El escandalo MERS expuesto y explicado

MERS Scandal Exposed and Explained

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Neil Garfield


Kevin Lamson Said,


So can anyone guess the name of “organization” that was formed by Countrywide’s, Anthony Mazillo and Fannie Mae’s, James Johnson ten years ago, it start with an M? No not the Mafia. It’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. commonly referred to as MERS. Yes that’s right Countrywide and Fannie Mae were the lead organizers of MERS and are shareholders and “members” of MERS.


Here are excerpts from an investigative report on MERS I have been working on for the last several months. This may help shed some much needed light on MERS and the cozy relationships many of its so-called ‘members” have between each other and with our congress. It may also explain why no one in congress has bothered to investigate MERS and it crazy “paperless” system that these greedy mortgage executives invented so they could line their pockets by originating and flipping phony mortgage loans into so-called mortgage backed security trusts and then selling trillions of dollars of bonds to investors around the world. By reporting false profits from these sales Fannie Mae’s and Countrywide’s executives were able to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “bonuses”.


Given the extremely close relationship that MERS, its many corporate members have with the politicians who run our state and federal governments, it is not surprising that MERS and it members were able to pull off this gigantic global financial scheme without raising the brow of a State or Federal law enforcement or regulators. Only now are a few politicians and regulators paying lip service to what they refer to as the “Mortgage Meltdown”. What no politician or regulator ever seems to mention is that a millions of the mortgages that “melted down” have the name Mortgage Electronic Registration System Inc. on them.

Businessweek: Prestamos FHA: el nuevo robo

COVER STORY November 19, 2008, 6:24PM EST
FHA-Backed Loans: The New Subprime

The same people whose reckless practices triggered the global financial crisis are onto a similar scheme that could cost taxpayers tons more.

By Chad Terhune and Robert Berner

“Don’t let the makeover fool you.”

As if they haven't done enough damage. Thousands of subprime mortgage lenders and brokers—many of them the very sorts of firms that helped create the current financial crisis—are going strong. Their new strategy: taking advantage of a long-standing federal program designed to encourage homeownership by insuring mortgages for buyers of modest means.

You read that correctly. Some of the same people who propelled us toward the housing market calamity are now seeking to profit by exploiting billions in federally insured mortgages. Washington, meanwhile, has vastly expanded the availability of such taxpayer-backed loans as part of the emergency campaign to rescue the country's swooning economy.

For generations, these loans, backed by the Federal Housing Administration, have offered working-class families a legitimate means to purchase their own homes. But now there's a severe danger that aggressive lenders and brokers schooled in the rash ways of the subprime industry will overwhelm the FHA with loans for people unlikely to make their payments. Exacerbating matters, FHA officials seem oblivious to what's happening—or incapable of stopping it. They're giving mortgage firms licenses to dole out 100%-insured loans despite lender records blotted by state sanctions, bankruptcy filings, civil lawsuits, and even criminal convictions.

Bloomber Businessweek: La Administración Bush y la industria financiera frustaron advertencias de prestamos predatorios

IN DEPTH October 9, 2008, 5:00PM EST

They Warned Us About the Mortgage Crisis.

"It was pure greed, based on exploitation." Frank Jackson, Mayor of Cleveland
Ethan Hill

State whistleblowers tried to curtail greedy lending—and were thwarted by the Bush Administration and the financial industry.

by Robert Berner and Brian Grow

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

Roy Cooper, North Carolina AGEthan Hill

Hawke, a veteran banking industry lawyer appointed to head the OCC by President Bill Clinton in 1998, wouldn't budge. He said he would reinforce federal policies that hindered states from reining in lenders. The AGs left the tense hour-long meeting realizing that Washington had become a foe in the nascent fight against reckless real estate finance. The OCC "took 50 sheriffs off the job during the time the mortgage lending industry was becoming the Wild West," Cooper says.

This was but one of many instances of state posses sounding early alarms about the irresponsible lending at the heart of the current financial crisis. Federal officials brushed aside their concerns. The OCC and its sister agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), instead sided with lenders. The beneficiaries ranged from now-defunct subprime factories, such as First Franklin Financial, to a savings and loan owned by Lehman Brothers, the collapsed investment bank.

Washington Post: Eliot Spitzer describe como el gobierno y los bancos son socios criminales

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

By Eliot Spitzer
The Washington Post
Thursday, February 14, 2008

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

Lo último en fraude hipotecario: el pago "balun"

'Blimp payment': the latest in mortgage fraud?

By Molly Priesmeyer

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008

Subprime was voted 2007's word of the year by the American Dialect Society. As 2008 opens, other dubious mortgage loans are surfacing, ripe for nicknames.

One such loan has a familiar name — balloon payment. But this latest version could be called a "blimp payment."

A lawsuit filed in December in Hennepin County District Court details the unfortunate case of South Minneapolis homeowner Stanzer Knox, who discovered that refinancing his house in early 2006 saddled him with, in effect, a 40-year mortgage.

Though he thought he had taken out a 30-year $185,000 loan, Knox and lawyer Mark Ireland eventually found in the fine print that he would have to make 10 years' worth of payments all at once at the end of the 30-year term.

Total amount of the blimp payment? $121,062.58.

Such details of the loan emerged after Knox fell behind on his mortgage payments and was threatened with foreclosure proceedings in May 2007, Ireland says. Knox's lawsuit claims that Homestead Mortgage Co., an Arden Hills-based business described as "inactive," violated a number of provisions in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, among other statutes. The current loan holder, a Delaware company called Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), did not return MinnPost's calls for comment.

Continuar leyendo aquí: http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/01/16/584/blimp_payment_the_latest_in_mortgage_fraud


Documentación completa de la demanda de Stanzer Knox aquí: 
http://www.hppinc.org/_uls/resources/Knox_Amended_Complaint.pdf