Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Is Wells Fargo Another Bad Actor in the Housing Crisis?

The U.S. government is going after a further alleged scoundrel from the housing bust. The victim, as in earlier cases, is the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which paid out millions in claims on loans that never should have been issued. What may surprise people is the alleged villain: Wells Fargo (WFC), the bank that counts Warren Buffet as its largest shareholder.

In a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit, filed on Oct. 9 in U.S. District Court in New York, Wells Fargo is accused of fraudulently approving government-backed mortgages, then turning around to collect government insurance when the dubious loans defaulted.

At first glance, one might assume this is just another symptom of the headache the bank inherited with Wachovia, the failing rival it acquired for $15.1 billion four years ago. But as my Bloomberg News colleagues Chris Dolmetsch and Dakin Campbell note, any culture at fault here would stem from Wells Fargo. The complaint points to “a longstanding and reckless trifecta of deficient training, deficient underwriting, and deficient disclosure, all while relying on the convenient backstop of government insurance,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Read more....

9 comments:

  1. Funny part is, it was the government that got us into this mess. They wanted to equalize the housing markets for minorities that could not qualify with the old 20% down rule. They wanted the blacks to feel like real homeowners when they were unable to.

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  2. That sound extremely civilized if I ever heard . The truth sucks doent it. And Clinton needs to take responsiblity. And this future financial collapse will be OBAMA'S DOING.

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  3. Sure the government pushed them but I am more concerned with the entitlement babies that signed on for the loans. They had to know they were in over their heads, but they figured what the heck, I have no skin in the game. Moral decline is driving the country over the cliff.

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    1. I agree. The government we choose is a reflection of who we are as a society :-(

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  4. Nobody forced the banks to make lousy loans, they did it all by themselves because it was more profitable. Nobody made the banks invent a way to package and sell the bad mortgages to unsuspecting buyers on the Stock Exchange.

    Meanwhile, my friend, a self-employed lawyer, was temporarily hired by Wells Fargo to go over their mortgage paperwork. She was encouraged NOT to point out problems, so they could go forward with foreclosures. She left after two months and then discovered that the bank had pretended she was a vice president!

    These bastards need to go to jail.

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  5. Sharonsj,

    At the end of the day people asked for the loans and signed the paper knowing they did not have the means to own a home. The blame is not the loan shark, these people went to them and signed for blood money. Greed and envy drives people to buy and spend for illogical reasons.

    The loan defaulters are not victims of the banks, they are facing the consequences for their own poor choices. Selling junk notes is also a crime and when proven in court the guilty should face time and make retribution.

    Without greed on both sides this mess would have never happened. Both parties should face the penalty of bad actions.

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  6. Anonymous, the banks also knew that those people did not have the means to own a home. So ask yourself why you jump to only blaming the people and not the banks? The banks by law are supposed to vet people applying for mortgages, but they didn't.

    Also, did you know that some mortgage companies rigged the paperwork? They would put false pages at the beginning, with different loan numbers and payments and then, when people signed the last page of the document, would throw away the top pages. That's outright fraud but they never went to jail.

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    1. All this coming from a woman who claims voter fraud doesn't exist, global warming is real and who ever doesn't believe in it is a moron, and believes that a certain news channel should be silenced because it doesn't fit her view of the truth.

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Everyone is encouraged to participate with civilized comments.