What follows is the perfect example of why we reject all things conservative and we adhere to an even higher level of rejection of Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan.
Bank of America (BoA) ordered employees to lie about Loan Modifications to secure additional fees!
I believe the US citizenry joined with the Bush Administration in providing “bailout funds” to Bank of America. Are we suffering from extreme idealism and chronic naivety to think corporations which received bailout assistance should have a heightened sense of commitment in working with American consumers? Well, our naivety took us down the wrong path once again. What follows is yet another example of how Top 1% (ers) and some corporations are working against an improved economy and insensitive corporate strategies towards consumers.
Bank of America
| $45BDisbursed |
| $45BReturned |
| $4.57BRevenue to Gov’t |
| $4.57BProfit |
Bank of America was among the eight large U.S. banks (nine if you count Merrill Lynch, now part of BoA) to receive the Treasury Department’s initial round of capital investments in the fall of 2008 — money described by Treasury officials not as a bailout, but rather as funds to help bolster “healthy” banks in tough times. But in January of 2009, Bank of America received additional government aid to help it cover the massive losses resulting from its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
The $45 billion in aid came mostly in the form of large capital investments, but BoA also struck a deal with the government to limit losses from a $118 billion pool of troubled assets. The Treasury agreed to make those guarantees alongside the Fed and FDIC. But Bank of America backed out of the deal before it was finalized, eventually paying a total of $425 million in fees to the Treasury, Fed, and FDIC. As you can see to the left, the Treasury received $276 million of that. In December, BoA returned the $45 billion to the Treasury.
_________________________
“We were told to lie to customers,” said Simone Gordon, who worked in the bank’s loss mitigation department until February 2012. “Site leaders regularly told us that the more we delayed the HAMP [loan] modification process, the more fees Bank of America would collect.”
In sworn testimony, six former BoA employees testified their managers sought to undermine the Loan Modification Program, via delaying requests for assistance. A key consideration is the word, “undermine.”
Excerpt
In their sworn testimony, the former Bank of America employees detail a series of specific company policies designed to provide as little foreclosure relief as possible.
“Based on what I observed, Bank of America was trying to prevent as many homeowners as possible from obtaining permanent HAMP loan modifications while leading the public and the government to believe that it was making efforts to comply with HAMP,” said Theresa Terrelonge, a Bank of America collector until June 2010. “It was well known among managers and many employees that the overriding goal was to extend as few HAMP loan modifications to homeowners as possible.”
The reason was fairly simple, according to William Wilson Jr., who worked as a manager in the company’s Charlotte, N.C., headquarters, where he supervised 13 mortgage representatives working on with customers seeking HAMP loan modifications.
After stonewalling qualified borrowers seeking an affordable HAMP loan, Bank of America representatives could upsell them to a more costly “in-house” loan modification, with rates 3 points higher than the 2 percent rate available under HAMP guidelines, Wilson testified.
“The unfortunate truth is that many and possibly most of these people were entitled to a HAMP loan modification, but had little choice but to accept a more expensive and less favorable in-house modification,” he said.
Read More
Corporations are people? Yes, and because of people who run corporations and the chartered entities share the same values systems inherent in mankind. And, those value systems often lead to unethical acts, and manipulation of the consumer.
The Pardu's Scroll 