Masters of the Universe category archive

A. The sides of its mouth that a bankster talks out of regarding foreclosure documents.

If the person signing the foreclosure documents has not read them, “you have lied to the court,” (Community Legal Services of Philadelphia lawyer Beth–ed.) Goodell said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the documents are wrong.”

In effect, that’s what a JP Morgan Chase spokesman told Reuters: “We believe the accuracy of the factual loan information in the affidavits was not affected by whether or not the signer had personal knowledge of the precise details.”

It’s a quote only a lawyer could love, said attorney Eric Garrabrant, of Flaster & Greenberg in Cherry Hill.

“So, if you swear facts are true without knowing they are true, apparently it’s OK, so long as they ultimately turn out to be accurate?” asked Garrabrant, who represents people in foreclosure.

In other news, two dollars boxed on the first two finishers in the 8th at Delaware Park wins the Exacta.

October 6, 2010 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Masters of the Universe | Bookmark this post

They are getting more brazen:

Their laptop computer and MP3 player were missing, as were six bottles of wine. A half-empty beer opened by the intruders was still cold and sitting on the kitchen counter.

But why, then, had the locks on the front door been changed?

It turns out that a Sarasota company working for a lender trying to retake the property through foreclosure sent two men to the Punta Gorda home to break in and change the locks, even though the home was obviously occupied.

It is illegal for any bank representative to enter a property if they have not yet retaken it at a foreclosure sale, especially if there is any sign the home is occupied, foreclosure experts say.

The process of banks hiring people to break into homes, even when occupied, is just the latest oddity of the messy foreclosure crisis in Florida.

Bringing new meaning to the term “bank robbery.”

Via Atrios.

These dudes have to look for new universes to master, because they aren’t doing so well in this one:

Shoreline Bank, Shoreline, Washington

Wakulla Bank, Crawfordville, Florida

Playing fast and loose with foreclosures; failing to process paperwork as prescribed by law; failing, indeed, to make sure that they had a claim on the property in question–is catching up with the banksters.

Title insurance is required for most U. S. real estate transactions, and, now, the title insurers are getting cold feet:

As more defaulting homeowners become aware of the lenders’ problems, they are expected to hire lawyers and challenge the proceedings against them. And if completed foreclosures were not properly done, families who bought the troubled homes could be vulnerable to claims by the former owners.

Apparently alarmed about such a possibility, one of the major title insurance companies, Old Republic National Title, has sent a bulletin to agents saying that “until further notice” it would not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home lender and one of the two big lenders at the center of the current controversy.

Heh.

Banks that used to master the universe, but are no more:

North County Bank, Arlington, Washington

Haven Trust Bank Florida, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

Plus three credit unions:

The National Credit Union Administration voted Friday to place into conservatorship three corporate credit unions: Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union of Warrenville, Ill; Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union of Plano, Texas; and Constitution Corporate Federal Credit Union of Wallingford, Conn.

Credit Atrios for the link to the creditless unions.

These are the people who master the universe:

When Jason Grodensky bought his modest Fort Lauderdale home in December, he paid cash. But seven months later, he was surprised to learn that Bank of America had foreclosed on the house, even though Grodensky did not have a mortgage.

Via Atrios.

In a follow-up to the preceding post, another form of Wall Street derivative. For all practical purposes, no change from last week.

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, a sign companies remain cautious about hiring as economic growth slows.

Initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 to 465,000 in the week ended Sept. 18, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance declined, while those getting extended payments rose.

Employers that have slowed firings since the recession ended in June 2009 haven’t stepped up the pace of hiring enough to reduce an unemployment rate hovering near a 26-year high. A lack of job growth may signal consumer spending will be restrained in the second half of the year, economists said.

When you open up your “portfolio,” there’s no there there, nothing there but air.

Bloomberg:

Leona Miller, an 84-year-old retired beautician, says she was seeking safe and steady income from bonds two years ago when her Wachovia Corp. broker recommended she buy securities paying 9 percent interest.

Within six months, Miller had lost about 30 percent of her $20,000 investment and the bonds were converted into shares of Merck & Co. in a falling stock market. The San Diego resident, who still doesn’t understand what happened to her money, had purchased bonds known as structured notes that include built-in derivatives.

Read the whole thing.

Speaking of fiduciary responsibility, here’s this week of deceased banks:

• Maritime Savings Bank, West Allis, Wisconsin
• Bramble Savings Bank, Milford, Ohio
• The Peoples Bank, Winder, Georgia
• First Commerce Community Bank, Douglasville, Georgia
• Bank of Ellijay, Elijay, Georgia
• ISN Bank, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

“I couldn’t help it” doesn’t carry much moral weight.

