Banks can do whatever they want.
WTF are you going to do?
Report it to the police? DA? AG? President Obama?
President already said banks can do whatever they want…it is wrong but it is not criminal as long as banks do it. That is the story.

I have had instances for my clients where this occurs. It is not isolated or rare. The companies use layers of contractors to insulate themselves from criminal acts of their employees. They hire people who steal and pawn everything they can get their hands on. I have my clients file burglary charges with the local police and then I do discovery to learn who the contractors are and bring treble damage suits and more discovery to make them name the persons who entered and stole the property.

But, the major point you make David is terrific. Are the same computers that send contractors to the wrong sites keeping track of payments and balances? Clearly every computer and program has an error rate. What is being done to verify this rate and reduce these incidents? The true costs of Mortgage Servicer fraud is not known or being examined yet. I think the the mortgage crisis is as much related to that as it is the securitized mortgages.

Can’t the homeowner press criminal charges? I’ll bet if anyone goes to jail the database will get fixed.

All this bad behavior would stop immediately if someone in a suit and tie went to jail. Fines aint cutting it and the only rules these guys care about are the ones at the golf club.

This will stop when some desperate homeowner, hounded past the point of endurace, grabs a gun and “stands his ground.”

I wondered what would happen if the homeowner was home and thought they were burglars. How far up the food chain would the law go if one of the “contractors” was killed during a wrongful repossession? Or would they just fine the computer that made the mistake and go on as usual.

This will stop when some desperate homeowner, hounded past the point of endurace, grabs a gun and “stands his ground.”

As much as I wish that were true, I don’t think it is. Does anyone really think Wells Fargo cares if one of its nefarious contractors faces a Second Amendment remedy? These big businesses are so insulated that empathy is impossible. Patriotism is a quaint word. I don’t believe any bank gives a shit about people.

The more I follow this, the more I’m starting to agree with some posters that the system is beyond repair.

Seems everyone (with the possible exception of yourself) is jumping to the conclusion that the banks carefully manage (supervise, direct, route, instruct?) these contractors. I’m picturing someone contracting to do the deed work, somebody else contracting the mapwork (googlemap, mapquest?), somebody else set up to contract for house prep. who then sends (or in turn contracts) scavengers who will bid nearly nothing to do whatever gets done, some of whom would seem more likely to choose ripe plums over actual abandoned houses.

Haven’t I heard of this happening when the house is lawfully, fully and currently occupied, but like nearly all modern homes only actively defended after work hours? Oh, maybe those burgularies were done by criminals (by definition, those who’ve been caught and convicted.)

What percentage of these foreclosed houses actually get resold? Has there ever been a one where the bank got its money back (even half of it, after expenses?) I haven’t seen it. So a good question is, “WTF?” Why are not these massive foreclosures killing the banks? Tax write offs just seems too pat. I’m baffled.

If anyone goes to jail with the current justice system, it will be the homeowner.

When an individual robs a bank they go to jail. When a bank robs an individual, they get a bailout and money from the FED for free.

Might give the contractors pause…

When an individual robs a bank they go to jail.

Not true, see CEO.

William K. Black: The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry

if the mafia had just incorparated then the ceo,mafia chief could have ordered burglaries with impunity.

There is always an exception. Obviously he failed to bribe the appropriate person.

They did incorporate. They became Banksters.

And politicians, regulators and attorney generals. (Is that vertical or horizontal? They’re all incorporated together.)

Skilly, are you seeing many of these cases, and what are the outcomes? There was a story in Huffington Post in July, Bank Contractors Break Into Occupied Homes, Terrify Residents, Lawsuits Say. That must be the rewritten headline because the correction at bottom says:

Correction: An earlier front-page headline on this story said that regulators were pursuing a criminal investigation of the major mortgage players. Regulators are raising red flags about these practices but have not yet taken formal action.

(I’m not sure where on the scale of what “raising red flags” falls, above or below “sternly worded letter”?)

I especially love the Orwellian name for the break-in contractors: “property preservers”.

Anyway, there must be at least 50 findable cases to discover the outcomes of?

A review of court records by The Huffington Post turned up more than 50 homeowner lawsuits against banks and the two largest property management contractors in the U.S., Safeguard Properties and Lender Processing Services, stemming from break-ins of occupied homes. The allegations follow five years of generally woeful management of the foreclosure industry by all involved, as the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is raising red flags about the lack of contractor oversight by the government-backed mortgage giants.

Do the contractors turn on Fannie and Freddie?

Skilly, David? Thanks.

P.S. David quoted from that same article at the time and concluded:

If regulators cannot safeguard against illegal breaking and entering, I don’t know what hope there is for actual accountability for other crimes.

And there’s another Wells Fargo foreclosure fail story on HuffPo now: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/08/lily-diaz-wells-fargo_n_1865837.html

Lily Diaz Tries To Sell Home Only To Find Wells Fargo Foreclosed On It (VIDEO)

…imagine selling [a home] you thought you owned but did not.

That’s what happened to Lily Diaz, a California woman who got two offers on her house, only to find that Wells Fargo had actually foreclosed on the home, according to CBS Los Angeles. Diaz says the foreclosure must have been a mistake because she has paperwork indicating she completed a loan modification with Wells Fargo in January, and has made her monthly payments in full since.

Is this just an error within the margin allowed by the 49-state AG mortgage settlement, or can we expect Kamala Harris or Eric Schneiderman to get right on this? (state or federal issue? civil or criminal?)

In my small town (61,000) I have personally had contact with 4 cases of home invasion prior to sale in a foreclosure cases: 2 where the Mortgage company thought the property was abandoned (and for the most part it was) except there was personal property being stored inside and the owners had title and full rights to access the property and the locks were changed property was stolen and converted. The mortgage reps left tags with phone numbers, a mess and very little else. Only things of value were taken. The other two involved wrong houses. The houses were uninhabited, but again, they took only things of value and left a phone number to contact posted outside. We settled all cases without filing suit, and I imagine that happens more often than suit being filed. Settlement, I would expect happens far more than suits being filed. My efforts to get information about the actual burglars, was (successfully) fought by throwing money at the victims.

Thanks. I guess I’m interested in who gets sued, on what charge, and where the responsibility ends. Does it go up the chain? Who actually pays the settlement money? The buck starts where? Does the mortgage fraud settlement enter into this? Thanks again.