Bank Of America Paid Foreclosure Bonuses
tweeted by, Dog Lovers 4 Obama @Donna_West 9m
Bank Of America Paid Foreclosure Bonuses While Lying To Homeowners http://thkpr.gs/15cECan via @thinkprogress
The latest of many civil suits over Bank of America’s handling of foreclosures and mortgage modifications has produced affidavits from six former employees alleging the bank actively and systematically deceived homeowners and sought foreclosures over modifications that would have kept borrowers in their homes. A seventh signed statement from a man who worked for one of the bank’s contractors reinforces the picture of a company-wide culture of putting profits over customers, even in defiance of facts.
The documents, first reported by Kimberly Miller of the Palm Beach Post, are part of a lawsuit over the bank’s handling of trial loan modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) created by the Obama administration. The employees, whose work for the bank ranged from loan origination to collections to reviewing internal loan databases, swear that Bank of America used a variety of internal policies to discourage loan modifications and encourage foreclosures, even when loan documents visible to the employees showed the bank’s rationale for foreclosing was untrue. Those policies include:
• ‘Blitzing’: According to William Wilson, the bank conducted a “blitz” twice a month, instructing case managers to deny any HAMP application more than 60 days old, including “files [in] which the homeowner had provided all required financial documents and fully complied with the terms of a Trial Period Plan.”
• $500 bonuses for filling foreclosure quotas: According to Simone Gordon, an employee “who placed ten or more accounts into foreclosure in a given month received a $500 bonus. Bank of America also gave employees gift cards to retail stores like Target or Bed Bath and Beyond as rewards for placing accounts into foreclosure.”
• Lying to clients about documentation: Gordon’s affidavit says it was bank policy to sit on financial documents borrowers submitted for 30 days, then label them “stale” and require the homeowner to re-apply. Bert Sheeks, the contract employee, was instructed “to find any pretext” to justify closing outstanding loan modification applications, “even in cases where we knew the borrower had, in fact, responded with complete documents.” Erika Brown “was instructed to inform every homeowner who called in that their file was ‘under review’” even when she could see no one had looked at the documents in question. Brown says she personally saw more than a hundred instances in which a bank official cancelled a loan modification due to “non payment” when the file showed all payments had been received on time . . .
read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/17/2166451/bank-of-america-foreclosure-bonuses-lying/?mobile=nc
= new reply since forum marked as read