If they cannot control their own behavior, they cannot be trusted to control other persons’ money.

As three female former Goldman Sachs employees launch a sexual discrimination lawsuit against the firm in New York, commentators have put the alleged behaviour of the firm’s male workers – from ordering prostitutes to holding boys-only meetings on the golf course – down to the “testosterone-fuelled” banking culture.

The link between testosterone and the charging of escort services to corporate hospitality accounts remains unproven by modern science, as does the association between the male sex hormone and the exclusion of female employees from the golf courses of middle America.

Yesterday’s shot bank:

Horizon Bank, Bradenton, Florida

I was busy watching the Phillies beat Washington last night and missed the FDIC’s rampage through banks. Highest body count in weeks:

Sonoma Valley Bank, Sonoma, California

Los Padres Bank, Solvang, California

Butte Community Bank, Chico, California

Pacific State Bank, Stockton, California

ShoreBank, Chicago, Illinois

Imperial Savings & Loan Association, Martinsville, Virginia

Independent National Bank, Ocala, Florida

Community National Bank of Bartow, Bartow, Florida

When my father died, one of his life insurance companies took the benefits (payable to my mother) from his policy, stuck them into an account, and sent us vouchers to draw on it. It’s a way insurance companies have devised to keep their hooks in your money as long as they can.

The National Associatioin of Insurance Commissioners has now come out against that practice. From Bloomberg:

State insurance regulators, under pressure to improve disclosure of death-benefit payment options, issued a consumer alert about the industry practice of retaining funds rather than paying them in a lump sum.

“You may be able to earn a higher rate of interest on the life insurance proceeds if you select a different payout option,” the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said in the alert. “While the documents you receive might look like a checkbook, it might actually be drafts, which are similar to checks, but different in some ways.”

The alert was issued after an NAIC panel met yesterday in Seattle to review retained-asset accounts. The regulators created the panel after Bloomberg Markets magazine reported in July that insurers profit by holding and investing $28 billion owed to 1 million beneficiaries.

We eventually closed the account.

Even though my mother was a resident of Virginia, we set my Delaware address as the mailing address, since she is not well.

Nevertheless, the company kept withholding Delaware taxes, even after being put on notice that doing so was not called for, so that, every year, my mother had to file a Delaware tax return to get the withholding back, even though she had no taxable income in Delaware.

I wrote them that, if they can’t get the withholding right, how could I expect them to get anything else right?

Another one bit the dust:

Palos Bank and Trust Company, Palos Heights, Illinois

One so far and, as it is getting late, possibly the only one. It is well after closing Pacific Time as I type this:

Ravenswood Bank, Chicago, Illinois

You can trust your friendly neighborhood bank, except when it’s run by incompetents and is too small not to fail:

LibertyBank, Eugene, Oregon

The Cowlitz Bank, Longview, Washington

Coastal Community Bank, Panama City, Florida

Bayside Savings Bank, Port Saint Joe, Florida

NorthWest Bank & Trust, Acworth, Georgia

The genius(es) of the fee hand of the market:

Home Valley Bank, Grants Pass, Oregon

SouthwestUSA Bank, Las Vegas, Nevada

Community Security Bank, New Prague, Minnesota

Thunder Bank, Sylvan Grove, Kansas

Williamsburg First National Bank, Kingstree, South Carolina

Crescent Bank and Trust Company, Jasper, Georgia

Sterling Bank, Lantana, Florida

Read more »

Virginia’s TowneBank to buy North Carolina’s Bank of Currituck, saving the FDIC some paperwork:

Bank of Currituck concentrated during the past decade on construction lending and was hit hard by the mortgage crisis and dwindling availability of so-called jumbo loans for $417,000 or more, said Matthew A.R. Converse, Bank of Currituck’s president and CEO.

With the rise in non performing assets and the need to write off more of its troubled assets, the bank suffered an erosion of capital.

The FDIC starts its weekend barbecue:

Woodlands Bank, Bluffton, South Carolina

The FDIC is hungry tonight:

Mainstreet Savings Bank, Hastings, Michigan

Olde Cypress Community Bank, Clewiston, Florida

Turnberry Bank, Aventura, Florida

Metro Bank of Dade County, Miami, Florida

First National Bank of the South, Spartanburg, South Carolina

I missed the one last week, but already the digit counters are starting to fall:

Ideal Federal Savings Bank, Baltimore, Maryland

Bay National Bank, Lutherville, Maryland

When it starts this early, if often indicates the FDIC has found the huntin’ good.

Later:

Home National Bank, Blackwell, Oklahoma

USA Bank, Port Chester, New York