I already told my foreclosure nightmare story. I won't bore you with the details of it again. You can read it here. http://www.dailykos.com/... Of course most folks don't want to bail out the corporations, but there are still misconceptions being perpetuated by "the other side" about why the bail out MUST include the american people who were swindled out of their homes. There are literally thousands of people who have lost their homes because of the illegal behaviors of these mortgage servicers. THEY BROKE THE LAW when putting these homes in foreclosure. http://www.complaintsboard.com/... . The bottom line is that they violated existing laws and they don't want you or their victims to know it.
There was a hotline number for mortgage help. It was a hotline funded by the gov't to deal with the current mortgage crises. I called it and talked to someone who said that the number of calls were overwhelming and that they were unprepared for the large number of people affected. I said "these lenders/servicers have broken the law". She said "I have recieved call after call telling me of illegal activities. We are swamped."
They keep talking about those who are in foreclosure right now, but there are thousands like me who filed chapter 13 to keep their homes. What is due me? I have paid thousands in illegal fees, and lost my credit because of their illegal behaviors. I can prove their illegal behavior because I have kept documentation. WHat about the people who already lost their homes or gave up?
The problem is the back log and deciding which courts will solve these cases. My lender/servicer is located outside my state. My attorney general is republican and barely lifted a finger to help me. The gov't colluded with these servicers in many instances. How to you make restitution that is fair to people when this has gone on for so many years of the bushco administration?? It likely will cost billions. But it should not be the law breakers who get that money.
I have wondered why it is never mentioned on t.v that these lenders/servicers broke the law. That many of these people lost their homes because of billing errors and then a pile up a fees and a back log of the court system. I couldn't figure out why no one (but one segment of Lou Dobbs-of whom I am not a big fan) has really covered this topic. Every national segment I saw was on the adjustable rate loans not on the illegal loan servicing activities. I think, people do not understand the scam. Remember when the re-did the credit rating system? That came right in the middle of this scam. This allowed them to steer all kinds of people into these loans. Not high risks, not bad people. People who would have been able to make their payments if these companies had follow the laws.
Yes, it's about deregulation...but that's just like the arguments about torture. They changed the laws after violating them. De-regulation did not make their illegal behaviors legal. They want to change the laws to protect them from future law suits. It has left literally millions with bad marks on their credit. (which means more money to the bankers because once you are "one of those" they can charge you a higher interest rate". The only risk is the risk created by the ungodly fees that they pile on.) Then when these poor people default they say "See, I told you we shouldn't have lent you any money". They broke already standing laws to do what they did. The numbers of these violations were huge and these house flipping companies were often subsidiaries of these servicing companies so they were making money on both sides of the deal.
I have posted my story, links, observations over and over again. And each time, I was told "no, the problem is these high risk folks should never have been given loans". They don't want to pay us back. They don't want to be held accountable for their crimes. I am here to tell you one more time, the problem is that these companies were violating the law and actually stole people's homes and credit.
This is part of why the bail out will be expensive and why they want to whip it through congress. It's like the Plame affair, it's like the fisa courts, it's like the torture laws. They don't want you to know they have been breaking the law. It's to cover up this fact. And I am constantly amazed that the media continues to be complicit in this message.
It's complicated. When I try to lay out the illegal behaviors you will see that I made some mistakes. We all do. But I did not make the kind of mistakes that should cost me my home or my credit. The story isn't being told because the proof isn't pretty and doesn't fit sound bites. The loop holes are huge that allow these companies to behave the way they do and the whole underlying argument is that if you are poor you should pay more. And those with "good credit" have a stake in keeping this message alive because it means they get the good deals. While the poor-pay more-make the rich richer- and get poorer. They make money off of destroying your credit because they now can justify charging you even more!!
The baby companies that were spawned off of these illegal activities were the house flipping companies ("we will buy your house") and the foreclosure specialist companies (for when your servicer violates TILA laws and refused to communicate with you), and bankruptcy lawyers. Boy they couldn't wait to put me in bankruptcy over my house despite the fact that I didn't have big credit card debt...just this mortgage company violating the law. Then they changed the bankruptcy laws to make it more difficult to file bankruptcy like I did. I was lucky because I didn't have a lot of credit card debt. My case stood out because of that, and people listened to my story.
The bail out will be expensive because when we finally see how many laws were violated, the number of homes that were taken, the number of credit ratings that were destroyed, the law will reguire some type of restitution. It will be expensive. But the help must go to the people who have been scammed. Please remember that the only reasons these scams worked was because YOUR GOVERNMENT REFUSED TO ENFORCE THE LAW. This is like the fisa law violations. The only difference is that when the industry broke these laws we lost our homes.
Yes, there are probably folks who got loans who shouldn't have, but if you simply google "homecomings financial and fraud" , or "mortgage servicing fraud" you will find thousands of stories of forced insurance, escrow account violations, taxes not paid by the servicers and fines being passed on to the borrower in fees and eventually foreclosures. They are trying to cover up the fact that they colluded with these companies in violations of existing laws and that their were thousands of victims.
I am going to keep talking until the story is told.