Leaked Photos Show Foreclosure Firm Mocking Displaced Homeowners at Halloween Party

[Nasik]

A foreclosure firm is under scrutiny when leaked photos of its halloween party revealed it mocked people that have lost their home. The firm apparently has some "dubious" practices which have landed it under investigation. The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html) reports:

"On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm (http://www.mbaum.com/SJB/index.jsp), which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

[...]

[the firm's employee said] that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times’s Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation.

[...] Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie.” The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum — and had posted a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6JEgYs8A-Q) denouncing the firm’s foreclosure practices. “She was a thorn in their side,” said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum’s office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, “Baum Estates” — needless to say, it’s also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs — or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she’d used when she sent them to me — “appalling” — struck me as exactly right.


This seems to be fairly demonstrative of the mindset of the "haves" as opposed to the "have-nots". This just pisses me off. Not only does the firm actively work to displace homeowners, their fellow Americans' hardships are now fodder for their own amusement. WTF is that?

[Nu Kua]

This seems to be fairly demonstrative of the mindset of the "haves" as opposed to the "have-nots". This just pisses me off. Not only does the firm actively work to displace homeowners, their fellow Americans' hardships are now fodder for their own amusement. WTF is that?

That is very crass, and interestingly it seems like there was a time they at least had a shred of decency to hide their disdain, if for no other reason than good manners. Now, even that is gone.

“It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.”

Not when their consciences have been sucked dry by greed- no more, no less. Greed is like meth.

[DaKat]

A foreclosure firm is under scrutiny when leaked photos of its halloween party revealed it mocked people that have lost their home.

Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about that.

[Nasik]

That is very crass, and interestingly it seems like there was a time they at least had a shred of decency to hide their disdain, if for no other reason than good manners. Now, even that is gone.

“It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.”

Not when their consciences have been sucked dry by greed- no more, no less. Greed is like meth.

So, it works a bit like this - banks/wallstreet hatch up a giant scheme to sell mortgages "security backed" stock to unsuspecting investors, and artifically create a housing bubble.

Bubble bursts.

Big banks/wallstreet get a whole boatload of money from tax payers as bailouts.

Enter slimy lawfirm hired by wallstreet who parasites more money off misery by bulldozing through foreclosures.

Fat and high off their slimy work, slimy law firm has audacity to dress like the homeless people, who actually paid the goddamn firm indirectly by bailout money to client financial institutions to foreclose on their homes in the first fucking place.

Let them eat cake.


Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about that.

Unfortunately that isn't - but it certainly is instructive on how some sectors really don't give a shit - they truly don't. Apparently, it's all a big joke to them.

[Reef Badlaw]

A party-theme like that is about as in-bad-taste as it gets. Disgusting. -Like when those Tyco tycoons were hosting that decadently-opulent Roman Caligula-party a few weeks they were busted/jailed for embezzlement.

[Ningishiddza]

And I should be outraged why? Because some slug bought a home they couldn't afford and didn't have the common sense to retain a real estate attorney, then was too stupid to understand how economics works and used the inflated equity in their over-valued home to take out a 2nd Mortgage to consolidate their credit card debt, and then when one of the two wage-earners lost their job, they couldn't pay the 2nd Mortgage and got foreclosed, because they were too irresponsible to live off of one income and bank the other (because that would like, um, make sense).

Spare me the idiotic platitudes.

[Nu Kua]

No, Beautiful. :vbroll: The outrageousness is at the callous behavior of criminal assholes who are making party fodder out of the people they fucked over.

To insist that the whole thing is the fault of the an inherently stupid populace makes no sense in the world of reality. In the world or reality, crimes were committed by the loan/banking/foreclosure industry that resulted not only in thousands of people losing their homes, but also in the rocking financial crisis that we all know and love today.

Here is a story from 2005.
Los Angeles Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/04/business/fi-ameriquest4)

Workers Say Lender Ran 'Boiler Rooms'


The demands were relentless: One manager prowled the aisles between desks like "a little Hitler," Bomchill said, hounding agents to make more calls and push more loans, bragging that he hired and fired people so fast that one worker would be cleaning out his desk as his replacement came through the door.

"It was like a boiler room," said Bomchill, 37. "You produce, you make a lot of money. Or you move on. There's no real compassion or understanding of the position they're putting their customers in."

Indeed, Bomchill -- who said he left Ameriquest because he didn't like the way the company treated its employees and customers, and now works as a mortgage broker -- contends that the drive to close deals and grab six-figure salaries led many Ameriquest employees astray: They forged documents, hyped customers' creditworthiness and "juiced" mortgages with hidden rates and fees.

Such claims are not unusual against sub-prime lenders, which are a frequent target of consumer groups...

...Ameriquest says it doesn't comment on pending litigation. But it notes that since 2003, it has had in place automated systems that allow loan officers to lower rates but not to raise them.

* In court documents and interviews, 32 former employees across the country say they witnessed or participated in improper practices, mostly in 2003 and 2004. This behavior was said to have included deceiving borrowers about the terms of their loans, forging documents, falsifying appraisals and fabricating borrowers' income to qualify them for loans they couldn't afford.

Five of these former employees made their claims as part of employment discrimination lawsuits that they filed against Ameriquest. Three other ex-employees gave sworn statements in connection with other lawsuits against the company. Among the other ex-employees, most were referred to the Los Angeles Times by people who had worked in the offices where alleged improprieties occurred. The newspaper sought them out so as not to rely solely on information provided by those in litigation with the company.

* Two ex-workers at an Ameriquest office in Sacramento that focuses on retaining existing customers said people often were solicited to refinance loans that they had for less than two years. In adopting a best-practices standard in 2000, Ameriquest pledged not to resolicit its customers for two years to discourage "flipping," or pushing new loans simply to generate fees and commissions.

