DeGiacomo v. First Call Mortgage Company (In re Reznikov), 548 B.R. 606 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2016) –

A chapter 7 trustee sought to avoid a recorded mortgage based on a defective acknowledgment and then to preserve the lien of the mortgage for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate. The mortgagee objected – arguing that the acknowledgment was sufficient, and the debtor objected – claiming a homestead exemption in the property.

Aug. 26 — The U.S. Trustee Program announced Aug. 25 that it has reached an agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. requiring the bank to pay close to $3.5 million in remediation on account of 8,000 homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Wells Fargo and the USTP filed an amendment to a prior settlement entered in a Maryland Chapter 13 bankruptcy case on Nov. 19, 2015 (In re Green, Bankr. D. Md., No. 11-33377-TJC, 8/25/16 ), according to a press release sent to Bloomberg BNA.

The amendment is the result of an independent reviewer’s oversight of Wells Fargo practices with regard to filing and serving payment change notices in active Chapter 13 cases, and increase payments to be made by the bank by approximately $3.5 million. Wells Fargo previously agreed to pay about $81.6 million in remediation for “its repeated failure to provide homeowners with payment change notices (PCNs) as…

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2016/08/28/michigan-sets-parole-linda-green-robo-signer/89525028/

By Brian O’Conner

The only person jailed in connection with a foreclosure forgery scandal that swept through Michigan and the rest of the country after the collapse of the housing bubble spends her days confined to the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Pittsfield Township.

But not for long.

Sentenced in May 2013 to serve up to 20 years on racketeering charges, Lorraine Brown, now 55, will be paroled sometime this week, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections, after serving her 40-month minimum sentence. Brown will then be transferred to federal custody to serve the remainder of a 58-month federal sentence after pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

Brown’s scheme netted $60 million between 2003 and 2006 for the parent company DocX, her Georgia-based document processing firm that forged more than 1 million foreclosure documents used by banks and attorneys…

When both major parties endorsed restoring the Glass-Steagall Act in their campaign platforms last month, they reaffirmed the powerful hold that the Glass-Steagall principle of separating commercial and investment banking has on the public imagination.

Glass-Steagall has become politically popular for good reason. The public understands that reducing the size and (especially) the complexity of our major publicly supported banking institutions is crucial to a healthier financial system. Restoring some version of the Glass-Stegall firewall between commercial and investment banking is a direct and powerful means to that end. There’s also an understanding that the financial system was generally more stable during the 60 years in which Glass-Steagall was in force.

Unfortunately, much of the inside-the-beltway commentary on Glass-Steagall does not add depth and substance to the public debate and is often inappropriately dismissive and shallow. A number of respected experts on the banking system, such as Federal Deposit Insurance…

“My conclusion is that it’s pretty clear—from what she’s saying and the document that she attaches—that they’ve been doing what I’ve been saying they were doing all along: telling clients want to say. These are listed out for the attorneys to ask the witness, and the answers that the witness needs to give are right there. I find that to be extremely telling. It’s exactly what we thought was going on. When they talk about training of the witness, they’re teaching them what to say at trial, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not.”

The Script: Ocwen Lawyer Spoon-Fed Foreclosure Questions and Answers to Robo-Witnesses

Editor’s Note: Head over to 4Closurefraud.com for the rest of this excellent expose on the coaching of Bank robo-witnesses.

Ocwen Lawyer Spoon-Fed Questions and Answers to Robo-Witnesses

Excerpted from @ The DBR

Note: The article from the DBR is about a year old but…

Lehman had nothing to do with the loan even at the beginning when the loan was funded, it acted as a conduit for investor funds that were being misappropriated, the loan was “sold” or “transferred” to a REMIC Trust, and the assets of Lehman were put into a bankruptcy estate as a matter of law.

FDCPA and FCCPA (or similar state legislation) claims are getting traction across the country. Bank of America violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) and the related Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (“FCCPA”). (Doc. 26). The Goodin case is a fair representation of the experience of hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have tried to reconcile the numbers given to them by Bank of America and others.

In a carefully worded opinion from Federal District Court Judge Corrigan in Jacksonville, the Court laid out the right to damages under the FDCPA and FCCPA. The Court found that BOA acted with gross negligence because they continued their behavior long after being put on notice of a mistake on their part and awarded the 2 homeowners:

• Statutory damages of $2,000
• Actual damages for emotional distress of $100,000 ($50,000 per person)
• Punitive damages of $100,000
• Attorneys fees and costs

See http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020150623E16/GOODIN%20v.%20BANK%20OF%20AMERICA,%20N.A.

60 Minutes:

The following is a script from “Fintech” which aired on May 1, 2016, and was rebroadcast on Aug. 21, 2016. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On, producer.

One sector of our economy after the next is being disrupted by new apps and websites, like bookstores, travel agents, taxis, hotels. Tonight, we’re going to explore whether the banking industry is next on the list. As we first reported in May, thousands of startups are challenging many aspects of banking, the newcomers argue that this important sector is too set in its ways. It’s being called the financial technology — or fintech — revolution. We looked at the birth of one fintech company founded by two young fintechies who started not unlike the founders of Facebook and Microsoft.

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Patrick Collison: In a world where people can send a Facebook message or sort of upload an Instagram photo and…

New York’s top financial regulator slapped a “Panama Papers”-linked bank with a $180 million fine for anti-money laundering violations.

Mega Bank, a $103 billion Taiwanese bank with one New York office, ignored the risks associated with transactions involving Panama, a high-risk area for money laundering, the state Department of Financial Services said in a statement on Friday.

The bank had “suspicious” accounts that were formed with the help of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the “Panama Papers” leak, which revealed companies and wealthy individuals who dodged taxes, the DFS said.