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?????