Nearly one in nine mortgages made by Ameriquest last year was a refinance of an existing company loan less than 24 months old, according to an analysis of public records by DataQuick Information Systems done at the request of The Times. That was a higher rate than for any of six competitors included in the analysis.

Ameriquest says that it doesn't solicit refinancings from its customers within two years, but that many of its borrowers contact the company on their own seeking a new loan.

* On Jan. 10, the Connecticut Department of Banking said it would seek to bar Ameriquest from doing business in the state for allegedly charging excessive fees and repeatedly violating a state law aimed at preventing loan flipping. Ameriquest is challenging the action.

Consumer activists say the company, a big-time donor to both Democrats and Republicans and the No. 1 contributor to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee, has also been lobbying against state legislation aimed at countering alleged abuses by sub-prime lenders.

"They try to paint themselves as the good guys -- that they've adopted best practices and they're kind of the gold standard for the industry," said Norma Garcia, a California lobbyist for Consumers Union. "But really, when you look at what they're doing to try to fight predatory- lending legislation, it shows exactly where they're coming from."

For its part, Ameriquest has maintained that so-called anti-predatory lending laws hurt the poor by making it harder for them to get credit....

Get that? While working feverishly to fuck people over for profit, they also donated (read, bribed) politicians and worked very hard against the anti-predatory lending laws.
Those stupid victims! They deserve to lose their homes for being so stupid as to trust what was considered THE GOLD STANDARD OF THE INDUSTRY!!!!
Let them eat cake!

I'll let Pro-Publica (http://www.propublica.org/article/cheat-sheet-whats-happened-to-the-big-players-in-the-financial-crisis) elaborate a bit more on my charge of "criminal assholes". :thumbs:

This is a great article, well sourced and all that, when it comes to explaining not only who the assholes were/are and who they worked for, but also details, with source, how they engaged in asshole activity and in fact did engage in criminal behavior in order to trick people one way or the other, solely for the purpose of lining their own pockets, and they did this why? Because, they are greedy assholes.

I challenge everyone who either blames the public for being stupid lazy victims, or who says there is no reason for the people to be angry and fed up with Wall Street, to actually read the article and click on the links to source to read about what happened and how. I do not think a person can learn this information and still honestly blame the people wholesale.

Cheat Sheet: What’s Happened to the Big Players in the Financial Crisis


...Mortgage originators

Mortgage lenders contributed to the financial crisis by issuing or underwriting loans to people who would have a difficult time paying them back (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2785403/Ninja-loans-explode-on-sub-prime-frontline.html), inflating a housing bubble that was bound to pop. Lax regulation (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-27/fed-faulted-for-lax-mortgage-regulation-before-financial-crisis.html) allowed banks to stretch their mortgage lending standards and use aggressive tactics to rope borrowers into complex mortgages that were more expensive than they first appeared. Evidence has also surfaced that lenders were filing fraudulent documents to push some of these mortgages through (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44365184/ns/business-real_estate/t/robo-signing-scandal-may-date-back-late-s/#.TpSdTf5Fu8M), and, in some cases, had been doing so as early as the 1990s. A 2005 Los Angeles Times investigation of Ameriquest (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/04/business/fi-ameriquest4) – then the nation’s largest subprime lender – found that “they forged documents, hyped customers' creditworthiness and ‘juiced’ mortgages with hidden rates and fees.” This behavior was reportedly typical for the subprime mortgage industry. A similar culture existed at Washington Mutual (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28wamu.html), which went under in 2008 in the biggest bank collapse in U.S. history (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36440421/ns/business-real_estate/t/investigation-finds-fraud-wamu-lending/#.Tp7lzN4UoqQ).

Countrywide, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, also pushed customers to sign on for complex and costly mortgages that boosted the company’s profits (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html). Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo was accused of misleading investors (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/business/17trial.html) about the company’s mortgage lending practices, a charge he denies. Merrill Lynch (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/business/09magic.html?ref=thereckoning) and Deutsche Bank (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-deutschebank-mortgage-lawsuit-idUSTRE77M0E620110823) both purchased subprime mortgage lending outfits in 2006 to get in on the lucrative business. Deutsche Bank has also been accused of failing to adequately check on borrowers’ financial status before issuing loans backed by government insurance (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834804576300911120513834.html). A lawsuit filed by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara claimed that, when employees at Deutsche Bank’s mortgage received audits on the quality of their mortgages from an outside firm, they stuffed them in a closet (http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/05/03/deutsche-bank-unit-stuffed-mortgage-reviews-in-a-closet-literally/) without reading them. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said the claims being made against the company are “unreasonable and unfair,” and that most of the problems occurred before the mortgage unit was bought by Deutsche Bank...

[Marseyus]

whether they were irresponsible or not, it's still not nice to make fun of homeless people, especially if your the one that foreclosed their home. It's called being a decent person. More people should try being one.

[Nu Kua]

Ah, Karma!

NY Times (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/foreclosure-firm-steven-j-baum-to-close-down/):

Foreclosure Firm Steven J. Baum to Close Down



A law firm that had become a lightning rod in the controversy over mortgage-foreclosure practices has shut down, costing 89 employees their jobs.

The Steven J. Baum P.C. law firm, which has offices in Amherst, N.Y., and Westbury, N.Y., has filed papers with government agencies notifying them that it plans to close. It made the filings under a federal law requiring employers to provide notice before mass layoffs.

“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a statement issued on Monday. A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release....

:thumbs:

[Blu-ray]

http://data.whicdn.com/images/8116269/tumblr_lfdzbdM3U41qdnuomo1_500_thumb.jpg

Now they will feel the pain they inflicted on others.