media. What specific acts of wrongdoing were settled, thereby removing the threat of future demands, settlements, or government lawsuits? According to a FAQ document on the settlement published by HUD on March 12, 2012:

Q: What set of violations are servicers being released from?
A: The release of claims relinquishes particular state and federal claims on issues addressed by the settlement. These claims at the state level pertain to violations of servicer misconduct, such as robo-signing and other foreclosure misconduct. At the federal level, these claims include failure to abide by FHA servicing requirements and a limited origination claim release.
The release is narrowly tailored and is limited to mortgage servicing and origination claims. States and federal parties that sign on may still pursue other claims against the banks, such as securities and securitization claims. We also retain the ability to pursue financial institutions that are not part of the settlement.

Despite the banks’ grandstanding, the liability waived in the settlement does not absolve the five defendant banks from accountability for other fraudulent acts.

The lawsuit charged the JPMorgan Defendants With Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Shareholders sue JPMorgan Chase over trading loss

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK | Wed May 16, 2012 2:02pm EDT

(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co was the target of two separate lawsuits by shareholders on Wednesday, accusing the bank and its management of excessive risk that led to trading losses of at least $2 billion.
A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the lawsuits, which were filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, days after Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's May 10 statement that a "failed hedging strategy" caused the massive loss over the last month.
"What the Company did not reveal was that those losses were the result of a marked shift in the company's allowable risk model, undisclosed to investors, and the similarly clandestine conversion of a unit within the company that was touted as providing a conservative risk-reduction function into a risky, short-term trading enterprise that exposed the company to large losses instead," said one of the complaints.
It was filed derivatively by California shareholder James Baker on behalf of JPMorgan Chase against Dimon, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein and board members.
The lawsuit charged the JPMorgan defendants with breach of fiduciary duty, waste of corporate assets and unjust enrichment.
A separate lawsuit was filed at the same time by shareholder Saratoga Advantage Trust financial services portfolio on behalf of owners of common stock.
It said Dimon and Braunstein made "materially false and misleading statements and omissions" on an April 13, 2012 earnings conference call with investors.
"Defendants misrepresented the losses and risk of loss to the company arising from massive bets on derivative contracts related to credit indexes reflecting interest rates on corporate bonds," the complaint said. "These derivative bets went horribly wrong, resulting in billions of dollars in lost capital for the company and billions more in lost market capitalization for JPMorgan shareholders."
The cases are James Baker, derivatively on behalf of JPMorgan Chase & Co v James Dimon, et al in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-3878 and Saratoga Advantage Trust v JPMorgan Chase & Co in the same court No. 12-3879.
(Reporting By Grant McCool; editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Fraud Closure Egregious Conduct (Looks like it's time to expose fraud)

The Story of Elliot – Fraudulent Foreclosure

By Dan McGookey
After handling hundreds of foreclosure cases involving securitized loans, I can safely say that every single securitized loan transaction involves fraud of some sort. Sometimes I shudder to think how many millions of families have lost their homes through foreclosure, when they could have saved them by pointing out their bank’s fraud, if only they had been able to find and expose it. Of course, the challenge in being able to do so varies with each case.
One of the most glaring examples of bank fraud came to my attention recently when I got a visit from Elliot. Elliot had just been sued for foreclosure by Bank of New Yorkshire, as Trustee of a securitized trust established in 2002. What that means is that in that year Elliot’s loan passed through a number of different hands and ended up bundled with thousands of other loans in a loan pool or trust. The purpose of this process is to allow banks such a Bank of New Yorkshire to make enormous profits by selling stock in the loan pool at many times the true value of the loans.
Having been established in 2002, the trust supposedly owning Elliot’s loan was required to have acquired it that year. On the other hand, a cursory examination of Elliot’s foreclosure Complaint, with an alleged copy of his promissory note attached, showed an endorsement from the loan originator, BNK Mortgage Company to Bank of New Yorkshire, on April 19, 2012, only days prior to the filing of the Complaint, and almost ten years after it was required to be placed in the Trust. Obviously, the endorsement, which appears on a separate instrument called an “allonge”, is bogus for that reason alone.
But there’s more; much more. The endorsement on the allonge is that of a loan servicer, OCEAN Loan Servicing. Thus, to believe the paperwork submitted with the foreclosure Complaint, the foreclosing party, Bank of New Yorkshire in effect transferred Elliot’s loan to itself. To condone this practice would essentially open the floodgates to the possibility of anyone stepping forward and, through fraudulent paperwork, claiming they owned your loan, allowing them to foreclose on your home. Scary stuff.
On top of all this, a Google search reveals that BNK Mortgage, the party on whose behalf OCEAN endorsed the note in 2012, closed its doors and shut down in 2007. Thus, the entity supposedly transferring the loan to the foreclosing party had been out of existence 4 years before it executed the transfer documents.
However it gets even worse. Only a year earlier in Elliot’s bankruptcy case, Bank of New Yorkshire produced, under oath, a totally different promissory note, with a different endorsement, in support of its claims of ownership of Elliot’s loan. In other words, Bank of New Yorkshire has lied in at least one court proceeding, if not two. Beyond all this, both versions of the note are irreconcilable with the express wording of the Trusts’s Prospectus, its governing document, in that the Prospectus represents that Elliot’s note was passed into the Trust by a “Depositor,” which was not BNK.
Because Elliot’s loan is so rife with fraud, we have extremely powerful weapons at our disposal to fight his foreclosure. We may even file a counterclaim against Bank of New Yorkshire and OCEAN seeking damages and recovery of attorney fees. No matter what, the end result for Elliot will be highly favorable, which is only right, given the bank’s egregious conduct.
The lesson in Elliot’s story is this: Don’t assume the documents produced by your bank demonstrate that it is entitled to relief. The chances are extremely high that when tested, the bank’s case will wilt, in turn leading to its willingness to work with the homeowner to allow him or her to stay in the home.
Note from the author: If you have questions or comments regarding this or any Foreclosure Story article, please visit www.mcgookeylaw.com