Bank Bailout Won’t Fix Systemic Criminality Its RICO Time

(8 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Banks are more than broken, they have become ongoing criminal enterprises. This goes beyond simple bookkeeping errors to systemic criminality. Want to fix the mortgage problem? Start auditing banks and prosecuting under RICO. Giant bonuses, trips to Vegas and Super Bowl sponsorship are really the LEAST of the problems with banks. Follow me below the fold for what they aren’t talking about on Morning Joe, or any of the MSM.  

For the last year I have diaried about our ongoing issues with WAMU, how we fought them to a standstill, forced them to admitting guilt and were to get a settlement from them. Read the update from July, our last contact with WAMU.

Everything came to a dead stop towards the end of July, I wonder if the WAMU attorney knew they were going to be sold? They completely ignored an order from a Federal District Court judge, just blew it off.

We heard from JPMorgan Chase shortly after the buy out, a form letter telling us to continue to make our payments to WAMU, went over our legal rights if there were issues with our mortgage. They would be going over our loan and contacting us in about 90 days. Well looky looky, JPMorgan Chase acknowledges we have rights and there are consequences, right? Not exactly. We thought they would actually look at all the non performing mortgages they bought to get a clue about possible violations and their exposure to literally BILLIONS in fines. If our loan is any indication and no reason to believe it isn’t, they looked at nothing and are pressing to collect. I am not sure how they think they can do that since the last legal proceeding on our mortgage has not been settled. More important in July we were waiting for a settlement offer from WAMU, money to us for the dozens if not hundreds of violations on our mortgage and the hell they put us thru. JPMorgan Chase’s request for payment seeks to completely sidestep the ongoing legal issues with the loan.

We have the bill from JPMorgan Chase in the form of a stipulation agreement in an amount of almost $20,000. This represents the payments not made and accrued late fees. There are some problems with this. They show no payments since December of 2007 when in fact our last payment was January 2008 and at that time they had additional money in our account to cover payments for February, March and April. In February they stopped accepting payments so how we can be expected to pay late fees on payments they wouldn’t accept is a bit surprising to us. Our figures show we would owe about $12,000, big difference. BUT, they are willing to stop trying to collect the money for the force place insurance, an amount that has varied between $8K and 13K. Not exactly the progress we were expecting.

The other thing that happened this month is  JPMorgan Chase convinced the Bankruptcy Trustee we still owed them an additional $2100 not covered in the original Chapter 13 papers. We are currently unable to get any information concerning what the money represents. We think we know, at the time we entered into Chapter 13 the original mortgage amount was listed by us as X and WAMU listed the original amount at roughly $2100 more, that in itself is a violation, or it could be legal fees for their arttorney. In any even t whatever the bill, they are not entitled to it.

There has been no offer from JPMorgan Chase to reduce our 11.99% interest rate or redo the loan in any way. This is not what we have been led to believe, aren’t the banks supposed to be doing everything they can to salvage these loans and keep people in their homes, save tax payer’s money?

(Newser) – JPMorgan Chase will help distressed homeowners by reducing interest rates or principal balances for $110 billion in mortgages, Bloomberg reports. The restructuring applies to clients of Washington Mutual, which JPMorgan agreed to buy last month. Foreclosures will be suspended on all loans for the next 90 days while the relief efforts are implemented.

JPMorgan will offer borrowers in payment option ARM loans alternatives such as 30-year, fixed-rate loans with affordable payments (principal deferral, interest-only payments for a specified period, etc.).

Even though it appears that JP Morgan Chase is: 1. Trying to mitigate its own losses by enacting this moratorium and 2. Wants to keep people in their homes, the company likely has ulterior motives; by going forward with this plan, at this current time, JPMorgan can avoid further market regulation surrounding its servicing practices. House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) has been suggesting all throughout the mortgage crisis that lenders who fail to implement programs to modify loans or choose to ignore Congress’ call to correct servicing practices will be subject to further regulation.

When we read about JPMorgan Chase buying WAMU we thought there was a slim possibility we might have a mortgage holder with if not scruples some basic understanding of the legal mess they bought. Not so, we are now in a continuation of the criminal enterprise that is not only WAMU but to a large degree all mortgage companies and the largest being the most egregious violators of the law. In doing a quick search in the Google JPMorgan Chase practices exactly the same creative bookkeeping as WAMU. Like all the big lenders they are paying lip service to helping distressed home owners when in fact they are trying to keep the Fed out of their business which unfortunately is exactly where the Fed needs to be.

In the 12 months we have been left to spin our wheels we have been going over the paper work in depth and the more we look the more we find for violations. We have now added violations on the ARM adjustments and the escrow account, these mistakes that happened once or twice on our account they are a pattern of creative bookkeeping that costs the borrower and adds potentially billions to their bottom line every year in money they haven’t earned and have no right to collect and carry significant fines and even jail time. It would seem fool hearty for them do this except the government is likely unware of the depth this criminality goes or the staggering number of violations. No one has really held them accountable and to date their fines and settlements while in the millions obviously are not so great when the money they get to keep allows them to continue breaking the law with impunity.

We are waiting for our loan origination paperwork from WAMU and information on the additional $2100 added to the Chapter 13. Our attorney will ask for a continuance if necessary and when we have the information we need we will meet with the WAMU, now JPMorgan Chase attorney. JPMorgan Chase will get ONE chance to make this right. We want our mortgage rescinded and damages in keeping with the magnitude of the crimes against us. They will be given a list of all the violations and the fines so they have a very clear understanding of their MINIMUM exposure. No back and forth negotiation, we are done with them. Their attorney has also aided this criminal endeavor altho they are clearly aware their client is in violation of numerous lending laws owes US money and has admitted to their guilt to the judge for a substantial number of violations in 2007, as well as accepting our payment ledger and proof as correct. We want their attorney disbarred, criminally charged and all the real estate cases she or her office has touched reviewed.

Should they decide to not play and we suspect they won’t, we have two most excellent attorneys waiting to take JPMorgan Chase to court. In a way as much as we would like this to be settled and get on with our lives, we also want this in the media, going to court does that quite effectively. $20,000 to pay their extortion or $20,000 to our attorneys, no contest there. Documentation of their latest go round is going to Sen. Chris Dodd and this time, Barney Frank. If any of you have irregularities in your loans, even if they have been resolved send them to Sen. Dodd and Rep. Frank, the more information they have the better. It is time to hold them accountable.